Henri Lefebvre: A Critical Introduction - autonomous learning

s p o n t a n e i t y
various free spirits. All, however, are more likely to root for the
Zapatistas than for Karl Marx. The generational rift between these
two factions is apparent, as are their organization platforms and
ideological bases.
In such a context, Lefebvre shines as somebody who brought—
can still bring—together older socialists and younger protesters to
analyze the same problematic and to act on the street. The issues
he devoted himself toward haven’t, alas, been resolved: changing
life, changing society, the links between theory and praxis,
between spontaneity and planning, between attack and defense.
Lefebvre addressed these questions fifty years ago, and he can
continue to help ferment the kind of oppositional lingua franca
needed today, especially to move along resistance against neoliberalism
and neoconservatism. Lefebvre thrived from creating
new ideas and fresh ways of seeing and reinventing himself. Each
reinvention built on an already accomplished body of work, yet
took it further, propelled it onward; sometimes it tore it down, set
it ablaze; frequently his notions combusted spontaneously. He was
animated by the thought of “explosion,” by something abrupt and
sudden, by an event or practice unforeseen and unplanned. Indeed,
explosive metaphors are writ large in Lefebvre’s œuvre: he reveled
in “detonation,” in blowing things up, in stirring up magic potions
that fizzle and create bubbles. The metaphor equally says a lot
about his own explosive and impulsive character, about why he
was and remains a dangerous thinker.
* * *
In the thirty years prior to the 1960s, Lefebvre believed radicalism
all but extinct. Economic growth, material affluence, a world war
and a cold war had destroyed, absorbed, bought off, and won over
many intellectuals of his generation. Ghettoized or brainwashed,
they either died off or killed themselves off, lost themselves or
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