In this sense, (and what I believe to be the sense of the original quote) I mean a person who wants to see societal change. The examples you've provided actual

In this sense, (and what I believe to be the sense of the original quote) I mean a person who wants to see societal change. The examples you've provided actually give a pretty good picture of it. A person who was liberal 20 years ago would look at what you've described and wonder what the heck happened. They might also look at the current topics of social reform and probably not recognize themselves in them. Essentially, anyone who has a teleological view of history tends to get burned within their own lifetime as the world inevitably moves past them. You get "assigned" a set of topics and social struggles from the environment and historical you grow up in. Since the next generations grow up in a different soup, they don't follow the same lines of thought. The person who scoffs at their grandpa for being lukewarm about same-sex marriage becomes the grandpa lukewarm at their grandson's simulated AI life-partner. >you can only pick from choices presented to you, and even there tribalism of the masses beats any individual choice. Going off on a tangent here. You are part of the masses. You are not in traffic, you ARE the traffic.