法国历史France Between 1950 and 1960

What Happened in France Between 1950 and 1960

We are now in a position to answer this question in greater detail though we wish to make it quite clear that our concern is neither with matters of State and administration, with strictly urban problems, nor with the (incomplete) control that trade has achieved by influencing the consumer; it is better to leave such matters to the economist, though we refute economism by a radical analysis.

a) There is a contrast, almost a contradiction, between cyclic and linear (rational) time and, more specifically, between cumulative (social) and

non-cumulative processes. Marx's theory of accumulation must be brought up to date, for in DaS Kapital and connected works it is based on the history of England and Western Europe alone, whereas in the past century new facts have come to light. Thus there are other things besides capital that are subject to accumulation: for instance knowledge, techniques and even, to a certain extent, populations, though here opposing tendencies check or arrest the process; memory is a typical process of accumulation and therefore an essential component of mechanisms that materialize and technicalize such a process. But everyday life is not cumulative. In a society, physical habits alter from one generation to another, gestural conventions change, intentional physical expressions (serving as a means of communication) such as mimicry, gestures, grimaces, are modified, but the structure of bodies does not change. Physiological and biological needs and their corresponding achievements are shaped by styles, civilizations and cultures; means of satisfying and frustrating such needs evolve and, in so far as they are physiological and biological, these deficiencies and activities show a certain stability that might suggest the presence of a 'human nature' and a progressive continuity. Emotions and feelings change but they are not stored up;neither are aspirations. The number of calories required by an American millionaire and a Hong Kong coolie is identical, the coolie if anything

requiring more than the millionaire. Physical performances, erotic achievements, the time required for growing up or growing old and natural fertility oscillate on a relatively limited scale. The number of objects that a person can actually use in a lifetime cannot increase indefinitely. In short the effects of accumulation on everyday life are superficial though they cannot be completely eliminated. Everyday life, when it changes, evolves according to a rhythm that does not coincide with the time of accumulation and in a space that cannot be identified with that of cumulative processes. Thus an illusion is created of the unbroken continuity of houses, buildings and cities from the oriental town of proto-history down to the present day . . .

However, a society loses all cohesion if it cannot re-establish its unity; that is why modern society tries to control the changes that take place in everyday life. The depreciation of goods and 'fashions' is accelerated by the process of accumulation; mental fatigue sets in at shorter and shorter intervals till it overtakes that of machines, technical appliances, etc.; our society seems to be heading for disaster and self-destruction while war maintains peace here and there by various methods.i Everyday life is preserved in mediocrity or it must perish (violently or otherwise, but always under compulsion).

Thus the conflict between accumulation and non-accumulation is resolved in the methodical subordination of the latter and its organized destruction by a rationality bordering on the absurd but excelling in the manipulation of people and things.

b) Remarkable changes have taken place in the semantic field considered as a whole (that is, the whole of society as the theatre where meaning is enacted in various specific contexts). Symbols had been prominent in this field for many centuries, symbols derived from nature but containing definite social implications. However, in the early stages of our civilization there was a perceptible shift from

symbols to signs as the authority of the written word increased, and especially after the invention of the printing press. Today a further shift, from signs to signals, is taking place, if it has not already happened. Though the signal figures in the semantic field together with the symbol and the sign, it diners from these in that its only significance is conventional, assigned to it by mutual agreement; in this respect it can be compared to certain signs such as letters that compose articulated units (words and monomials) but that are otherwise meaningless. The signal commands, controls behaviour and consists of contrasts chosen precisely for their contradiction (such as, for instance, red and green);furthermore, signals can be grouped in codes (the highway code is a simple and familiar example), thus forming systems of compulsion.

This shift to signals in the semantic field involves the subjection of the senses to compulsions and a general conditioning of everyday life, reduced now to a single dimension (re-assembled fragments) by the elimination of all other dimensions of language and meaning such as symbols and significant contrasts. Signals and codes provide practical systems for the manipulation of people and things, though they do not exclude other more subtle means. If we try to figure out how the 'new man' uses his memory, we shall see that he must register once and for all each action, gesture andword of 'another' as though these were signals. What a terrifying vision of future humanity this image conjures up!

c) The redirecting of creative energy from works of art to shows and displays of reality (the cinema, television) has notable implications. 'Displays of reality' have become a display trade and a display of trade offering a perfect example of a pleonasm, though such redundancy is seen as a satisfactory stability (feed-back) by the rationalists of organization. The result, however, is a fairly vivid awareness of creative impotence and of the deceptive nature of a form of consumption that takes no account of styles and of the achievements of the past. The natural outcome of this situation was an attempt to compensate ideologically for these shortcomings;

whence the theory of 'participation' followed by the theory of 'creativity'. Former certainties fail that were related to a content (real or apparent). Form without content is deceptive, though it is accepted as 'pure' form and thus assumes the role of structure; but none the less the sense of a loss of substance prevails, a tragic sense more pregnant than the 'disenchantment' with rationality that Max Weber (who still had faith in rationality) analysed. Where did the sense of substantiality of former ages come from? Was it from nature or from the apparent uniqueness of so many things and the consequent value attached to them? From tragedy and death, or from style and the ethics of art as the substantial mediator of form? We may well ask!

d) Before the Second World War there were still traces of an older society surviving in France and elsewhere in Europe. Industrial production had not yet swamped and absorbed the remains of peasant production and crafts; villages still thrived and the countryside surrounded the town even in industrial countries;the legacies of pre-capitalism had not yet been set aside as folk-lore (nor exhibited as such for tourist consumption); industrial products co-existed with the products of rural crafts. Such objects possessed a symbolic value that was already outdated, and contradictory into the bargain; some stood for what was rare and valuable (jewels, ornaments, etc.); others represented riches and profusion in the midst of penury: thus the massive cupboard or sideboard, the cumbersome double-bed, the long looking-glass or the grandfather clock rdflected an almost mythological past and became status symbols for the aristocracy and and the middle classes alike;and the same could be said of buildings.These superimposed strata of variously dated objects lost their sentimental value in the period we are discussing through the intervention of a form of capitalism that organized and controlled consumption and the distribution of so-called durable consumer goods.In other words sometimes known as 'material culture',eliminating the residue of these strata.The apparent exceptions were works of art and styles of high or low periods;objects bearing the mark of creation were reserved for the 'élite',a special market and a specific branch of production (copies and imitations of original works ) taking charge.ii

i We shall come across the notion of obsolescence again further on.

ii The Critique de la vie quwtidienne in its projected design was to have formed a triptych with 'Mystified Conscience' and 'Frustrated Conscience'.Conscience has not ceased to be frustrated,but today we can add to the theory of individualism (of contacts and communication) a new claim:the right to solitude,to privacy and to escape from contemporary terrorisms.As to the mystificaion,it has

spread;furthermore the term has permeated even journalism;and

lastly,ideologists,now over-selfconscious,present ideology as non-ideological and as a safeguard against mystifications('pure' science,advanced culture,etc.);which accounts for our discarding the project.

Everyday life in the modern world An Inquiry, and Some Discoveries

Translated by Sacha Rabinovitch With a New Introduction by Philip Wander .Philip Wander is professor of communication studies,San Jose University.

Translation of :La vie quotidienne dans le monde moderne