Half a century after May 1968 events in Paris (and elsewhere), the time has come to reflect upon the similarities and differences between the sexual liberation and feminism of the 1960s and the protest movements that flourish today, from LGBT+ to #MeToo. Although an immense abyss separates the revolt of the 60s from today’s protests, we are now witnessing a similar reappropriation of the energy of protest and revolt by the capitalist system.
One of the well-known graffiti slogans seen around Paris in 1968 was: “Structures do not walk on the streets.” In other words, one cannot explain the large student and worker demonstrations of that year in the terms of structuralism (which is why some historians even posit 1968 as a date that separates structuralism from post-structuralism, a movement that, so the story goes, is much more dynamic and prone to active political interventions). Yet Jacques Lacan claims that...
