WikiSource-notesCritique of Everyday Life

Critique of Everyday Life

Critique of Everyday Life

Author: Henri Lefebvre (trans. John Moore; foreword by Michel Trebitsch) Year: 1991 (Verso; orig. vol. 1 1947, vol. 2 1961) Source type: book Raw file: raw/books/lefebvre-1991-critique-of-everyday-life.md

Summary

Lefebvre's Critique of Everyday Life is the foundational work of his philosophy of the quotidian. It argues that everyday life — the sphere of daily work, leisure, family, and consumption — has been neglected by philosophy and left as a "residue" after specialized activities; under capitalism it is the locus of alienation but equally the potential site of critique and transformation. Lefebvre proposes a "critique of everyday life" grounded in Marxist categories and the notion of praxis, and the recuperation of a festive dimension ("the festival") against the administered, commodified everyday.

Key Claims

  • The everyday as residue and discovery: everyday life is "what is left over" after all distinct, superior, specialized, structured activities have been singled out for analysis — the meeting-ground of all activities, the sphere of lived experience. It has been systematically overlooked by philosophy, which privileged the extraordinary.
  • Alienation in the everyday: building on Marx's concept of alienation, Lefebvre shows that alienation is not confined to the factory but extends across daily life — labor, leisure, family, and consumption are all sites where the individual is alienated and managed ("the critique of everyday life" reveals this).
  • The "perspective" and praxis: Lefebvre advocates a "metaphilosophical" critique that returns to everyday life with a program of total, concrete humanization — the "realization of philosophy" in everyday practice (praxis), not merely contemplation.
  • The festival and the transformation of everyday life: against the impoverished, commodified everyday, Lefebvre holds up the model of the festival (the communal, transgressive, celebratory moment) as the image of a transformed everyday life — the overcoming of alienation through collective, embodied, lived experience.

Connections

Concepts: Everyday Life · Everyday Architecture · Consumerism · Ideology Authors: Henri Lefebvre Debates: (theory of the everyday) Related source notes: Everyday Life in the Modern World (Lefebvre 1971) · Toward an Architecture of Enjoyment (Lefebvre 2014)

Direct Quotes

"[E]veryday life is … what is left over after all distinct, superior, specialized, structured activities have been singled out for analysis." (the everyday as "residue")

"[T]he critique of everyday life … [is] oriented towards a radical transformation of alienation." (Lefebvre's program)

"Everyday life is profoundly related to all activities … it is their totality and their real ground."

Open Questions

  • Does Lefebvre's "festival" offer a workable model for resisting the commodified everyday (and the spectacular city), or is it recuperated into the leisure/experience economy he himself critiques?

Links to this page:

  1. Quiet Research Wiki
  2. Lefebvre, Henri
  3. Colonization of Everyday Life
  4. Consumerism
  5. Everyday Architecture
  6. Everyday Life
  7. Ideology
  8. Lebensweise (Mode of Life)
  9. Recuperation
  10. Right to the City
  11. The Everyday vs. Iconic Architecture
  12. Theories of the Everyday: Affirm, Transform, or Resist
  13. The Human Condition
  14. Everyday Life: The Transformation of the Meaning of Agency
  15. The Mirror of Production
  16. The Social Construction of Reality (Ch. 1–3)
  17. Cultural Phenomenology and the Everyday
  18. The Practice of Everyday Life
  19. Everyday Life
  20. Toward a Psychology of Everyday Living
  21. Toward an Architecture of Enjoyment
  22. The History of Everyday Life: Reconstructing Historical Experiences and Ways of Life
  23. Everyday life in the real world
  24. 'Everyday Life:' a sui generis ontology? Some considerations about Agnes Heller's theory of daily life
  25. Bourdieu and Marx: Practices of Critique
  26. Rethinking Everyday Life: And Then Nothing Turns Itself Inside Out
  27. Postmetropolis: Critical Studies of Cities and Regions
  28. Source Notes — Index
  29. Architecture in Everyday Life
  30. The Revolution of Everyday Life
  31. Semiotics and Hermeneutics of the Everyday
  32. Definitions of the Everyday: A Taxonomy
  33. The Everyday as the Site of Postcapitalist Desire
  34. Financialisation of Architecture
  35. How the Everyday Defeats Iconic Architecture
  36. Picnolepsy and the Everyday: Absence, the Infra-Ordinary, and the Continuity of the Quotidian
  37. The Quotidian and the Everyday: Synonym, Concept, or Modern Condition?
  38. The Historical Acceptance of “The Everyday” as a Concept in Modern Thought
  39. The History of the Everyday
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