On the crowded morning train to Stoke, preparing for our presentation. The sky’s darkening, the air’s gone heavy. Bad portents, W. says.
Our host, accompanying us from Birmingham, sits down the carriage from us, reading his Cavailles. What’s he going to make of our presentation?, we wonder. How’s he going to his colleagues, having invited us? Wasn’t this supposed to be part of our rehabilitation? Wasn’t it our chance to make our way back into the academic fold?
An idiot drools: that's our thought, that drooling, W. says. An idiot scratches his head: that's our philosophy, that scratching, W. says.
Ah, what do we know of the Events of May 1968, our presentation topic? What do we really know about the general strike in Paris, and the battles between the students and police in the Latin Quarter? Our knowledge is secondhand, derivative. The protestors wrenched the paving stones from the streets: we saw it on Youtube. They threw up barricades: we saw that, too. They marched – how they marched! They overturned cars, set fire to them: yes, we’ve seen the footage.
But we know nothing of politics, real politics, we agree. We know nothing of revolution, of the world turned upside down. Britain is an essentially apolitical country, we agree, just as we are essentially apolitical.
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