‘1968’ – A Catalyst of Consumer Society

Abstract

Abstract:The emergence of a new type of consumer society was catalysed rather than impeded by the tumultuous events of the late 1960s. The rebels of 1968 contributed considerably to the breaking down of conservative obstacles to consumption, to the opening up of new markets, and to the creation of a new type of consumer. At its heart, '1968' was an intra-bourgeois confrontation pursued by an innovative minority. The many instances of personal transformation from protagonists of protest to pillars of the establishment can be interpreted in the context of communicative and consumerist modernisation. The protesters' performative hedonism proved highly compatible with consumer culture. Protest culture, on the one hand, sought the publicity of consumer society as a spatial and moral sphere for its activities. The response of the 'system' to the protests, on the other hand, was surprisingly flexible, and resulted in the further development of capitalism and consumer society in the late 20 th century.In 1848, a text which was to make a name for itself announced a revolution:All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind. The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe. 2Here Marx and Engels describe a process of socio-cultural transformation which has continued uninterrupted to the present day: the revolutionisation of social relationships by a capitalist market logic and commercialisation from which no area of life is spared.This concept of revolution has so far hardly been used to interpret the protest culture of the late 1960s. Both the literature produced by the movement's renegades and conservative analyses have highlighted its revolutionary intentions and anti-capitalist thrust. The waves of research that have emerged in the past decade have begun to revise this view significantly.However, an important aspect has not been at the cutting edge of research: that hindrances to consumption in the form of traditional allegiances to authorities were discarded like reac-1 For a more extended discussion, see our earlier: '"1968" als Katalysator der Konsumgesellschaft. Performative Regelverstöße, kommerzielle Adaptionen und ihre gegenseitige Durchdringung',

Viejos y nuevos debates: juventud y acción sociopolítica

“…"Cualquier otro que no sea yo es para mí un agente de represión": este lema es para Finkielkraut (2001, p. 137) la expresión de un individualismo radical que, sin embargo, no hacía sino descubrir y exaltar "los principios distintivos de la propia sociedad que creían combatir". Es esta una interpretación de los movimientos de los sesenta más adecuada al caso de Berkeley que al de Nanterre, pero que se ha convertido en dominante: los sesenta como apoteosis de la individualidad -"el acontecimiento reducido a la exhibición de una herida narcisista" (Bensaïd, 1998)-y, por ello, fácilmente reintegrables al sistema (Boltanski y Chiapello, 2002;Harvey, 2005;de Miguel, 1979;Premat, 2009;Sedlmaier, Sedlmaier y Malinowski, 2011;Sorman, 2011, 23 de octubre;Vallespín, 2009). Castoriadis (2006, pp.…”

Politics of Security

“…7 Kennedy's policies indicated broader transformations in cold war international relations. Around two months before his speech, on 11 April 1963, 6 Alexander Sedlmaier andStephan Malinowski, ' "1968"-A Catalyst of Consumer Society', Cultural andSocial History , 8 (2011), 255-74 , here 259. 7 HIS, TEM 300,06: Flyer, 'Zum Tod John F. Kennedys', n.d.;Sanity (August 1963), 1.…”