Henri Lefebvre: A Critical Introduction - autonomous learning
Henri Lefebvre: A Critical Introduction - autonomous learning Henri Lefebvre: A Critical Introduction - autonomous learning
U r b a n r e v o L U t i o n global canvas as they colonize the lived. And they unite around a common urban praxis: “the generalized terrorism of the quantifiable” (p. 244; p. 185). This motley band he pejoratively dubs “the urbanists,” who “cut into grids and squares.” “Technocrats,” Lefebvre notes, “unaware of what’s going on in their own mind and in their working concepts, profoundly misjudging in their blind field what’s going on (and what isn’t), end up meticulously organizing a repressive space” (p. 208; p. 157). Urbanism thus finds itself caught between the rock and the hard place, “between those who decide on behalf of ‘private’ interests and those who decide on behalf of higher institutions and power.” The urban wilts under a historic compromise between neoliberalism and neomanagerialism, “which opens the playing field for the activity of ‘free enterprise.’ ” The urbanist duly slips into the cracks, making a career in the shady recesses between “developers and power structures,” a monkey to each organ grinder. A true left critique, accordingly, must attack the promoters of the urban “as object,” as an entity of economic expansion in which investment and growth are ends in themselves. The agents of this mind-set, meanwhile, the topdown, self-perpetuating cybernanthropes, must everywhere and always be refuted. For Lefebvre, the cybernanthrope was the antihumanist incarnate, a reviled man cum machine, the air-conditioned official obsessed with information systems, with scientific rationality, with classification and control. In a profoundly witty and scathing text, Vers le cybernanthrope [Towards the cybernanthrope] (1971), Lefebvre claims cybernetic culture has cut—not unlike Robert Moses slicing into New York—a swath for the urban revolution and proliferated through urbanism as ideology. Voici everything Lefebvre hates. Their type, their policies, their urban programs, the very presence of technocrats on planet earth offended him; they were antithetical to all he stood for, all he desired. Their type plots 9
H e n r i L e F e b v r e in think tanks and research units, in universities and in chambers of commerce, discourse with PowerPoint and flip charts in boardrooms near you, formulate spreadsheets and efficiency tables, populate government and peddle greed. They thrive off audits and evaluation exercises, love boxes, and ticking off numbers. Their political remit and strategic program reaches supragovernmental status these days in the citadels of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and World Trade Organization, where “good business” dictates and “structural adjustment” initiatives become carrots and sticks in urban and global “best practices.” Yet in Vers le cybernanthrope, Lefebvre is more ironic than irate. The cybernanthrope enforces himself as a “practical systematizer,” he says, determining those boundaries socially permissible, stipulating order and norms, conceiving “efficiency models,” and organizing equilibrium, feedbacks, and homeostasis. “The cybernanthrope deplores human weakness,” Lefebvre thinks. “He disqualifies humanism in thinking and action. He purges the illusions of subjectivity: creativity, happiness, passion are as hollow as they are forgettable. The cybernanthrope aspires to function, to be the only function. … He’s a man who receives promotion and lives in close proximity with the machine,” be it laptop or desktop. 11 He adheres to a cult of equilibrium in general and to his own in particular, protecting it intelligently. He aims to maintain stability, to defend it. The principles of economics and a minimum of action are his ethical principles. The cybernanthrope ignores desires. Or if he recognizes desire, it’s only to study it. There are only needs, clear and direct needs. He despises drunkenness. As an Apollonian, the Dionysian is a stranger to him. The cybernanthrope is well nourished and smartly dressed. He mistrusts unknown flavors, tastes too rich or too surprising. Odors—they’re something incongruous, incontrollable, archaic. What pleases him most is to have everything pasteurized, everything hygienic and deodorized. He treats severely 90
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U r b a n r e v o L U t i o n<br />
global canvas as they colonize the lived. And they unite around a<br />
common urban praxis: “the generalized terrorism of the quantifiable”<br />
(p. 244; p. 185).<br />
This motley band he pejoratively dubs “the urbanists,” who<br />
“cut into grids and squares.” “Technocrats,” <strong>Lefebvre</strong> notes,<br />
“unaware of what’s going on in their own mind and in their working<br />
concepts, profoundly misjudging in their blind field what’s<br />
going on (and what isn’t), end up meticulously organizing a repressive<br />
space” (p. 208; p. 157). Urbanism thus finds itself caught<br />
between the rock and the hard place, “between those who decide<br />
on behalf of ‘private’ interests and those who decide on behalf<br />
of higher institutions and power.” The urban wilts under a historic<br />
compromise between neoliberalism and neomanagerialism,<br />
“which opens the playing field for the activity of ‘free enterprise.’<br />
” The urbanist duly slips into the cracks, making a career<br />
in the shady recesses between “developers and power structures,”<br />
a monkey to each organ grinder. A true left critique, accordingly,<br />
must attack the promoters of the urban “as object,” as an entity<br />
of economic expansion in which investment and growth are ends<br />
in themselves. The agents of this mind-set, meanwhile, the topdown,<br />
self-perpetuating cybernanthropes, must everywhere and<br />
always be refuted.<br />
For <strong>Lefebvre</strong>, the cybernanthrope was the antihumanist incarnate,<br />
a reviled man cum machine, the air-conditioned official<br />
obsessed with information systems, with scientific rationality,<br />
with classification and control. In a profoundly witty and scathing<br />
text, Vers le cybernanthrope [Towards the cybernanthrope] (1971),<br />
<strong>Lefebvre</strong> claims cybernetic culture has cut—not unlike Robert<br />
Moses slicing into New York—a swath for the urban revolution<br />
and proliferated through urbanism as ideology. Voici everything<br />
<strong>Lefebvre</strong> hates. Their type, their policies, their urban programs,<br />
the very presence of technocrats on planet earth offended him; they<br />
were antithetical to all he stood for, all he desired. Their type plots<br />
9
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