Depressing thought

Today I heard Tangled Up in Blue from Dylan's "Blood on the Tracks". At the line "There was music in the cafes at night and revolution in the air" it occurred to me that one definition of revolution is going around in a complete circle, ending exactly the same as you started.

This is a very depressing thought for an aging counter-culturalist, still trying to make sense of his "cultural revolutionary" youth. Many of the things we advocated so loudly have backfired so badly. And yet we weren't entirely wrong! Some other things have worked; racism really is much less than it was when I was a kid. And others were never tried; maybe they will work. God, please help us sort this out!