Habermas’s hopes for mass extra-parliamentary action proved unrealistic

Evidence

But it was no longer a real movement. Even Habermas’s hopes for extra-parliamentary action by mass organizations now seemed exaggerated, an underestimation of the forces in favour of restraint that were at work within that type of organization. His expectations of action by sympathetic CDU professors within parliament seemed like an ironic attack on a democracy that used every available means to discourage political participation. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2347

Categorization

• XREF: Foreshadows the later 1960s extra-parliamentary opposition (APO) movement that Habermas and the Frankfurt School engaged with; useful for situating Habermas’s evolving stance on activism. — connects to: Extra-parliamentary movements create and could revive Labour, not internal party logic — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1469