Construction of Space in Unfolding of Social Life - Essay Example

Henri Lefebvre and the Construction of Space Is Lefebvre right to suggest that the construction of space plays a pivotal role in theunfolding of social life? Henri Lefebvre was born in I90I in Hagetmau in the Pyrenees: a region that was his site of sociological enquiries into rural and peasant societies. After having graduated from the University of Paris in I920, he joined the philosophies group that aimed at seeking a philosophical revolution. Lefebvre found himself in a dilemma state as his mother was purely Catholic and his father was urbanely anticlerical, a situation that critically gave room to his way of thinking and considering the world around him. The First World War and the Russian revolution shaped his intellectual consciousness and political will, leading to the invocation of the production of space; the space of common sense, social practice, political power and that of knowledge enshrined in everyday life (Lefebvre, (1991 [1974]) Lefebvre played a great deal in his writings that shade light into the understanding of the production of space that was meant to change the way life was viewed. When talking of creating a social space, in his mind Lefebvre imagined of how different entities could be stationed at different places but create a reasonable interrelationship with a common goal of modernizing the world. Lefebvre talked of four categories of space: in the first space, he talked about the fabrication of daily life that included the people and the simple things around them. In the second space, Lefebvre talks about how boundaries are put around routine pathways of interaction but in the real sense figuring out the dynamic state of boundaries. Third space is that of the image space that creates a form of imaginations and having different sizes and shapes. Lastly, the place space that act as a vital actor in bringing up lives and showing the hidden facts around us. According to Zieleniec, A. (2007), social life refers to the interpersonal relationship in an individual, which is created by the interaction between the environment and the activities of human nature. The creation of space has greatly influenced the modern society into a full working and coordinating entities. Lefebvre came to realize his own world after noticing the gap between his own societies starting from the religious separation of his parents. Several spaces are created every day and the need to reconcile them knocks the minds of philosophers leading to enormous understanding of live issues and translations on the meaning of human nature and the world revolution. The human mind is meant to act concisely in need hence necessity becomes the mother of innovation. As the world evolves, new things are put in place and the lifestyle tends to change in order to suit the environment. Looking at the facts of life, space mentors the social life through improving the welfare and unity among citizens of a given society. The effort put by an individual will determine the development of a society in terms of education, living standards, foreign coordination and growth of the economy. In his writings. Lefebvre figured out how to reconcile the mental space and the real space, which includes the social and physical sphere. Life cannot exist in absence of physical contact of with real world hence the creation of space bridges the gap between realms of theory and practice, mental and social, and that between philosophy and reality. It is a fact that everything done on the surface is first thought critically, planned, drawn and then encoded to the actual meaning on the ground. All these mental and physical processes borrows their successfulness through literature, art, economics and architecture thus providing reasonable ground for social unfolding (Lefebvre, H. (2008/1991 [1947]). Development and devolutions worldwide have seen the range of urbanization rise as well as the ratio of human race which in the long run have triggered the restructuring of modern technology to accommodate the high rate of demand to comfortable and secure life. On the other hand, Simmel, G. (1997 [1903]) suggests that the human survival aspect is dependent on the capacity for social living whereby there is a form of dependence in one another suggesting this to be the condition in which we are adapted to best. Through durable relationships, both our bodies and minds act positively and without positivity, then the social wellbeing is demolished. The art of industrialization is purely viewed as the art of aesthetic: this is due to the fact that modern structures are placed at strategic locations creating a desired pattern which in reality depicts the lifestyle of a given class of people. The difference in capacity to do something leads to new societies being born in each revolutionary moment. For instance, the developed countries are far much ahead in terms of infrastructure, security matters, living standards and methods of combating unexpected disasters. Through the will to share ideas, implement them and consolidate the expected outcome, the social life continues to unmask and rapid change accompany the outcomes (Simmel, (1997 [1903]) Lefebvre contributed to the idea of formalism that is still widely used as an analyzing tool as well as providing the taste of historical episode. If the people in authority are enemies of formalism, then the meaning of space will be changed drastically to fit only a few leaving majority of the lower social life class in state of extinction. Lefebvre’s life evolved through strenuous hardships like spontaneous and practical confrontation, confrontation with the communist party, situationists, surrealists and that of his catholic faith but through the flexibility in personally confronting the situation, he was able to succeed in life and even create a great impact in the lives of the young and old. Life comes once in the human race and if not spent well, one goes without leaving anything admirable or reasonable to be followed and mentored into the young generation. Lefebvre lived in times of dictatorship, disasters, conspiracies and crises and through the efforts shown in his writings, one regains the hope to having a changed lifestyle though the society might seemingly be pointing to difficult times. The architecture of mainstreaming a given society is guided by what the society holds important in their survival. Lefebvre emphasized on the importance of being patient and very flexible when he quoted that human beings must set total solutions for themselves even in cases where there seemed to be no luck. The fact that human beings do not exist in advance; metaphysically, challenges the cognitive and psychomotor parts to act dependently in order to realize the hidden fact about nature (Massey, 2005) The culture and society we live in is as good as it gets, there is always something new emerging each day hence changing the face of the society. Other possibilities are available to be used as alternatives in opening and constructing of a new space. Anew dawn comes with new expectations hence everyday life is fragile and that its preciousness can be felt by living the day’s life to the fullest. Life starts from scratch and only thinking human mind can unfold it to make it