Summary: The guest this week is the blogger, artist, philosopher and musician Jon Meade and we discuss how Henri Lefebvre's book The Production of Space is significant reading in this Late Capitalist moment. However, this episode is also an audio collage. It starts with a conversation with my son Benjamin about The Production of Space in video games, moves from there to a conversation with Ben, Simon and Noah (my three sons) about Jim Henson's experimental television program The Cube, and only then does Jon Meade starts to pipe in as well. This episode is a mash up. I want to thank Jason H and Daniel L for donating to the podcast and let you both know that copies of my book, Wave of Mutilation, will be in the mail very soon. Jason H has already been waiting for over a week. I welcome donations, and subscribing to the podcast will also make you a member of the Diet Soap Philosophy Workshop. Right now there are 16 members of the workshop, although attendance varies. I would certainly welcome four or even five more people aboard, and we're not too far into the Phenomenology of Spirit yet so you could all probably catch up pretty quickly. I should point out that I've started blogging over at my own website again, over at douglaslain.com, and that I'll be blogging for Tor.com again in the weeks to come. You can find my Facebook page, I'm the douglaslain in Portland Oregon, follow me on twitter my handle is douglain (and that's L A I N), find me on linked in, check out my dormant Google plus account, see one or two pictures I posted on Instagram, StumbleUpon me, or just send me an email to tell me what a Netlog is. Again, the guest this week is Jon Meade, however along with Meade you'll hear a clip of singer Eli Mattson performing his own unique cover version of the song My Favorite Things, that's at the 35 minute mark. --- Essay on Henri Lefebvre from Thought Catalog: Henri Lefebvre’s 1974 book The Production of Space argues against the concept of empty or geometric space and in favor of social space. He was a committed Marxist and his idea that space is never truly empty but always filled in or mediated is perhaps just a philosophical refinement of the argument against neutrality or objectivity. Howard Zinn often commented that “one can never be neutral on a moving train” and by this he meant that he, as an historian, could never be objective but was always implicated in the struggle that is history. Lefebvre went a step beyond this observation by suggesting that reality or space itself was bound up in the same historical struggle. Lefebvre’s book argued against the objective world but did not posit a relative of subjective world in its place. What Lefebvre was seeking was a way to conceive of space itself as Howard Zinn. The back cover blurb for his book explains his project this way: The production of space is a search for a reconciliation between mental space (the space of the philosophers) and real space (the physical and social spheres in which we all live). To get a firm grip on what Lefebvre was attempting is to risk depoliticizing his work. We have to consider his work from within the realm metaphysics and to consider his argument within this realm risks reestablishing the dominance of the very “mental space” that Lefebvre is attempting to transcend. Still, if we are to understand his ideas rather than hold to them in a vulgar act of politics then we must risk what might be considered a move toward idealism. [Read More at Thought Catalog]
