Henri Lefebvre: A Critical Introduction - autonomous learning
Henri Lefebvre: A Critical Introduction - autonomous learning Henri Lefebvre: A Critical Introduction - autonomous learning
e v e r y d a y L i F e This is the positive aspect of daily life: it was familiar, it was the realm of home and leisure, the arena of safety and security, of friends and families, of holidays and little treats—the side of life that included work but was somehow separated from work, set aside from work, liberated from it. Alienation that pervaded at the workplace hadn’t yet penetrated the everyday, the nonspecialized activities that lurked outside the factory gate and the office cubicle, beyond the school staffroom or store checkout. Or had it? It’s now that Lefebvre asserts his Marxist credentials; it’s here where the negative side of daily life emerges. For more and more, he said in 1947, prophetically, everyday life was being colonized. Colonized by what, exactly? Colonized by the commodity, by a “modern” postwar capitalism that had continued to exploit and alienate at the workplace but had now begun to seize the opportunity of entering life in general, into nonworking life, into reproduction and leisure, free time and vacation time. Indeed, it was a system ready to flourish through consumerism, seduce by means of new media and advertising, intervene through state bureaucracies and planning agencies, ambush people around every corner with billboards and bulletins. And it would boom out in the millions of households that possessed TVs and radios. * * * In 1958, Lefebvre drafted a long foreword to his 1947 original text, evaluating the state of the game ten years on. The pincers of a cold war and a capitalist consumerist war squeezed tighter and tighter. On the one side, state socialism bureaucratized daily life, planned and impoverished it, converted it into a giant factory intent on productive growth; on the other side, state capitalism ripped off everyday life and sponsored monopoly enterprises to mass produce commodities and lifestyles, dreams and desires. One system transformed the realm of freedom into the drudge of 9
H e n r i L e F e b v r e necessity; the other turned a repetitive necessity into a supposed freedom. Yet Critique of Everyday Life aimed to get inside both systems, expose their pitfalls, journey beyond them. “It is ludicrous to define socialism solely by the development of the productive forces,” Lefebvre writes. “Economic statistics cannot answer the question: ‘What is socialism?’ Men do not fight and die for tons of steel, or for tanks and atomic bombs. They aspire to be happy, not to produce.” 18 They aspire to be free, not to work—or else to work less. Thus, Arthur Rimbaud’s provocative plea of the “right to be lazy” is a right socialism needed to reconcile. 19 Changing life, inventing a new society, can be defined only, Lefebvre says, “concretely on the level of everyday life, as a system of changes in what can be called lived experience.” 20 But here, too, lived experience was changing in advanced capitalist countries; it was under fire from forces intent on business and market expansion, producing fast cars and smart suburban houses, consumer durables and convenience food, processed lives and privatized paradises. As such, everyday life possessed a dialectical and ambiguous character. On the one hand, it’s the realm increasingly colonized by the commodity, and hence shrouded in all kinds of mystification, fetishism, and alienation. “The most extraordinary things are also the most everyday,” Lefebvre quips, reiterating Marx’s comments on the “fetishism of commodities” from Capital 1; “the strangest things are often the most trivial.” 21 On the other hand, paradoxically, everyday life is a primal arena for meaningful social change—the only arena—“an inevitable starting point for the realization of the possible.” 22 Or, more flamboyantly, “everyday life is the supreme court where wisdom, knowledge and power are brought to judgment.” 23 Nobody can get beyond everyday life, which literally internalizes global capitalism, just as global capitalism is nothing without many everyday lives, lives of real people in real time and space. Lefebvre is adamant that a lot of Marxists held a blinkered notion of class struggle, a largely abstract and 10
- Page 2: Henri Lefebvre
- Page 5 and 6: Published in 2006 by Routledge Tayl
- Page 7 and 8: Over the future, everybody deludes
- Page 9 and 10: 7 Globalization and the State 121 8
