The Hidden Legacy of 1968

Conventional historical and political wisdom in Western Europe has it that therevolutionary aspirations of the 68ers failed – and that, paradoxically, this veryfailure constitutes their great success. The movements of ‘68 (to be moreprecise: their radical wings, whose picture dominates the historical memory inpublic images und cultural representations) more or less aimed at some kind ofanti-authoritarian, anarchist, later on also socialist/communist overthrow ofthe ruling order. The experience of Paris May 1968, for instance, seems to bemirrored in the catch-phrase “All Power to Imagination” (“L’immagination aupouvoir”).