Student protest movements have historically functioned as an indispensable corrective for America and the West. That is the legacy of 1968 we should be talking about.
I wrote about how the legacy of 1968 is invoked to delegitimize the student protests.
And I explore a different history of the 1960s: A story not of destructive radicalism, but of a generation that rightfully objected to a vast gulf between aspiration and reality in America. 2/
Has there ever been a (leftwing) student protest movement that wasn’t immediately derided by the political center and elite opinion as too radical, deluded, misguided, counter-productive, and dangerous? And yet, almost all were indisputably proven right by history. 3/
Pundits look for the most extreme voices and insist they define the whole movement. With rightwing protests (Tea Party! Trucker convoy!), meanwhile, we are always asked to do the opposite: Look for the least incriminating interpretation, one that does not foreground extremism. 4/
Centrist opinionists describe the protesters as either extremist ideologues - or cosplaying adolescents who are in it purely for the “thrill.” Which is it? No answer.
The key message is: Do not lend any legitimacy to their motivations, their diagnosis, or their demands. 5/
This exact approach that dominates the mainstream discourse has been invariably used to delegitimize every major (left-coded) protest movement in history, very much including the ones that polite society today likes to affirm and claim as examples of the good protest. 6/
The 1960s loom large in the collective imaginary of mainstream America. 1968, in particular, is constantly invoked to lend more credence to the idea that we are currently looking at a destructive uprising, as young people are – yet again! – giving in to irrational impulses. 7/
But the 1960s protesters were not rejecting the ideals America had always proclaimed – they were demanding the country finally live up to them. It was the anger over the gap between grand democratic promises and discriminatory realities that animated them. 8/
In recent U.S. history, student protest movements have consistently functioned as a necessary corrective: A thorn in the side of elites who were too blind, too complacent, or too complicit to see that America was failing to live up to its own promises and aspirations, at home and abroad. 9/
It is precisely the fact that the students are not yet conditioned to filter everything through the lens of partisan realpolitik, that they refuse to let electoralism be the alpha and omega of their politics, that enables them to serve as a sensor and a corrective. 10/
The university has provided an environment that allowed young people to formulate an unsparing critique of America’s shortcomings and the injustices it ignored or actively perpetuated. The core message has always been: We demand you do better! 11/
Students have the time and resources to think critically about society and creatively about potential ways to make the world a better place – and they are not yet too jaded or too exhausted to believe this might actually happen: We could really make the world a better place. 12/
Any assessment of the historical significance of student protests and of the “lessons” 1968 might offer would do well to distinguish the question of immediate, narrowly defined electoral outcomes from the underlying diagnosis and discontent that brought students together. 13/
The vast majority of young people who were politicized by the protests of the 60s didn’t become terrorists or just retreated into hedonism. Many actually channeled their frustration into new political ventures - their energy fueled the social movements of the 70s. 14/
Claiming to affirm and celebrate past progress while aggressively denouncing the young people who were instrumental in reminding the nation that a course correction was needed and then poured so much into trying to make that happen: That’s simply disingenuous.
@BreakingImpossible@guncelawits Did you actually read the piece? Because it has a very long section on the global dimension of “1968” and emphasizes that this was not just a Western phenomenon.
@tzimmer_history i traveled to Berkeley daily during the height of the demonstrations. Even during People's Park one could avoid any confrontation by avoiding a several block area. The press covered the most sensational, but it was far from the whole story. Later in life I had the opportunity to take a small (12 person) seminar at SSU from Mario Savio. It was called "Science and Poetry". He was kind and soft spoken but also passionate. There are so many layers to student movement that are ignored. The current crack downs are the #anithesis of #democracy.
@tzimmer_history Right now, it's way too risky and they don't see this....that's a problem. " Not conditioned" and seeing the bigger picture and realistic choices are too different things
@BlueWaver22 As a response to a piece about how the exact same arguments have always been used to delegitimize protest movements you offer the exact same argument.
@tzimmer_history I know, but where is it flawed in this moment. There was not a fascist openly declaring what he would do or an entire party in lockstep behind him like the brownshirts.
@tzimmer_history I probably didn't state it clearly enough...this can't be put into context w/ 1968 imo because the threat of an end to our way of lif & democracy were not in ??. Nixon was outed by his own party just after. That would not happen today. What I've bn trying to convey to so many since 2016--whole landscape is different and far more dangerous to these students and they don't realize it. Hitler was elected with 43.9% of vote because of the split w/in the anit Nazi movement.
@BlueWaver22 Hitler was never elected, the Nazis got over 40 percent (in March 1933) only after he had already ascended to power, and I think this is indicative of the way you are a little too quick to draw clear-cut lessons that fit your priors from a history that was vastly more complex.
@tzimmer_history I respectfully disagree - I'm all for students right to protest and agree movements have been successful in the past but this time is nothing like anything PRIOR in this country. And yes, technically, Hitler was appointed Chancellor but it was only after a string of Nazi party victories where were enabled by a split in the anti Nazi vote. People are allowed to have differences of opinion in this society, correct? And on this forum?
The peculiar thing about students and why they are prone to protest about ethical issues is simple: because they can. They haven't yet taken employment in society that makes them directly dependent upon the One Percent. They may have student loans that make them beholden to them, but those can't be revoked for arbitrary reasons.
This independence is never or rarely articulated in the context of their willingness to protest, but may be precisely because of it that they do.
@tzimmer_history I’m still a bit confused why the supposed extremist ideology of a few students would be a problem, while the extremist ideology of the judiciary, one of the two components of the legislative branch, half of the people seeking executive power, and a good chunk of the fourth estate are not to be questioned.
In Nazi Germany students prevented Jews from entering universities. In the civil rights era students protested Black integration. Like today's pro-Hamas protestors this history shows students are not always right.