“offering us a stimulating analysis of May 1968 in France, Daniel Mahoney ..He recognizes that those actors who participated most influentially in “the events” were not of the same creed, but diversely Trotskyites, Maoists, aficionados of Che [Guevara], and anarchists..
I was a careful observer of sit-ins and building takeovers at my own University of Pennsylvania.. A small number of self-aware activists used specific issues to draw in a much larger number of students who had few deep political commitments. In the crucible of all-night plenary sessions in occupied buildings, however, the insiders worked their alchemy upon the far, far larger number. Votes at 9 p.m. to place more students on university decision-making committees became, by 2 a.m., votes to dismantle American capitalism in which almost all of them had wanted to prosper only a few hours before.. As in France, a goodly number of those who were truly absorbed by the politics and cultural politics went into academic life or into journalism, where they would later wield an influence far beyond their actual numbers.
Mahoney rightly argues, of course, the significant consequences of whatever changed in 1968 were less political in any immediate sense than they were cultural and attitudinal. Indeed, the spirit of May ’68 expressed its rejection of bourgeois life and values in a slogan ubiquitous at that time: “Métro, boulot, dodo.” This slogan (so contemptuous in its childlike rhyme and slang) means subway (that is, commuting to one’s job), work, sleep. That was the dreariness and human destitution of our condition under liberal capitalism. The phrase was derived from a line in a 1951 poem by Pierre Béarn, “Couleurs d’Usine.” Béarn, perhaps describing his father’s life in a factory, ended his poem this way (translation mine):
Au déboulé garçon pointe ton numéro
Pour gagner ainsi le salaire
D’un morne jour utilitaire
Métro, boulot, bistro, mégots, dodo, zéro
(Rush in boy, punch your time card
In order to earn the salary
Of a dismal utilitarian day
Metro, work, bistro, cigarette butts, sleep, zero.)