Henri Lefebvre: A Critical Introduction - autonomous learning
Henri Lefebvre: A Critical Introduction - autonomous learning Henri Lefebvre: A Critical Introduction - autonomous learning
G L o b a L i z a t i o n a n d t H e s t a t e the list is endless and scattered everywhere across the globe—all hint at potential routes and pathways of autogestion, of transforming everyday life, of avoiding a spaced-out global ambition. “For me,” Lefebvre said, back in 1966, “the problem of autogestion shifts more and more away from enterprises towards the organization of space.” 30 Despite its spontaneous genesis, autogestion will nonetheless unfold over the long haul, by hook or by crook, steadily and stealthily, pragmatically and politically. Everyday life cannot be transcended in one leap: But the dissociations that maintain the everyday as the “downto-earth” foundation of society can be surmounted in and through a process of autogestion. Attentive and detailed study of the May 1968 events may yet produce surprises. There were tentative, uneven attempts at autogestion, going beyond the instructions that the specialized apparatuses handed down. … Autogestion points the way to the transformation of everyday life. The meaning of the revolutionary process is to “change life.” But life cannot be changed by magic or by a poetic act, as the surrealists believed. Speech freed from its servitude plays a necessary part, but it is not enough. The transformation of everyday life must also pass through institutions. Everything must be said: but it is not enough to speak, and still less to write. 31 * * * “ ‘Think globally, act locally,’ is still one of the best slogans progressives ever slapped across the backside of a vehicle,” said The Nation in an editorial not too long ago (February 18, 2002). The virtues of a micropolitics of everyday life, of a “grassroots globalism,” was made emphatic as a post–9/11 New York City was abuzz with thousands of demonstrators rallying against the World Economic Forum’s session there. There’s every reason to get 141
H e n r i L e F e b v r e excited by these demos against the World Economic Forum and the parallel good-guy gatherings at the World Social Forum in Porto Allegre, Brazil, and the possibilities they present for autogestion. But activists in the United States can, The Nation also reiterated, bolster this movement if they pressure their local representatives who continually vote the corporate line in Congress. One of the biggest globalization fights of 2001 was decided by a single vote when the House went 215 to 214 in favor of George W.’s fast-track authority for the Free Trade Area of the Americas treaty. This newfangled beefed-up NAFTA, destined to spin millions of people into a spidery neoliberal web, could have been nipped in the bud: only two votes were necessary to deny Bush legislative power to proceed. So as militants prepare for the next Seattle, they should at the same time turn up the hometown heat, create a little ruckus in everyday life, in their own as well as in their local politician’s. Empire may or may not be the new formidable form of world governance and domination; but it’s at home, outside one’s own front door, in absolute space, where most of us can find our little place in abstract global politics. 142
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H e n r i L e F e b v r e<br />
excited by these demos against the World Economic Forum and<br />
the parallel good-guy gatherings at the World Social Forum in<br />
Porto Allegre, Brazil, and the possibilities they present for autogestion.<br />
But activists in the United States can, The Nation also<br />
reiterated, bolster this movement if they pressure their local representatives<br />
who continually vote the corporate line in Congress.<br />
One of the biggest globalization fights of 2001 was decided by a<br />
single vote when the House went 215 to 214 in favor of George W.’s<br />
fast-track authority for the Free Trade Area of the Americas treaty.<br />
This newfangled beefed-up NAFTA, destined to spin millions of<br />
people into a spidery neoliberal web, could have been nipped in<br />
the bud: only two votes were necessary to deny Bush legislative<br />
power to proceed. So as militants prepare for the next Seattle, they<br />
should at the same time turn up the hometown heat, create a little<br />
ruckus in everyday life, in their own as well as in their local politician’s.<br />
Empire may or may not be the new formidable form of<br />
world governance and domination; but it’s at home, outside one’s<br />
own front door, in absolute space, where most of us can find our<br />
little place in abstract global politics.<br />
142
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