Tuesday, October 6, 2009

(a) If revolution - in other words, the radical transformation of society- cannot have as its goal and end either faster growth or a mere change of political personnel, it can only have as its goal and end the transformation of daily life.

(b) As has already been established on many occasions, this implies not zero growth or reduced growth, but different growth - that is to say, qualitative development, and hence a greater complexity, not a simplification, of social relations.

(c) This equally implies a different way of living, extending to the creation of a new social space, a different social time; the creation of a different mode of existence of social relations and different situations, liberated from models that reproduce the existing order.

(d) This also assumes a different form of thought, to be defined later. Let me say straight away: to be defined while taking account of the negative. The project is thus not to know or recognize daily life, in order to accept or affirm it as such in the name of positive knowledge, but on the contrary, to create it by controlling its ambiguity. Thus the project no longer consists in unfolding daily life to disclose what is concealed in it (first version of the Critique); or in an effort to transcend it (second version), but in a metamorphosis through action and works - hence through thought, poetry, love. Once we have obtained knowledge of it and defined it, we must leave it without hesitation before the risk we face: the risk of involvement. Daily life is simultaneously the arena and the total stake.

Excerpt taken from Henri Lefebvre's Conclusion of the 3rd volume of Critique of Everyday Life

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