Changing the world

If you want to change the world, you must first interpret the world, for if you don’t know what you want to change and why, in what way then would you change it? But once you have found a good reason to change the world and once you have a good theory that describes what is wrong in the world the next step consists of the practical measures to implement the changes considered necessary. In short this is the problem we face in this world that is threatened by a serious climate crisis, a crisis that is so serious that it could mean the end of the human civilization as it is. This is why these days world climate conferences are organised and why national governments and international agencies are developing plans of measures to fight against the global warming and have started to execute these plans. However, as Henri Lefebvre has made clear, changes cannot be brought about without penetrating into everybody’s everyday life. For if everyday life doesn’t change and if not everybody – or at least most of us– cooperates with the measures proposed from above and acts in accordance with them, so if the measures that attack the threat of the climate change do not penetrate into what everybody every day does, in the end climate plans will be frustrated and thus fail.
In the past, the churches have understood the importance of everyday life and their power was based on this understanding. They “created both a ceremonial external to the human, an official sumptuousness, an extra-national state, an abstract theory; and on the other hand, a psychological and moral technique of extreme finesse and precision. In every act, however small, of immediate life, religion may be present; in the ‘interiorised’ form of a rite or in the external form of a priest who listens, understands, counsels, is moribund, or ‘forgives’ ”. (Lefebvre 2024, p. 262) Communist states tried the same and made a quasi-religious and political structure in order to penetrate the thoughts and actions of the people. Although they were more or less successful in building the required communist institutions, they didn’t succeed to penetrate everybody’s everyday life. Superficially they did, but in depth they failed and people secretly and sometimes openly found ways to circumvent an ideology that wasn’t theirs. In the end, this undermined the communist ideology and the communist practice and so toppled the communist states.
Today, climate activists and institutes and organisations that see the need and are actively trying to implement measures to stop and if possible to reduce the global warming that is clearly taking place face the same problem as once the churches and political ideologists and theoreticians faced: On the one hand they must present a science-based and credible theory of the need to fight global warming and on the other hand they must come with a good strategy to penetrate daily life. Although on a theoretical and scientific level the danger of global warming is well substantiated, as is the need to act as quickly and effectively as possible, still too many people don’t see the urgency to implement right now the measures needed. Moreover, too many politicians and others who are or should be involved in fighting global warming have hidden agendas behind their plans and measures; agendas that centre on power maintenance by paying lip service to the need to take measures, while in fact for these politicians these measures are only ways of maintaining their power instead of solving an urgent problem (while delaying or postponing measures that do the latter but not the former). Some politicians even deny the problem despite all evidence. But once enough people, especially people in strategic positions like politicians, have been convinced to act now, then the next question is how to take measures (and which measures) that penetrate daily life. One problem is mistrust of the government and other authorities (especially in authoritarian states but certainly not only there). Another problem is that even the right measures always will harm certain groups. Such measures can make that some groups feel themselves unjustly made responsible for what in fact is not their problem but the problem of society as a whole and of those who lived before them (and often they feel so with right); they may feel themselves even scapegoated. Even if they are compensated financially, this will not yet mean that they are also compensated psychologically, and just the latter is important for getting their support. Farmers are a case in point. Moreover, despite its urgency, climate measures must be balanced with other measures that are at least as important to keep life liveable; if not to say that even fast grinding mills grind slowly and that it takes time to penetrate everyday life, also in case of people of good will.
Is there a solution? There isn’t and there will not be if it is not realized that the transformation of life in the end involves the transformation of everyday life, not only superficially as among communism, but in its details. Moreover, people must not be forced but be convinced, but this is only possible if the changes needed are their own changes and not enforced changes. If humans do not create their own world, there will be no world. That’s what the past has taught us and that’s the challenge.

Source
Henri Lefebvre, Critique de la vie quotidienne. Édition intégrale. Montreuil: L’Arche, 2024; esp. pp. 262-4.