The need for critical theory in everyday life: Why the tea parties have popular support

Peter Marcuse

City, 2010, vol. 14, issue 4, 355-369

Abstract: Everyday life is where the results of the social, economic and political systems in which we live are manifest and directly experienced—where the societal shapes and is shaped by the individual. The everyday exploitation, oppression and discontent created by the prevailing system meet many forms of progressive, system‐challenging resistance. Most can be absorbed from above by the system, using both formal repression and a pervasive acquiescence‐inducing manipulation of everyday life. The present economic crisis and the failure of traditional liberal responses open a crack in the efficacy of this manipulation through which new and dangerous resistance might emerge. One defensive response of the system to that danger is displacement: turning that resistance into neo‐conservative, right‐wing 'family values’‐oriented actions that counter system challenges from below. The tea parties in the USA are a prime example. The displacement operates both at the societal and ideological level and at the individual everyday and psychological level. If the displacement could be countered and redirected towards its actual causes, it might strengthen rather than conflict with progressive resistance.

Date: 2010
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DOI: 10.1080/13604813.2010.496229

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