Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yup, that parallels my experience pretty closely, as an undergraduate at an Ivy League college that was in the news recently. There might have been about a hundred people on campus that were actively interested in protesting things (what things?, all the things ). For the most part, everybody else is there to go to class, learn, do their own thing, and drink too much beer on the weekends/Wednesdays/Mondays, etc. This…
My wife went to one of the 7 sisters. She said 'This happens every 3-5 years with regularity. Just wait for the cocaine to run out. Things will quiet down after that'
I'm a bit past college age these days but in the mid/late 90's when I was at university, there were plenty of "causes" that students took up (myself included) to various degrees and in retrospect, a lot of it came down to the newly-found freedom of adulthood combined with the idealism of youth and the lack of wider awareness that comes with a bit more exposure to the world at large.
I think it's a good thing that young people are able to see some of the real injustice in the world that some of us older folks have learned to accept (or at least take for granted) and have the drive to want to improve things. At the same time, cultural attitudes don't change through force or under threat. Additionally, there's still a bit of that youthful naivete where just because something is a huge deal for you, you may not realize the bigger issues at play or know which "battles" to choose yet.
I'm sure my attitudes will keep evolving over time but just between my college years and 20 years later, I think about how some things seemed so important and unfair back then but I've since found that there are usually bigger issues or at least more subtle and effective ways to address the problems you recognize in ways other than shouting matches or mob-mentality public shaming.