In these times of profound change and uncertainty, it’s easy to feel threatened and afraid. But change is also always an opportunity for new growth. I think the changes we are currently experiencing call for all of us to dig deep, and to reflect on our lives, our values, and our priorities. That is exactly the type of activity for which philosophy can serve as a guide. Today I’d like to talk about how Michel de Certeau’s idea of tactics for everyday life can serve as a guide during the uncertainty and turmoil we are currently experiencing. Following Certeau, I’d like to propose that everyday life is the sphere in which it is possible to practice resistance to the social and economic forces that inhibit our freedom and our ability to practice philosophy as a way of life.
further reading:
Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, p. xix: "I call a 'strategy' the calculus of force-relationships which becomes possible when a subject of will and power (a proprietor, an enterprise, a city, a scientific institution) can be isolated from an 'environment.' A strategy assumes a place that can be circumscribed as proper (propre) and thus serve as the basis for generating relations with an exterior distinct from it (competitors, adversaries, 'clientèles,' 'targets,' or 'objects' of research). Political, economic, and scientific rationality has been constructed on this strategic model.
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"I call a 'tactic'…a calculus which cannot count on a 'proper' (a spatial or institutional localization), nor thus on a borderline distinguishing the other as a visible totality. The place of a tactic belongs to the other. A tactic insinuates itself into the other’s place, fragmentarily, without taking it over in its entirety, without being able to keep it at a distance. It has at its disposal no base where it can capitalize on its advantages, prepare its expansions, and secure independence with respect to circumstances. The 'proper' is a victory of space over time. On the contrary, because it does not have a space, a tactic depends on time-it is always on the watch for opportunities that must be seized 'on the wing.' Whatever it wins, it does not keep. It must constantly manipulate events in order to turn them into 'opportunities.' The weak must continually turn to their own ends forces alien to them.…
Many everyday practices (talking, reading, moving about, shopping, cooking, etc.) are tactical in character. And so are, more generally, many 'ways of operating': victories of the 'weak' over the 'strong' (whether the strength be that of powerful people or the violence of things or of an imposed order, etc.), clever tricks, knowing how to get away with things, 'hunter’s cunning,' maneuvers, polymorphic simulations, joyful discoveries, poetic as well as warlike."
Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life, pp. 25-6: "Take, for example, what in France is called la perruque, 'the wig.' La perruque is the worker’s own work disguised as work for his employer. It differs from pilfering in that nothing of material value is stolen. It differs from absenteeism in that the worker is officially on the job. La perruque may be as simple a matter as a secretary’s writing a lover letter on 'company time' or as complex as a cabinetmaker’s 'borrowing' a lathe to make a piece of furniture for his living room….Accused of stealing or turning material to his own ends and using the machines for his own profit, the worker who indulges in la perruque actually diverts time (not goods, since he uses only scraps) from the factory for work that is free, creative, and precisely not directed toward profit. In the very place where the machine he must serve reigns supreme, he cunningly take pleasure in finding a way to create gratuitous products who sole purpose is to signify his own capabilities through his work and to confirm his solidarity with other workers or his family through spending his time in this way."