Framing: The Dialectical Reversal
This text is a preview of History of the Reception of Hegel, volume II, to be published in 2026 by Reflexivity Press.
1968 was rich in hopes, utopias, new beginnings. But every historical movement produces its counter-reaction - dialectically necessary. The reactions to 1968 are threefold:
First: The conservative turn - institutions against chaos, order against anarchy, tradition against revolution. The conservatives see in 1968 the danger of disintegration and mobilize Hegel as a thinker of stable orders.
Second: The New Left - the attempt to turn spontaneous revolt into systematic theory. No longer “everything must change,” but “how exactly must it change?” The theorization of the movement - but also its fragmentation.
Third: Terrorism - the dark shadow of 1968. If peaceful protest is not enough, if reforms fail to materialize, if conditions “cry to heaven” (Dutschke) - is violence then legitimate? The RAF, the Brigate Rosse, the Weather Underground give the answer: yes. And they fail tragically.
This chapter examines these three reactions and shows: all three invoke Hegel - but read him in fundamentally different ways. The conservatives read the Hegel of ethical life (institutions), the New Left the Hegel of negation (critique), the terrorists the Hegel of violence (the master-slave struggle). The question is: who understands Hegel correctly?