Tuesday, 20 October 2015
Session Four: Marxist Thinking
This reading is the chapter 'Social Space' pages 68-80. This material should be downloadable via your booklist on moodle (and as of now, the Paul Mason chapter 'The Rational Reason for Panic' is also available this way).
Before you panic yourselves at the mention of Marxism, just remember that it is just the materialist interrogation of words and their meanings that is the project here, and that interrogation (not a pleasant word but an appropriate one) we begin to read ideologies that lie hidden beneath appearances. Take the word 'home'. The media is rife with the screaming need for 'homes', but as we saw with Dave Hickey (and with Will Self!) the word 'home' has particular connotations. Really what can only be provided is 'houses' or perhaps 'accommodations'. 'Homes' smacks of advertising!
I read this segment each year and whilst it's a bit of a struggle I always get something more out of it. In particular it is the difference between 'work' and 'product' that is talked through here, and this should shine some light on discussions you no doubt find yourself having all the time about the value of technology (or for that matter the value of human labour) which is highly pertinent to architectural production.
If English is your second language, you may find this stuff even more difficult, but feel for the translator who had to convert it from the original French! In your reading, when the going gets tough, I would recommend searching 'short cuts' via the web to get some background on how to situate Lefebvre, and the best background of all, if you are stuck with the idea of Marxism in the first place, is to read Marxism for Beginners, a cheap cartoon book by Ruis which is an invaluable springboard to an investigation such as this one.
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