It was one of the self-delusions of the age that the Sixties were an era of heightened political consciousness. ‘Everyone’ (or at least everyone under twenty-five attending an educational establishment and drawn to radical ideas) was in the streets and mobilized for a cause. The deflation of the causes—and the demobilization of the coming decades—thus confers in retrospect an air of failure upon a decade of frenetic political activity. But in certain important respects the Sixties were actually a vital decade for the opposite reason: they were the moment when Europeans in both halves of the continent began their definitive turn away from ideological politics.
Thus the slogans and projects of the Sixties’ generation, far from re-awakening a revolutionary tradition whose language and symbols they so energetically sought to reinvigorate, can be seen in hindsight to have served as its swansong. In Eastern Europe, the ‘revisionist’ interlude and its tragic dénouement saw off the last illusions of Marxism as a practice. In the West, Marxist and para-Marxist theories soared clear of any relationship to local reality, disqualifying themselves from any future role in serious public debate. In 1945 the radical Right had discredited itself as a legitimate vehicle for political expression. By 1970, the radical Left was set fair to emulate it. A 180-year cycle of ideological politics in Europe was drawing to a close.

During the 1960s, large groups of people who are normally passive and apathetic began to try to enter the political arena to press their demands.... The naive might call that democracy, but that's because they don't understand. The sophisticated understand that that's the crisis of democracy.

It (1968) was a year of intensifying political awareness for me: the Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy assassinations, the Columbia strike.

The fact is that it was a revolutionary surge that opened the political space to allow for the blossoming of cultural and social creativity that couldn't be reversed, even after the political movement itself had been repressed. That was the 1960s I knew. (Prologue)

I enjoyed the late 1960s as much as anyone, and I regarded much of the political ferment of the time as vital to the survival of our society—the Vietnam war might have gone on for many decades more without it. But the era did have its silly side, and the search for the immediately relevant at the expense of the less immediately practical side was, to me, one of the sillier aspects of it. Throwing most of past human knowledge overboard for the sake of bringing about instant social reform did not strike me as an effective way of achieving anything but ignorance. Evidently it seemed that way to others, too: after a while the traditional sciences and historical subjects returned to the curriculum, Shakespeare and Sophocles were allowed back in also, and not a great deal was heard from the earnest, deadly young decreers of non-negotiable demands who had had such power over academic life for a time. (Although a lot of them grew up and became university professors, and they are behind the modern craze for political correctness that has spread so much terror through our academic institutions.)

In the 60s, we had the impression that what we did could have an impact

I gradually came to understand the only way things would change was if voters were educated enough to understand what was happening, and would vote for legislative change

It was no doubt the common opinion of thoughtful men that society was approaching a critical period which might result in great changes. The labor troubles, their causes, course, and cure, took lead of all other topics in the public prints, and in serious conversation.

Statesmen whose experience reached back beyond the troubled inter-war decades to the more settled and self-confident era before 1914 thus had a particular attraction. In the continuity of their person they could facilitate a difficult transition from the over-heated politics of the recent past to a coming era of rapid social transformation. Whatever their party 'label', the elder statesmen of Europe were all, by 1945, skeptical, pragmatic practitioners of the art of the possible. This personal distance from the over-confident dogmas of inter-war politics faithfully reflected the mood of their constituents. A post-'ideological' age was beginning.

The 60s for me was a time of promise and excitement, but the 60s was also a time of isolation and frustration from within. [...] It was a time of great hope and great expectation; it was also a time of great waste. That is history. We do not need to repeat these mistakes in the 80s.

Another thing-men are everywhere becoming less "private-minded." There is a growing community sense. It is as though the urge which found expression in monasteries and nunneries in the middle ages were finding new expression. In the political field this consciousness of the common interest and of the rich possibilities of common action has embodied itself in part in the great movements toward economic democracy, cooperation, democratic socialism and communism. I am sure we make a great mistake if we underrate the element of unselfish idealism in these historic movements which are today writing history at such a rate.

Although it might be that we can't expect change overnight, there was really a rapid shift in the way we view politics.

That generation [of 1968] had an extraordinary, formative experience. Political generations are not only marked by the passing of time, which is ultimately a trivial fact. They are marked by events that characterize their formation. I would say that the great political generation before us was that of the Resistance [...] It is no coincidence that it remained in power for so many years, because it had lived through this extraordinary historical experience.

Like most artists and musicians, I considered myself detached from the political life…but I had an insight that maybe we would have a political contribution to make in the future.