- Page 11 and 12: F o r e w o r d Manhattan, meanwhil
- Page 13 and 14: F o r e w o r d He dramatizes this
- Page 15 and 16: F o r e w o r d couples staggering
- Page 18: Acknowledgments I’d like to thank
- Page 21 and 22: p r e F a c e rumpled brown tweed j
- Page 23 and 24: p r e F a c e always inquisitive, h
- Page 25 and 26: p r e F a c e * * * Lefebvre may ha
- Page 27 and 28: p r e F a c e if, in fact, he was r
- Page 29 and 30: p r e F a c e culture and tradition
- Page 31 and 32: p r e F a c e collaborator Norbert
- Page 33 and 34: p r e F a c e his frank concern for
- Page 36 and 37: 1 Everyday Life One finds all one w
- Page 38 and 39: e v e r y d a y L i F e warmth, bri
- Page 40 and 41: e v e r y d a y L i F e Marxist dia
- Page 42 and 43: e v e r y d a y L i F e familiar is
- Page 46 and 47: e v e r y d a y L i F e idealized v
- Page 48 and 49: e v e r y d a y L i F e of mechanic
- Page 50 and 51: e v e r y d a y L i F e everyday li
- Page 52 and 53: e v e r y d a y L i F e wrote “ea
- Page 54: e v e r y d a y L i F e my green ca
- Page 57 and 58: H e n r i L e F e b v r e “turbo-
- Page 59 and 60: H e n r i L e F e b v r e the poten
- Page 61 and 62: H e n r i L e F e b v r e possibili
- Page 63 and 64: H e n r i L e F e b v r e contempt,
- Page 65 and 66: H e n r i L e F e b v r e or collap
- Page 67 and 68: H e n r i L e F e b v r e the Frenc
- Page 69 and 70: H e n r i L e F e b v r e periphera
- Page 71 and 72: H e n r i L e F e b v r e Lefebvre
- Page 73 and 74: H e n r i L e F e b v r e feelings
- Page 75 and 76: H e n r i L e F e b v r e Lefebvre
- Page 77 and 78: H e n r i L e F e b v r e the Hotel
- Page 79 and 80: H e n r i L e F e b v r e found the
- Page 81 and 82: H e n r i L e F e b v r e thought i
- Page 83 and 84: H e n r i L e F e b v r e examinati
- Page 85 and 86: H e n r i L e F e b v r e with cohe
- Page 87 and 88: H e n r i L e F e b v r e in Quebec
- Page 89 and 90: H e n r i L e F e b v r e “the sc
- Page 91 and 92: H e n r i L e F e b v r e into a si
- Page 93 and 94: H e n r i L e F e b v r e common fo
H e n r i L e F e b v r e<br />
necessity; the other turned a repetitive necessity into a supposed<br />
freedom. Yet Critique of Everyday Life aimed to get inside both<br />
systems, expose their pitfalls, journey beyond them. “It is ludicrous<br />
to define socialism solely by the development of the productive<br />
forces,” <strong>Lefebvre</strong> writes. “Economic statistics cannot answer the<br />
question: ‘What is socialism?’ Men do not fight and die for tons<br />
of steel, or for tanks and atomic bombs. They aspire to be happy,<br />
not to produce.” 18 They aspire to be free, not to work—or else to<br />
work less. Thus, Arthur Rimbaud’s provocative plea of the “right<br />
to be lazy” is a right socialism needed to reconcile. 19 Changing<br />
life, inventing a new society, can be defined only, <strong>Lefebvre</strong> says,<br />
“concretely on the level of everyday life, as a system of changes in<br />
what can be called lived experience.” 20 But here, too, lived experience<br />
was changing in advanced capitalist countries; it was under<br />
fire from forces intent on business and market expansion, producing<br />
fast cars and smart suburban houses, consumer durables and<br />
convenience food, processed lives and privatized paradises.<br />
As such, everyday life possessed a dialectical and ambiguous<br />
character. On the one hand, it’s the realm increasingly colonized<br />
by the commodity, and hence shrouded in all kinds of mystification,<br />
fetishism, and alienation. “The most extraordinary things<br />
are also the most everyday,” <strong>Lefebvre</strong> quips, reiterating Marx’s<br />
comments on the “fetishism of commodities” from Capital 1; “the<br />
strangest things are often the most trivial.” 21 On the other hand,<br />
paradoxically, everyday life is a primal arena for meaningful<br />
social change—the only arena—“an inevitable starting point for<br />
the realization of the possible.” 22 Or, more flamboyantly, “everyday<br />
life is the supreme court where wisdom, knowledge and power<br />
are brought to judgment.” 23 Nobody can get beyond everyday life,<br />
which literally internalizes global capitalism, just as global capitalism<br />
is nothing without many everyday lives, lives of real people<br />
in real time and space. <strong>Lefebvre</strong> is adamant that a lot of Marxists<br />
held a blinkered notion of class struggle, a largely abstract and<br />
10
Change language