At critical moments throughout history, university students have catalyzed massive protests, called their professors and leaders on their lies and thrust their nations in brave new directions. It happened in the 1960s on hundreds of campuses around the world, and more recently in South Korea, China, Indonesia, Greece, Spain, Egypt, Chile and Argentina. Now, with inequality reaching obscene levels, financial instability becoming endemic and multiple climate tipping points looming, we’ve reached another of those moments. Now students everywhere are called upon to seize their birthright and perpetrate the overhaul of a political ideology and theoretical framework that has ruled the world since World War II.
You are the Third Force, and what you do right now will be your generation’s legacy.
The revolt could unfold something like this: The markets crash again, but this time there’s no next-day correction by bargain-hunters jumping in. Instead, the markets just keep tumbling: New York, Paris, Frankfurt, Tokyo.
Protests erupt on campuses worldwide. Students occupy economics departments, disrupt lectures, walk out of classes en masse, seize the megaphones of campus radio and newspapers.
Three thousand doctoral students at the University of Delhi start nailing #KickItOver manifestos — Martin Luther-style — to their professors’ doors.
Students at the University of Melbourne join in. They use big, symbolic medieval nails and post videos of their raucous ceremonies on YouTube. Police are called in and many are arrested, but every Friday afternoon the rowdy anger keeps erupting.
A ritual is born.
The student revolt spills over into the larger world. A rapidly growing resistance group jams economic conferences. They disrupt symposiums, occupy think tanks, swarm the annual conference of the American Economics Associations. They toss pies and rotten eggs at finance ministers.
And the broader public goes, Yeah, you know what, those dinosaurs had it coming. It’s time.
The global economic consensus begins to crack. And on one carefully chosen day (maybe on a September 17, anniversary of Occupy Wall Street?) a thousand universities around the world erupt simultaneously in raucous demonstrations.
It’s a whole new beginning.
Third Force
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