Well, I just turned in my thesis, so I'll have a lot more time in the upcoming weeks. Turning off notifications wasn't necessarily a good decision, either, since it took me about a week to realize that somebody commented on this!
I enjoyed the read teenagewangst. The Brubeck story is fantastic and illustrates a couple of key things. First, big societal changes often happen slowly, over a long time but when society is ready, it can accelerate and happen very quickly. Such was the case with Brubeck and his bass player. For many years racial equality had been making small gains in the US and then within the span of several years it made large strides. There comes a fulcrum at which popular opinion is exposed and change enacted. Often, it takes a pivotal figure(s) to bring this about. I'd love to see/hear that Brubeck interview. Was it part of the Ken Burn's Jazz documentary?
No clue if it was part of the documentary - sorry! What motivated me to think about this is to figure out what, if any, responsibility I have to better the world. Was it Voltaire who said that we are guilty of the good that we did not do? It's a very demanding worldview that I'm not sure I agree with, but I get pulled both ways and the only conclusion I've reached is to not think about it and try to be a good (ish) person.
The Brubeck portion stood out to me too, that was a great way to preface the essay and got me excited to read the rest of it. Large societal and political changes happen slowly, you're right, the term for that is incrementalism. This was a very good read teenagewangst.