History
68- revolution a kind of natural starting point of the current development of phenomena like culture wars.
Is less clear of an event than the russian revolution and so on. The revolution of 68 is quite unclear.
Is this really a revolution in the sense of earlier revolutions? (no…).
What is woke?
In talking about changing values, this is scientifically and statistically hard to grasp. It is not easy to come down to certain statements of the changing perceptions of people.
This is not so much about changing values as such, but about politicising these.
The election campaigns in the US and so on are mainly not about material things, but rather about values, about some kind of ’woke’.
It is an american term, and its discourse, about being alert to discriminations on many layers, some more hidden than others. Is now understood as progressive values, embracing diversity, often coming under different politicised names. Is also connected to scholarship on intersectionality: ie that we need to study different political problems in the way that they influence other problems.
Niall Fergusson, conservative british historian, called the ’vibe shift’ after the election of Trump. This comes down to the diagnosis since the 60s, there has been a trend, towards democratisation, liberalisation, diversity and emancipation.
Connected to the question of universalism, are there certain universal values which we actually need? The right argues that identity politics has brought down universalist values, and as such only speak of the interest of a group.
It is important for universities to inform about these kind of debates (maybe not like this lol).
As such 1968 seems to be at the bottom of the ’vibe shift’.
Belgian state guy published a book about reversing woke and centered his debate on 68-revolution.
Is the 68-revolution really that important? Is it a myth?
Mercer talks about how the 68 revolution survives as a mystified event. But was also mystified almost as soon as it started. There was the idea of a continuity with a greater international struggle which was charged with a lot of meaning of changing society, of which very little came about. But the idea that many things could have been achieved with it, was idealised at the point of its conception.
Both the conservatives, those who were attacked by the students, and those who embraced it, shared the idea that this was an important time, a crucial time. Conservatives think this started the negative developments in society, and as such also that its aftermath could be undone.
Mercer explains the caesura mainly as a myth. And this is really the important part of analysis that should be undertaken. An important part of this entry into it is to ask about to what extent it lead to a widespread democratisation. In Europe there was mainly a kind of limited parlimentary democracy that was neither dynamic nor included many parts of the population.
Mercer argues that it was mainly a response to this fact.
It is mainly a European event, even though it also saw global influence; such as Leuven having international students now.
1968
January: Climax of Leuven Vlaams
February: Tet offensive
March: battle of Valle Guilia: student-police conflict in Rome
April: Assassination attempt on Rudi Dutschke: East and west german student, leader in Berlin. Is no longer able to lead revolution in West Germany after.
May: General strike France culmination of protest
August: end of prague spring: attempt at changing Czechoslovak communist government.
September: Splitting of KU leuven
Not everything started in 1968.
Before 68, there was a steep increase in secondary and tertiary education throughout Europe. The revolution happened in universities. More broadly, in secondary education: gymansium, lycee, high school.
This has a lot to do with the great acceleration of the 50s and 60s. Transformation from fordist societies to a service societies which required higher education. Governments had decided they needed people with more high quality labour, leading to many labourers becoming educated about their conditions.
If you really wanna have a democracy, you need to have a much higher education. One cannot exist without the other. This goes together with emancipation. People should not be reduced to their circumstances. People in the countryside would have less chances, especially if they were female.
The west-flanders kuleuven university was built on the idea that we need to give access to the people on the country-side for proper education.
When sputnik was put into space, there was a worry in the West that it was falling behind, which lead to a huge increase in subsidisation of universities into STEM-fields.
All over Europe there was the idea of bringing universities to the people, so that everyone could have access, in the 60s.
There was a lack in terms of infrastructure and staff initially. These became the mass-universities, something with a kind of negative connotation as they lacked the ability to actually educate students properly, because of the immense lack of funds.
In Nanterre, the university was built as students were admitted, so they had classes on the construction site. Students were then approached by very harsh realities, something that had not been the case before. Students before had usually been very disattached from real life.
The university of Bochum was similar, built in the Ruhr area, and the idea of this university was to educate the daughters (and the sons) of the miners, and it had a very clear social idea of emancipation. But also, these mines were not some kind of business that would last, so it was also built to reeducate miners whenever the miners could no longer work. It was built in concrete towers, with a very modernist mindset. As such, a new kind of reform-universities are constructed, to reeducate workers.
