In his book “The Second Coming,” Bifo begins his discussion by returning to ’68. He even goes so far as to say “In cultural and political terms these fifty years [from 1968 to now] look like a geological era.”
Bifo makes this claim because, viewed from cultural and political perspectives, these fifty years represent a significant rupture from previous decades, akin to transitioning from one era to another.
The significance of the ’68 movement lies in its being a massive movement that connected the labour movement with the student movement. It wasn’t just the well-known May 68 in France; it also had a global momentum that transcended national borders. In the ’68 movement, people hoped that the society could harness technological change and guide it towards common interests. However, the reality was quite the opposite; leftist parties and unions at the time saw technology as a threat. Technology could have liberated people from labour, just as today we have the potential to be freed from repetitive and meaningless work through automation and artificial intelligence. Yet, whether in ’68 or today, people fear this liberation and label it as “unemployment.”
The left, which should have been focused on labour emancipation, satirically resisted the unstoppable technological transformation due to this fear.
After the failure of the ’68 movement, humanity underwent a dual transformation of political economy and human consciousness. The transformation of political economy is unmistakable: the neoliberal flag was raised high in the 1980s, unions disintegrated, welfare states collapsed, and not only commercial goods but also public services became commodified.
As for the transformation of human consciousness, this is a recent development: while people’s general knowledge has increased, the time available for deepening consciousness has decreased. Why is this the case? In the latter part of the book, Bifo borrows from Byung-Chul Han’s ideas to explain that our contemporary world is deeply entrenched in an accelerated and intensified information overload. To cope with this information deluge, people must expend a tremendous amount of attention, leading to a dwindling amount of mental energy and time available for deepening consciousness.
One of the dilemmas we face today is that: “separation of automated brain from the living body, and resulting dementia of the brainless social body.”
This is why Bifo believes that returning to the energy that emerged in 1968 is the only way to respond to the current dual transformation of political economy and human consciousness