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Cultural hegemony is a concept coined by Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci. It means that a diverse culture can be ruled or dominated by one class in part through common sense, that everyday practices and shared beliefs provide the foundation for complex systems of domination.
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Gramsci's theory of hegemony
Further recessions and contradictions would then spark the working class to overthrow capitalism in a revolution, restructure the economic, political, and social institutions on rational socialist models, and begin the transition towards an eventual communist society. In Marxian terms, the dialectically changing economic base of society would determine the cultural and political superstructure.
Although the analysis of cultural domination was first advanced in terms of economic classes, it can be applied more broadly. Gramsci's analysis suggested that prevailing cultural norms should not be viewed as "natural" or "inevitable". Rather, cultural norms - including institutions, practices, beliefs - should be investigated for their roots in domination and their implications for liberation.
Gramsci did not contend that hegemony was either monolithic or unified. Instead, hegemony was portrayed as a complex layering of social structures. Each of these structures has its own “mission” and internal logic that allows its members to behave in a way that is different from those in different structures. Yet, as with an army, each of these structures assumes the existence of other structures and by virtue of their differing missions, the different structures are able to coalesce and produce a larger structure that has a larger overall mission. This larger mission usually is not exactly the same as the mission for each smaller structure, but it assumes and subsumes them. Hegemony works in the same manner. Each person lives his/her life in a way that is meaningful in the setting in which each person exists, and, to this person, the different parts of society may seem to have little in common with him. Yet taken as a whole, each person’s life also contributes to the larger hegemony of the society. Diversity, variation, and freedom will seem to exist, since most people see what they believe to be a plethora of different circumstances, but they miss the larger pattern of hegemony created by the coalescing of these circumstances. Through the existence of small and different circumstances, a larger and layered hegemony is maintained yet not fully recognized by many of the people who live within it.1
In such a layered hegemony, individual common sense, which is fragmented, is effective in helping people deal with small, everyday activities. But common sense also inhibits their ability to grasp the larger systemic nature of exploitation and hegemony. People focus on immediate concerns and problems rather than focusing upon more fundamental sources of social oppression.2
Influence of Gramsci
Although leftists may have been the primary users of this conceptual tool, the activities of organized conservative movements also draw upon the concept. This was seen, for instance, in evangelical Christian efforts to capture local school boards in the U.S. during the 1990s, and thus be able to dictate curriculum. Patrick Buchanan, in a widely discussed speech to the 1992 Republican Convention, used the term "culture war" to describe political and social struggle in the United States.
Theory about hegemonic culture has profoundly influenced Eurocommunism, the social sciences, and activist strategies. In social science the application of the concept of hegemony in the examination of major discourses (as by Michel Foucault) has become an important aspect of sociology, political science, anthropology, and other cultural studies. In education the concept has led to the development of critical pedagogy.
Influence in contemporary political analysis
Cultural hegemony continues to be a widely applied model in political analysis. For example, an analysis of US political power from 1932-2006 speaks to the dynamics of both class struggle and cultural hegemony. In this view, the surge in trade union membership in the 1930s helped create a massive political base for the Democratic Party, one which declined but persisted largely until 1980.
The preceding analysis shows both material forces in play (such as class and capital), but also a cultural politics, in which ruling interests seek to find emotional issues with which shift worker loyalties from social programs to those which benefit the largest corporations.
See also
- Cultural imperialism
- Dominant ideology
- Hegemony
- Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy
- Nicos Poulantzas
- Political consciousness
- Posthegemony
- Southern strategy
- The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere
- James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (1990 - contest Gramscian notion of "hegemony" through the concept of "hidden transcript" opposed to "public transcript")
References
- ^ Gramsci, A. (1992) Prison Notebooks. New York : Columbia University Press, pp.233-38
- ^ Stuart Hall, “The problem of ideology: Marxism without guarantees,” Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies, eds. David Morley and Kuan-Hsing Chen, London: Routledge, 1996; Dennis Hart, "From Tradition to Consumption: Construction of a Capitalist Culture in South Korea, Jimoondang Press, 2003.
External links
Books
- Lenny Flank, Hegemony and Counter-Hegemony: Marxism, Capitalism, and Their Relation to Sexism, Racism, Nationalism, and Authoritarianism'. St Petersburg, Florida: Red and Black Publishers, 2007. ISBN 978-1-9791813-7-5.