Henri Lefebvre: A Critical Introduction - autonomous learning

p r e F a c e
postcards mailed from Algeria, Greece, Italy, Brazil, and Spain—
all bear Lefebvre’s typical cursive: free flowing and fast paced,
spread frantically and unevenly across the page. His pace mimics
both political mood and personal circumstance. They confide in
each other. “Mon cher vieux Norbert,” many of Lefebvre’s letters
begin, affectionately. “I would love to know what you’re doing,
and how you live in America.” Lefebvre bemoans his dire family
situation during the Occupation, his penury after the peace, his
struggles to find a steady teaching job, his latest love: Evelyne,
Nicole, Catherine, whose own letters crop up in the archive. “I
spend my time,” explains Evelyne to Norbert, “typing what Henri
has feverishly written to earn us a few sous.”
In another letter, dated October 18, 1977, Lefebvre said, “I
almost forgot to tell you that Catherine [Regulier] and me are
making a book together: a series of philosophical and political
dialogues between a very young woman and a monsieur who
has no more than a youthfulness of heart.” The eventual text, La
révolution n’est pas ce qu’elle était (1978)—“the revolution isn’t
what it used to be”—expressed Lefebvre’s open-ended, inventive
Marxist spirit, which continually updated itself as society updated
itself. It’s a spirit we can still tap. Indeed, as the sclerosis of our
body politic hardens to the point of apoplexy, we need, perhaps
more desperately than ever, not only a new Popular Front but also
a certain monsieur’s “youthfulness of heart.”
* * *
Henri Lefebvre: A Critical Introduction tries to resuscitate the
sweeping style and youthful spirit of Henri Lefebvre, metaphilosopher,
bon vivant, utopian. In what follows, I consider the man, his
work, and his ideals and bring each to bear on a culture that seems
intent on throwing itself down a deep and dark abyss. His heterodox
Marxist rigor, his optimism of the intellect as well as the will,
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