The Limits of the Movement – Failure and Transformation
This text is a preview of History of the Reception of Hegel, volume II, to be published in 2026 by Reflexivity Press.
Why 1968 Failed
The movement of 1968 fails politically—no revolution, no seizure of power, no structural transformation. Why?
First: lack of organization. The movement is anti-authoritarian—no leaders, no hierarchies, no party. This is sympathetic, but strategically ineffective. Whoever is not organized cannot act.[1]
Second: theoretical overreach. The movement wants too much at once: anti-capitalism, anti-imperialism, anti-authoritarianism, feminism, ecology, sexual liberation. Synthesis does not succeed—the groups fall out over priorities.
Third: repression. The state responds—with violence (police), with law (professional bans, RAF trials), with co-optation (reforms that pacify the movement). The revolt is absorbed.[2]
The dialectical turn: but failure is not disappearance. The movement transforms itself:
- Institutionalization: Green parties, environmental associations, the women’s movement.
- Culturalization: alternative ways of living, communes, counterculture.
- Academicization: the students become professors, carrying Critical Theory into the universities.
This is Hegel’s sublation: the movement is negated (politically failed) but preserved (culturally effective) and raised to a higher stage (institutionally anchored).