Study On Henri Lefebvre’s Critique Of Everyday Life Theory

Henry Lefebvre is a famous western Marxist. His critique of everyday life theory created a different style. We didn’t pay attention to his thoughts when he is alive for some reasons. After he died, especially in recent years, international academic community raised a research climax on his theory. In China, Henri Lefebvre is a "familiar stranger" to people. We are familiar with his name, but we are unknown to his thoughts.This essay attempts to find the origin of his critique of everyday life theory and analyses the concept of "everyday life". Then it makes the theoretical logic clear and points out its contribution and limitation. Based on young Marx’s thoughts about human liberation, affected by surrealism and humanism, Lefebvre formed his critique of everyday life theory when he critiqued the dogmatism and fascism. Lefebvre thought everyday life is negative, but it contained the important factor of liberation and people needed achieve the everyday life totally through the criticism of everyday life. At first he started his theory on the enlarged Marx’s alienation concept, and then he pointed out that there was very serious alienation in the field of everyday life, and that alienation made the modern consumer society develop into a terrorism society-The Bureaucratic Society of Controlled Consumption. He pointed out that we must carry out a permanent and total cultural revolution in such a society to get rid of the dull life and to return to the everyday life of the stylization and diversification, finally to achieve people’s freedom and liberation. Lefebvre explored a way of liberation for the people who lived in contemporary society from a new perspective. This makes an important contribution to the academy. However, the weakness of his theory is the ideal romanticism and dense utopia emotion.