Successful veterans co-opt failed revolts by narrating them as identity affirmation

Evidence

Over the years that followed, many of the revolutionaries watched in horror as the events were redefined and reinterpreted until they were unrecognizable. No one had planned May 1968, and no one could credibly claim to speak for the uprising. Some of the class of 1968 had graduated to establishment positions in bourgeois Parisian society, and these voices tended to see May as a dream that had eventually come true, rather than a failed revolution. So when French television stations asked soixante-huitards (literally “68-ers”) to explain what had happened, they called upon these respectable or eloquent figures who—whether this was intentional or not—reflected the dominant values in France in the 1970s and 1980s. The actual spark for the revolt had been the Vietnam War, and its initial targets were clear—capitalism, US imperialism, and Charles de Gaulle—but a narrative took shape that claimed the events were actually about individualism and self-expression, not collective action. They were about the liberation of desire, not humanity. Though almost no one had elected to identify as a student or “youth” back in 1968—as workers or Jews or militants or Maoists, yes—the story was now that the uprising was actually about affirming these identities. — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 99

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: A dense claim about how the co-optation of historical memory works through who gets to speak — those who succeeded within the system redefine the moment to flatter the system.
• XREF: Links to ‘Troubling Transparency’ claim about media reframing, and to earlier chapter 7 theme of protest veterans advising the young. — connects to: Rebellious voices matter historically even when they fail to achieve their goals — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 286

Broader Connections

• Rebellious voices matter historically even when they fail to achieve their goals #qualifies (0.82) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 286