How historical change happens

[Magical Realist]

Great historical moments of the human race weren't when most everybody was doing and saying the same thing. It wasn't the wars or religious crusades or empires or great technological innovations that spread like wildfire. It was when people dared to do and say something totally different from the crowds, becoming a stubborn boatrocker in an otherwise smooth-running system of authority and power. It was the Siddhartha Gautamas, the Platos, the Jesus of Nazareths, the Joan of Arcs, the Galileo Galileis, the Martin Luthers, the Jean-Jacques Rousseaus, the Thomas Paines, the Charles Darwins, the Walt Whitmans, the Friedrich Nietzsches, the Mahatma Gandhis, the Albert Einsteins, the Pablo Picassos, and the Martin Luther Kings. It was that moment when one gifted individual bravely questioned the culture and society they were born into and ended up changing it forever. Here's to the rebels. The renegades. The idol-smashers. And the non-conformists, sacrificing what was an otherwise complacent and comfortable life inside the system for the calling to transform the very spirit of their times.

[Syne]

Iconoclasts are typically not motivated by rebellion or non-conformity and typically do not sacrifice a comfortable life. They are typically just intelligent people following their own interests to the exclusion of any naysayers.