Lefebvre characterises functionalism as a version of structuralism that reduces everything to a function and cannot think of anything as not having a function. Functionalism “eliminates critical thought” and is a “technocratic ideology” (199). Functionalism is an extreme form of what Horkheimer (1947/2004) characterises as instrumental reason. It is a mode of thinking that suggests that everything is an instrument of something else. Functionalism is an extreme form of what Lukács (1971) terms reified consciousness. It reduces the world to the status of things and instruments. Lefebvre (CEL2) writes that everyday life has no function (199), which is why functionalism cannot explain it. Functionalism is an ideology of control that has no place for the unforeseen and the marginal (202). Lefebvre’s critique implies that functionalism is an intellectual form of totalitarianism.
Lefebvre (CEL2, 232–244) stresses the importance of practices in everyday life and society. He distinguishes between ideological practices, specific practices related to professions and skills, inventive/creative practices, repetitive practices, political practices, knowledge practices, partial revolutionary practices, and total revolutionary practices. Lefebvre stresses that practices are not just economic production but extend into all realms of society, including politics, culture, and technology. For Lefebvre, practices constitute totality. He therefore says that praxis is the “total field” (276).
5.2.2 Base/Superstructure, Material/Non-Material, Economic/Non-Economic
There are formulations in Critique of Everyday Life that make it appear like Lefebvre like orthodox Marxism assumes that that the economy forms the material base and politics and culture the non-material superstructure. He speaks of “the economic base (the productive forces) and the apex (the ideological and political superstructures)” (CEL2, 34). The everyday is “totality in action, it encompasses the base and the superstructure, as well as the interactions between them” (45).
Lefebvre speaks of “material production” and “non-material” production (236), “economic (material) production” (237). “Praxis encompasses both material production and ‘spiritual’ production” (237). He also writes that services are “non-material” forms of production in realms such as advertising, distribution, education, health, leisure, training, or transportation (236).
But it is also evident that Lefebvre is critical of the base/superstructure-model. He speaks of “the simplified scheme: ‘economic base – political superstructure’” as “impoverished” thought that “characterizes the Stalinist interpretation of Marxism” (CEL1, 52). This is also why Lefebvre speaks of “so-called” base and superstructure and often refers to both terms with quotation marks. For example, Lefebvre argues that “symbols, culture, representations and ideologies” are “so-called ‘superstructural’ elements” that “react on the ‘base’” (CEL2, 237). He speaks of “ideologies and ‘superstructures’” (236), “’base’ or ‘foundation’” (10).
Chapter Five | Communication in Everyday (Digital) Life
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Lefebvre’s Concept of Society