Over the decades we’ve seen the slow burial of 1968. And with the fiftieth anniversary we have arrived at something like a triumphal state funeral. Some of the gravediggers are even people who played a leading role in the movement.

With its importance and meaning diminished, it’s now hard to explain why the rebellion came to involve a whole generation across all continents within such a short time. Today, the mainstream remembers a few advances from ’68, but only the weakest and most painless — an individualistic libertarianism — and cancels out everything in the movement that was really challenging and dangerous to the system. In Italy, ’68 is just remembered as drugs, sex, and rock and roll — a revolt against our parents and teachers.