The issues of the students at these universities became very concrete. They understood the repression of a dysfunctional society very early.
As such, the 68 is at its core a rebellion at the European universities, though there were global manifestations of protest. It was however a trans-european phenomenon. Now a days, it is not really spoken of in the same way anymore. The reason it covered all of the western European countries has to do with the fact that all of them saw similar developments after WWII. There was a post-war economic boom, in which we see a move towards a desire for higher education and European unification.
Many demands of the students transcend the idea of a nation-state. Often they speak of people all over the world being liberated. This happens because there was intense communication between different European movements, which happened through congresses. As such, the youth was helping each other in how to resist.
Then there was the role of the media, the television was there for more or less everyone, so the pictures of the tet-offensive became wide-spread. Also they got to see the student-protests all over Europe, meaning they could synchronise the protest-movement. There was not one master-mind but rather students react to what works and as such wants to continue this same movement.
Similar reactions by the ’system’ all over the world towards the protests. This furthered the necessity to synchronise the protest. De-escalation was not really a concept that was well-known at the time, the police would often shoot and harm protesters. They developed sit-ins and teach-ins in which they would develop bottom-up teaching in order to change the topics and themes discussed during classes which are not taught by the ordinary teaching-systems.
A revolution of intellectuals, or an intellectual revolution?
Rise of the new left as a s consequence of disillusion with Soviet-union communism. Many new theoreticians become like guru’s whom the people look up to as their theoretical leadership. Eg. Marcuse, Sartre, De Beavoir. Famous debates between Habermas and Adorno, Habermas talking about red-fascists in the USSR. There is an estrangement between the two sides of the revolutionaries and the intellectuals, but they integrate later. In countries like France it took quite a long time for the communist party to distance itself from the USSR, this was also part of what led to 68: anti-tankies. The new left is about keeping the essence of the revolutionary potential: would argue for socialist thought, but would argue against it as it existed in the USSR. Identification with liberation movements in Third World. The progressive groups are to be found in south america or vietnam or cuba. Ie. no longer focus on the working class as such, but on oppressed people of the third world. Trotskyism and Maoism also propular among the radical left.
Many of these students had read a lot of marxist literature, and adhered to marxism in the narrow sense, and as such developed new strands of theory: like structuralism, critical theory and frankfurt school. The theory can be summarised in the fact that next to their academic potential, they were explaining why students and young people led a life that was not the way it should be, like in Marcuse’s One-Dimensional Man. You can buy whatever you want, you are made to think that you are your own individual with total free will. Explaining why there is a kind toleration of repression.
Many of the political demands made by the students was not represented in any of the parties.
The revolution brought a calculated breaking of rules: which in turn led to an immense overreaction by the authorities.
This generation of students, very well understood how media would function, television was for them more natural. If you want to stage a manifestation, television was always taken into account as an important factor. The idea was to promote the police into brutal repression, in order to show the real character of the system (something that was clear from the first place to the students), in order to turn this insurrection into a proper revolution. They wanted to show the apparent democracy as a kind of fascism. This was to lead to the support of the working classes; which remained a total blindspot for the 68 revolution.
Of course that never came about, except for the fact that many students were indeed killed and harmed fatally by the government, because the government showed itself to be what they argued it would.
Important killing of Benno Ohnesorg in front of the Opera in West-Berlin in 67. This was seen as a confirmation for the students that they had credibility in what they were saying. This led to further radicalisation, and also terrorism, like the Red Army Fraction (baader meinhof gang). [Conspiracy that he may have been killed by the stasi]
There was also a clear critique of reactionary media, like Axel Springer publishing company. The students were constantly struggling with the question of why they couldn’t bring their manifestations to the quarters of the workers. And to explain this, they would point to the media as a tool that enforced state narratives and as such made workers docile.
In the French case, there was more participation of the proletariat than in West-Germany, Netherlands or Belgium. There is a general strike, and there is a moment at which De Gaulle was leaving the country, went to the military base in West Germany, which was probably the closest moment at which any kind of govrernmental overthrow could have become the case.
