If I could offer advice to a young rebel, it would be to rummage the past for a body of thought that helps you understand and address the shortcomings you see. Give yourself a label.

Effective rebellion isn’t just expressing your personal feelings. It means replacing one set of authorities and institutions with a better set of authorities and institutions. Authorities and institutions don’t repress the passions of the heart, the way some young people now suppose. They give them focus and a means to turn passion into change.

As if the socio-political change is a matter of removing one set and plugging in the other set. 

In the end, all Brooks once wants to do is point to the kids of today and say "aren't they being silly."

What Brooks wants to avoid is the messiness that comes from delving into the change where the outcome is not known before one set out ahead of time.  It wraps this up by saying those who see it in a different way are merely motivated by personal feelings, which is about as asinine as it gets.