Major social change is witnessed with unclear understanding by its actors.

Evidence

But the struggle for the solution has outgrown the traditional forms. The totalitarian tendencies of the one-dimensional society render the traditional ways and means of protest ineffective—perhaps even dangerous because they preserve the illusion of popular sovereignty. This illusion contains some truth: “the people,” previously the ferment of social change, have “moved up” to become the ferment of social cohesion. Here rather than in the redistribution of wealth and equalization of classes is the new stratification characteristic of advanced industrial society. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 885 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Historic transformations are set in motion by people unaware of them — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 306; People mostly fail to understand how their own institutions work. — Joseph Henrich, The Secret of Our Success: How Culture…, 1046; Social change resists purely instrumental explanations because actors inhabit multiple temporalities — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular:…, 1064 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• The people now function as social cohesion rather than social change #complicates (0.74) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 885