As such, there are certain national specificities. In the Uk there were comparatively peaceful protest, lacked the myth of 68. France and Italy had strikes and revolutionary protests, which had a link between students and workers. There is a specificity in Germany of the nazi past, often students were triggered by having professors who had been nazi before 45. The same was the case for many German elites, who remained in Germany despite being nazi. Students began to confront their older peers in order to deal with the past, though this is a kind of heroic narrative.
By 68, there were many nazis who would have been cycled out of political functions, which is probably also a reason why they could rise up. If they had risen up in 58, they would have likely been brought down with much more brutality perhaps.
Fascism becomes an overstretched, yet suggestive and central term, in the discussions of the revolution.
In Belgium, there is a higher social crisis with the employer-employee relation being uncertain. Many manifestations in Brussels which resemble the French. On the whole, the mythical meaning of the 68 was not as clear in Belgium at the time. There were already two seperate public spheres, dutch and french, which becomes a limiting factor.
Leuven Vlaams:
Question of language and student population: Leuven should be a flemish insititution (in the context of the introduction of the taalgrens of 62, a line that cuts through flanders and wallonia, seperating languages, you use dutch in the north and french in the south)
Should there be dutch-language universities? This would be important for the emancipation of the Flemish as such.
By the 60s, almost all programs had a dutch or a french variety, much like there is now with English. This situation was seen as problematic for a number of reasons, like the expansion of higher education. The idea was to put new kuleuven institutions between Leuven and Brussels, like new medical institutions. From a flemish perspective, this sounded like a bad idea, because there was a concern with a verfransing of Brabant, and further. It would lead to a french-language bridge in the middle of brabant.
Kuleuven at that time was still very much connected to the church, and bishops had an important position at the school, and they used French as their language of speech. Many old Flemish still use french. If you protest the french language, it gets a kind of anti-elitist dimension in flanders.
→ here the revolution takes a clear nationalist discourse.
In the later parts of 68 it becomes closer in line with those protests of France: demanding the bringing down on the government, or forming a coalition in which they agree to change the university fundamentally.
Now the university is a lot more like american or english universities.
What kind of change does the revolution then actually bring about?
One shouldn’t see this revolution as one between left and right, to get to the essence. These students might have been unvoluntary agents of westernisation: overcoming traditional limits of consumption, like going to church on sunday and closing all the shops and work. Creaitivity against established rules, like provocation. This can be seen in capitalism in many ways that profit capitalism. It was very much about PR and as such educated many people into good PR-agents.
They were very concerned with developing themselves, rather than developing society generally. This feeds into the ’ you are what you consume’ idea, and as such consumarism.
Changing role of sexuality as a means of broader liberation which remains on the political agenda today too.
Eric Hobsbawm called the revolution more of a symptom than a cause. It was not a revolution of workers, but was lead by students who weren’t in the same relationship of oppression.
But it did set an example for new social movements. Like the environementalist movement, peace movement, feminist movement.
Contributed to a more fundamental democratisation of society, as people were apt at questioning authority. The conservatives critique it as leading to young people no longer having the ability to listen or be disciplined.
It also lead to a ’decline of ideological politics’, ie. there were less clear and obvious parties which followed a certain political party. There wasn’t so much idenitifcation with a party anymore.
68ists were also slowly integrated into the main system, long march through institutions, Conway.
This changed the institutions to become very different from what they were pre-68. But one can also say that these insitutions were becoming more flexible due to the economic progression anyways.
Legacy of a revolution that failed. Leading to much sadness.
Second feminist movement:
Generally new social movements as a result but also driver of changing mentalities. Stress on individuality and female identity. Inspired by student movement but criticism of male domination of the student movement, which was not focused on to a large extent. What the student referred to as sexual liberation was very much from a male perspective.
Legal equality only came in the western countries in the 70s-80s. (Scandinavia and all communist countries after WWII)
Since 1970s, more stress on fighting discrimintation than equal rights, also abortion as a symbolically charged question between law and broader discrimination. Abortion was legal in the soviet countries since 1917, but has recently been withdrawn.
Feminist studies, gender studies, gender as a concept in the way we use it today.
Daniel Cohn-Bendit, who in his biography, encapsulates the march through the revolution (apparently a possible pedophile). From Dany le Rouge to Dany le Vert, became part of the German green party.