real. All the things seen in modern society came as a result of intense thinking and practice. As we walk down the streets of life, we form our own small worlds that comprises of our own expectations. In Lefebvre’s lifetime, some of the things he did or saw made him realize that he had great potentialities like the passion for historical excavation when he deployed a participant observation approach (Massey, 2005) Lefebvre’s writings sounds relieving to the hopeless societies. It encourages the hopeless societies entangled in crises and disasters to bury the past life and concentrate in building the future because what has already happened cannot be reversed. Centering and crying for the lost bit never builds a society. On the other hand, Lefebvre concentrates in creating a more relaxed and faster thinking mind. Constructing a space for the mind and body to work has greatly influenced scientific researches that have seen new technologies evolve; like evolution of engineering technology, communication technology, crime combating and investigation technology and other fields as well as creating a state of relaxation. In the years to come, human beings will be highly sophisticated in social lives and the wellbeing of coordinating and reasoning from the same point highly regarded. The world lies on our hands and to the extent to which we exploit its resources. In Lefebvre, H. (2008/2002 [1961])’s critiques, though he argues that the construction of space plays a pivotal role in the unfolding of social life, to some extent the extremes at which this criteria works hampers the sustainability of livelihood. In most case the natural space has all been used up that even the limited national land segments have been sectioned off for individual benefits. We have evidently seen and heard of challenges posed by a few individuals within their countries that in turn affect the existence of other nations. In the instances of modernity and urbanization, several challenges have evolved and the cost of living keeps going high and higher each day. The creation of social classes has seen the world divided into numerous societies in relation to the ability to own the world and rule over the environment. Various activities have evolved due to the critical thinking of man, some have become beneficial but in the process affected lives indirectly. For instance, man was able to make enormous machines that can tackle heavy tasks at a short time, on the other side, the human labour power is reduced lowering the employment percentage. As the unemployment percentage increase, the level of poverty increase, the level of education goes down as well as the incidences of diseases and early deaths rise. These machines as well affect the naturality of the environment (Lefebvre, H. (1991 [1974]). Construction of space can give a lot of freedom and if that freedom is not controlled, the society develops fear and the little trust that existed therefore disappears. In the western and other developed countries, there has been increased cases of terrorism and wars between nations; a state that emerged from the fact that the countries fight to own something or to be recognized as to having a say over the others. This has led to evolution of sophisticated weapons including the biological weaponry, missiles and other threatening machineries. The freedom to act, the freedom to express one’s feelings, freedom to education and scientific research evolves with immediate consequences that directly or indirectly affect the social lives of people. The forms of social lives unfolded through space construction are of different categories and with different agendas. For instance, the scientific research and high levels of education in information technology has created a network of global terrorism (Lefebvre, (2008/2002 [1981]) This is a social class of its own kind but its aim is to rule the world by using hard and merciless ways, through killing the innocent and low class people who do not have a say in matters related to governance. They use highly sophisticated technology to make destructive tools that suit their target regardless of the environmental effects and depletion of the ecosystems. The other effect of space is the rate at which environmental resources are being utilized. The rate of resources exploitation is higher than that of replacement causing a worry on the environment’s ability to sustain life. Due to increased industrialization aimed at improving the welfare of human beings, some nations have been noted to emit large quantities of various form of wastes and even going to an extent of exporting the wastes to less developed nations in exchange under corruption circles. Though the space has been constructed to unfold the social lives, a few use their power invested in them by the poor citizens to enrich themselves without minding of what will happen to the future generations (Lefebvre, H. (2008/1991 [1947]). This fact has rounded up in line with considering capitalism as compared to space. It makes one imagine that nobody cares or is willing to make the four categories of space interact in a unified ratio manner to meet the societal expectation. If the spaces are working under different ways, then the need to unfolding social life is a far dead story (Lefebvre, H. (2008/2002 [1961]). In conclusion, in the rational view of space, Henri Lefebvre shows how the human mind through imagination and practice can deploy the methodologies available to unfold the social life. He clearly defines the need to concentrate in preserving the natural world around us to make the living aspect more meaningful and of benefit. All the forms of space known are essential to our livelihood hence none of the space can exist without the other nor can human beings exist without one another. From the writings, it is learnt that as one space comes into existence, another space is affected to some degree but the co-existence is the most treasured part. Every mode of production produces its own space in that the ancient world had its own specific practices that comprised its own space as well the modern world has come out with its own spatial practice hence making another new space. Change the society, change the lives of people still remains a thing to be figured out because rarely has the practice been achieved in the modern day society. References Lefebvre, H. (1991 [1974]) The Production of Space, trans. Donald Nicholson-Smith, Oxford: Blackwell (esp. Chapter 2) Lefebvre, H. (2008/1991 [1947]) Critique of Everyday Life - Volume I, trans. John Moore, London: Verso Lefebvre, H. (2008/2002 [1961]) Critique of Everyday Life: Foundations for a Sociology of the Everyday - Volume II, trans. John Moore and Gregory Elliott, London: Verso Lefebvre, H. (2008/2002 [1981]) Critique of Everyday Life: From Modernity to Modernism (Towards a Metaphilosophy of Daily Life) - Volume III, trans. John Moore and Gregory Elliott, London: Verso Massey, D. (2005) For Space, London: Sage (esp. Chapters 1, 14, and 15) Simmel, G. (1997 [1903]) The Sociology of Space, in Frisby, D. and Featherstone, M. (eds) Simmel on Culture: Selected Writings, trans. Mark Ritter and David Frisby, London: Sage, pp. 137-170 Zieleniec, A. (2007) Space and Social Theory, London: Sage (esp. Chapters 2 and 3) Read More