Cultural hegemony
In Marxist philosophy, cultural hegemony is the
In philosophy and in sociology, the denotations and the connotations of term cultural hegemony derive from the Ancient Greek word hegemonia (ἡγεμονία), which indicates the leadership and the régime of the hegemon.[4] In political science, hegemony is the geopolitical dominance exercised by an empire, the hegemon (leader state) that rules the subordinate states of the empire by the threat of intervention, an implied means of power, rather than by threat of direct rule—military invasion, occupation, and territorial annexation.[5][6]
Background
Historical
Part of a series on |
Marxism |
---|
In 1848,
To that end,
Political economy
As Marxist philosophy, cultural hegemony analyses the functions of economic class within the base and superstructure, from which Gramsci developed the functions of social class within the social structures created for and by cultural domination. In the practise of imperialism, cultural hegemony occurs when the working and the peasant classes believe and accept that the prevailing cultural norms of a society (the dominant ideology imposed by the ruling class) realistically describes the natural order of things in society.
In the war for position, the working-class
Social domination
Gramsci said that cultural and historical analyses of the "natural order of things in society" established by the dominant ideology, would allow common-sense men and women to intellectually perceive the social structures of bourgeois cultural hegemony. In each sphere of life (private and public) common sense is the intellectualism with which people cope with and explain their daily life within their social stratum within the greater social order; yet the limits of common sense inhibit a person's intellectual perception of the exploitation of labour made possible with cultural hegemony. Given the difficulty in perceiving the status quo hierarchy of bourgeois culture (social and economic classes), most people concern themselves with private matters, and so do not question the fundamental sources of their socio-economic oppression, individual and collective.[8]
Intelligentsia
To perceive and combat ruling-class cultural hegemony, the working class and the peasant class depend upon the moral and political leadership of their native intelligentsia, the scholars, academics, and teachers, scientists, philosophers, administrators et al. from their specific social classes; thus Gramsci's political distinction between the intellectuals of the bourgeoisie and the intellectuals of the working class, respectively, the men and women who are the proponents and the opponents of the cultural status quo:
Since these various categories of traditional intellectuals experience through an esprit de corps their uninterrupted historical continuity, and their special qualifications, they thus put themselves forward as autonomous and independent of the dominant social group. This self-assessment is not without consequences in the ideological and political fields; consequences of wide-ranging import. The whole of idealist philosophy can easily be connected with this position, assumed by the social complex of intellectuals, and can be defined as the expression of that social utopia, by which the intellectuals think of themselves as "independent" [and] autonomous, [and] endowed with a character of their own, etc.
— Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci (1971), pp. 7–8.[9]
The traditional and vulgarized type of the intellectual is given by the Man of Letters, the philosopher, and the artist. Therefore, journalists, who claim to be men of letters, philosophers, artists, also regard themselves as the "true" intellectuals. In the modern world,
technical education, closely bound to industrial labour, even at the most primitive and unqualified level, must form the basis of the new type of intellectual. . . . The mode of being of the new intellectual can no longer consist of eloquence, which is an exterior and momentary mover of feelings and passions, but in active participation in practical life, as constructor [and] organizer, as "permanent persuader", not just simple orator.— Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci (1971), pp. 9–10.[10]
After Gramsci
German student movement
In 1967, regarding the politics and society of West Germany, the leader of the
State apparatuses of ideology
In Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses (1970), Louis Althusser describes the complex of social relationships among the different organs of the State that transmit and disseminate the dominant ideology to the populations of a society.[13] The ideological state apparatuses (ISA) are the sites of ideological conflict among the social classes of a society; and, unlike the military and police forces, the repressive state apparatuses (RSA), the ISA exist as a plurality throughout society.
