Henri Lefebvre: A Critical Introduction - autonomous learning

M y s t i F i e d c o n s c i o U s n e s s
can fall prey to ideologues and fascists who speak for “us,” for a
community based around nationhood and patriotism. In this regard,
he knows how a false and forced unity produces what Nietzsche
called a “herd mentality,” a glorification of mediocrity, a tyranny
of the majority in which individual liberties are denied and suppressed.
On the other hand, Lefebvre recognizes that as capitalism
deepens and promotes its phony spirit of individuality, as people get
divided around class, and as money mediates their lives, abstract
falsehoods increasingly become voluntary and instinctive, “sacred”
truths nobody recognizes as myths, let alone the mythmakers.
Those who espouse a private consciousness, who flaunt it,
who believe it as gospel, are, Lefebvre says, not only mystified and
deluded but also more susceptible to cults of personality, to demagogues
who promise to uphold individual liberty while secretly
plotting to take it away. Lefebvre sniffs out Dostoevsky’s “Grand
Inquisitor” from The Brothers Karamazov: “Today, people are
more persuaded than ever that they are completely free,” says the
Grand Inquisitor, “yet they have brought their freedom to us and
laid it humbly at our feet.” 24 People are apparently prepared to
forsake their freedom in return for (national) security and happiness.
They are, says the Grand Inquisitor, willing to entrust their
consciences to the “captive powers” of three formidable forces:
“miracle, mystery and authority.”
Ironically, as Lefebvre sees it, in societies where individualism
and market reification reign, an “opium of people” will flourish.
A private consciousness deprived of the means to comprehend
critically the broader social and political context of its own consciousness
will always be manipulable and vulnerable to modernday
Grand Inquisitors. Furthermore, “religion is longer the unique
‘opium’ of the people,” he says, “granted one tries by every means
to augment the consumption of this product; there are other poisons,
even more virulent; there are also circus wars and fascist
buffoons. And, moreover, there are more circuses than bread. …
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