Lefebvre’s Dialectics ofEveryday Life

Ben Highmore

ID 501 Advanced Product Development in Industrial DesignSpring 2012-2013

Deniz Ertürk

Dialectics

Alienation

La Féte

The capitalist determination of everyday life, commodification

“This is an excellent product”

Increasing effect of capitalism in contemparory France society

As a Marxist,Saw contemporary daily life as exploitative, oppressive relentlessly controlled

As a romantic,Sought energies within everyday that could be used to transform it.

“the commodity, the market, money, with their implacable logic, seize everyday life. The extension of capitalism goes all the way to the slightest details of life”

as a result,

“A revolution cannot just change the political personnel or institutions, it must change la vie quotidienne, which has been literally colonized by capitalism”

He developed his project in a transforming country of post-war period.

•The independence of colonies

•The immigration of different ethnicities from colonies(Inner ethnic/cultural transformation)

•The Amrecian dominancy in Imperialist system(Cultural and economic effect of USA on France)

Foundations

Surrealism

French Hegelian Marxism

Foundations

Progress to “total man” = end of history (No longer alienated)(Hegelian Marxism)

“other” of capitalist everyday = la féte (Surrealism)

The conflict between reaching for the ideal and nostalghy of past

La fétePrivilege creativity for the transformation of everyday life

Decline of the centrally organized society

Capitalist modernity

Standardizationof objects and workin everyday life

Intensification ofclass differences

Non-hierarchical playRight to difference

La féte(end of history)

transformation

Foundations

Everyday life = alienation

de-alienation of human being

Total person

La féte (festival)

Part of daily life, but the radical reconfiguring of daily life

Have the ability to overturn cultural values for revolutionary end

The overturning of established differences of class and gender(hierarchy)

-example of Potlatch

The denial of the ethnic or gendered differences for the purpose of universality is the problem of Hegelian philosophy.

It is impossible to conduct a cultural study with an approach which cultural differences are ignored.

That which repeat itselfconstantly

Everydaycycle

Long termcycle

work

leisure

holiday

camping trip

That which repeat itself constantly

the world of leisure is both a continuation of the alienation and its critique

“in the camping holiday, work and leisure are barely distinguishable, and everyday life in its entirety becomes play”

Reproduction of the workforce

Repetition of alienated every day life, commodification

“The possibility of transforming society via independent economic and political solutions is, for Lefebvre, not just a mistake but a fundamental misunderstanding of the revolutionary project.”

The USSR example failed to transform everyday life.

Hypermodernization

Lefebvre’s work as the renewal of Marxist framework

as a response to

Post-war Modernization of France

Hypermodenization

Similarities between Lefebvre’s work and post-modernist approach in the semiotics area.

Jameson’s “depthlessness” concept.Authenticity Irony

Lefbvre’s definiton of transformationSymbol Sign

Hypermodernization

Capitalist modernity did not stop and change its direction, in contrast, it increased its speed. It is still the main transforming factor of the society.

Lefebvre’s work takes this hypermodernization process as the basis of its explanation of the everyday life.

May 1968, urbanism and the situationists

The reflections of Lefebvre’s work in real life:1968 student and worker movemets

Similar approaches in art:Situationism, Surrealism

The drift for the unconciousness in the everyday life as the negation of the counciouss order of the alienation.

Situationist approach of urban dérive has a possible result of orientalism because of the ethnic and class differences. (Paris has its own local representations of global inequalities.)

Lefebvre:Gradual, reformist politicsAbstract discussions

Situationism:Total and immediate overthrow of presentPractice and activism

An unfinishable project

Everyday life event(a woman buying a pound of sugar)

defamiliarization

Social event with relations with its context(Her class, her job, her family, her opinions, the state of the market)

• Beyond the understanding of everyday life, Lefebvre’s approach also includes the aim of transforming it and looks for the dynamics of this transformation within the same daily practice. He tries to provide conciousness for these dynamics, which exist in everyday life unconciously and provide the end of alienation

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