Despite the ruling-class control of the RSA, the ideological apparatuses of the state are both the sites and the stakes (the objects) of
- the religious ISA (the clergy)
- the educational ISA (the public and private school systems)
- the family ISA (patriarchal family)
- the legal ISA (police and legal, court and penal systems)
- the political ISA (political parties)
- the company union ISA
- the mass communications ISA (print, radio, television, internet, cinema)
- the cultural ISA (literature, the arts, sport, etc.)[14]
The parliamentary structures of the State, by which elected politicians exercise the will of the people also are an ideological apparatus of the State, given the State's control of which populations are allowed to participate as political parties. In itself, the political system is an ideological apparatus, because citizens' participation involves intellectually accepting the ideological "fiction, corresponding to a 'certain' reality, that the component parts of the [political] system, as well as the principle of its functioning, are based on the ideology of the 'freedom' and 'equality' of the individual voters and the 'free choice' of the people's representatives, by the individuals that 'make up' the people".[15]
See also
- Behavioral contagion – Spontaneous, unsolicited and uncritical imitation of another's behavior
- Collective action problem – Type of social dilemma
- Cultural capital – Concept of social status and social mobility
- Cultural conflict – Clash of beliefs or values
- Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (1990), by James C. Scott
- Focal point (game theory) – Concept in game theory
- Hegemonic masculinity – Concept in gender studies
- Hegemony and Socialist Strategy (1985), by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe
- Herd behavior – Behavior of individuals acting in a group
- "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses" (1970), by Louis Althusser
- Marxist cultural analysis – Anti-capitalist cultural critique
- Marx's theory of alienation – Social theory claiming that capitalism alienates workers from their humanity
- Nicos Poulantzas – Marxist political sociologist and philosopher (1936–1979)
- Organic crisis – scenario of complete instability of a system
- Passive revolution – Years-long change in political order, in Gramscian discourse
- Political consciousness
- Posthegemony – Concept in political philosophy
- Sheeple
- Social capital – Networks of relationships among people who live and work in a particular society
- Soft power – Concept developed by Joseph Nye
- Southern strategy – 20th century Republican electoral strategy for the Southern US
- Subaltern (postcolonialism) – Concept from critical theory and post-colonial studies
- The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society (1962), by Jürgen Habermas
References
- ^ Bullock, Alan; Trombley, Stephen, Editors (1999), The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought Third Edition, pp. 387–88.
- ^ The Columbia Encyclopedia, Fifth Edition. (1994), p. 1215.
- ISBN 9780226114477. Archivedfrom the original on 24 February 2023. Retrieved 7 October 2020.
Typically . . . the making of hegemony involves the assertion of control over various modes of symbolic production: over such things as educational and ritual processes, patterns of socialization, political and legal procedures, canons of style and self-representation, public communication, health and bodily discipline, and so on.
- ISBN 9780806182087. Archivedfrom the original on 24 February 2023. Retrieved 7 October 2020.
The more a hegemonic empire relies on power (the perception that one can enforce one's desired goals) rather than force (direct physical action to compel one's goals), the more efficient it is, because the subordinates police themselves.
- ^ Ross Hassig, Mexico and the Spanish Conquest (1994), pp. 23–24.
- ^ L. Adamson, Walter (2014). Hegemony and Revolution. Echo Point Books & Media.
- ^ Badino, Massimiliano (2020). Cultural Hegemony in a Scientific World. Brill.
- S2CID 144448154.
- ^ Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci (1971), Quentin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith, eds., pp. 7–8.
- ^ Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci (1971), Quentin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith, eds., pp. 9–10.
- ^ (PDF) from the original on 2020-07-16. Retrieved 2020-07-16.
- ^ Gramsci, Buttigieg, Joseph A (ed.), Prison Notebooks (English critical ed.), p 50 footnote 21, archived from the original on 2010-06-16,
Long March Through the Institutions21
- ISBN 9781781681640.
- ISBN 9781781681640.
- ^ Althusser, Louis (2014). On the Reproduction of Capitalism. London/New York: Verso. pp. 222–223.
Further reading
- Abercrombie, Nicholas; Turner, Bryan S. (June 1978). "The Dominant Ideology Thesis". The British Journal of Sociology. 29 (2): 149–70. JSTOR 589886.
- Anderson, Perry (1977). "The Antinomies of Antonio Gramsci" (PDF). New Left Review. No. 100. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-05-18.
- Beech, Dave; Andy Hewitt; Mel Jordan (2007). The Free Art Collective Manifesto for a Counter-Hegemonic Art. England: Free Publishing. OCLC 269432294.
- ISBN 1842772198
- Bullock, Alan; Trombley, Stephen, eds. (1999), The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought (3rd ed.).
- Flank, Lenny (2007). Hegemony and Counter-Hegemony: Marxism, Capitalism, and Their Relation to Sexism, Racism, Nationalism, and Authoritarianism. OCLC 191763227.
- OCLC 24009547
External links
- Gramsci (archive), Marxists.
- International Gramsci society.
- Gramsci, journal, AU: UOW, archived from the original on 2012-11-28, retrieved 2009-09-22.
- Rethinking Marxism.
- Rethinking Marxism: Association for economic & social analysis, EI Net, archived from the original (review) on 2013-02-21, retrieved 2009-09-22
- Gramsci, "Selections", Prison notebooks, Marxists.
- Gramsci, Prison notebooks, Marxists.