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'{{Short description|Marxist notion of cultural dominance}}[[File:Gramsci.png|thumb| The Marxist intellectual [[Antonio Gramsci]] (1891–1937) developed the theory of cultural hegemony to further the establishment of a working-class worldview.]] {{Marxism|expanded=Sociology}} In [[Marxist philosophy]], '''cultural hegemony''' is the [[Dominance hierarchy|domination]] of a culturally diverse society by the [[ruling class]] who manipulate the culture of that society—the [[belief]]s, [[explanation]]s, [[perception]]s, [[Value system|values]], and [[mores]]—so that their imposed, ruling-class [[worldview]] becomes the accepted cultural [[norm (sociology)|norm]]; the universally valid [[dominant ideology]], which justifies the social, political, and economic ''[[status quo]]'' as natural and inevitable, perpetual and beneficial for everyone, rather than as artificial [[Social constructionism|social constructs]] that benefit only the ruling class.<ref>Bullock, Alan; Trombley, Stephen, Editors (1999), ''The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought'' Third Edition, pp. 387–88.</ref><ref name = "TheColumbia">''The Columbia Encyclopedia'', Fifth Edition. (1994), p. 1215.</ref> In [[philosophy]] and in [[sociology]], the term ''cultural hegemony'' has denotations and connotations derived from the Ancient Greek word ''ἡγεμονία (hegemonia)'' indicating leadership and rule. In politics, [[hegemony]] is the geopolitical method of indirect [[Empire|imperial]] dominance, with which the ''hegemon'' (leader state) rules subordinate states by the threat of intervention, an implied means of [[Power (social and political)|power]], often [[soft power]], rather than by direct military force, that is, [[invasion]], [[Military occupation|occupation]], and [[annexation]].<ref>Ross Hassig, ''Mexico and the Spanish Conquest'' (1994), pp. 23–24.</ref> ==Background== ===Etymology=== The etymologic and historical evolution of the Greek word ''ἡγεμονία'', and of its denotations, has proceeded thus: * In [[Ancient Greece]] (8th c. BC – AD 6th c.), ''ἡγεμονία'' (leadership) denoted the politico–military dominance of a [[city-state]] upon other city-states, as in the [[League of Corinth|Hellenic League]] (338 BC), a [[federation]] of Greek city–states, established by King [[Philip II of Macedon]], to facilitate his access to and use of the Greek militaries against the [[Persian empire]].<ref name="TheColumbia" /> * In the 19th century, ''hegemony'' (rule) denoted the [[geopolitics|geopolitical]] and cultural predominance of one country upon other countries, as in the [[European colonialism]] imposed upon the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Australia.{{Sfn | Bullock | Trombley | 1999 | pp = 387–88}} * In the 20th century, the political-science denotation of ''hegemony'' (dominance) expanded to include [[cultural imperialism]]; the cultural domination, by a [[ruling class]], of a socially [[Social stratification|stratified]] society. That by manipulating the [[dominant ideology]] (cultural values and mores) of the society, the ruling class can intellectually dominate the other social classes with an imposed [[worldview]] (''Weltanschauung'') that ideologically justifies the social, political, and economic ''status quo'' of the society as if it were a natural and normal, inevitable and perpetual state of affairs that always has been so.<ref name="TheColumbia" /><ref>Clive Upton, William A. Kretzschmar, Rafal Konopka: ''Oxford Dictionary of Pronunciation for Current English''. Oxford University Press (2001)</ref><ref>''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]''</ref><ref>{{Citation|url=http://www.flagrancy.net/timeline.html|title=US Hegemony|publisher=Flagrancy|contribution = Timeline}}</ref> ===Historical=== In 1848, [[Karl Marx]] proposed that the [[economic recession]]s and practical contradictions of a capitalist economy would provoke the [[working class]] to [[proletarian revolution]], depose [[capitalism]], restructure social institutions (economic, political, social) per the rational models of [[socialism]], and thus begin the transition to a [[communist]] society. Therefore, the [[dialectics|dialectical]] changes to the functioning of the [[economy]] of a society determine its social [[Base and superstructure|superstructures]] (culture and politics). To that end, [[Antonio Gramsci]] proposed a ''strategic distinction'', between a War of Position and a War of Manœuvre. The war of position is an intellectual and cultural struggle wherein the [[anti-capitalist]] revolutionary creates a [[proletarian culture]] whose native value system counters the cultural hegemony of the [[bourgeoisie]]. The proletarian culture will increase [[class consciousness]], teach [[revolution]]ary theory and historical analysis, and thus propagate further revolutionary organisation among the social classes. On winning the war of position, socialist leaders would then have the necessary political power and popular support to begin the political [[maneuver warfare|manœuvre warfare]] of [[revolutionary socialism]]. The initial, theoretical application of cultural domination was as a Marxist analysis of "economic class" ([[base and superstructure]]), which Antonio Gramsci developed to comprehend "social class"; hence, cultural hegemony proposes that the prevailing cultural norms of a society, which are imposed by the ruling class ([[bourgeoisie|bourgeois cultural hegemony]]), must not be perceived as natural and inevitable, but must be recognized as artificial [[social construct]]s ([[institutions]], [[convention (norm)|practices]], [[beliefs]], et cetera) that must be investigated to discover their philosophic roots as instruments of social-class domination. That such praxis of knowledge is indispensable for the intellectual and political [[liberty|liberation]] of the [[proletariat]], so that workers and peasants, the people of town and country, can create their own [[working-class culture]], which specifically addresses their social and economic needs as social classes. In a society, cultural hegemony is neither monolithic intellectual praxis, nor a unified system of values, but a complex of [[Social stratification|stratified]] [[social structure]]s, wherein each social and economic class has a social purpose and an internal class-logic that allows its members to behave in a way that is particular and different from the behaviours of the members of other social classes, whilst co-existing with them as constituents of the society. As a result of their different social purposes, the classes will be able to coalesce into a [[society]] with a greater social mission. When a man, a woman, or a child perceives the social structures of bourgeois cultural hegemony, personal [[common sense]] performs a dual, structural role (private and public) whereby the individual person applies common sense to cope with daily life, which explains (to himself and to herself) the small segment of the [[social order]] stratum that each experiences as the ''status quo'' of life in society; "the way things are". Publicly, the emergence of the perceptual limitations of personal common sense inhibit the individual person’s perception of the greater nature of the systematic socio-economic [[exploitation of labour|exploitation]] made possible by cultural hegemony. Because of the discrepancy in perceiving the ''status quo''—the socio-economic hierarchy of bourgeois culture—most men and women concern themselves with their immediate (private) personal concerns, rather than with distant (public) concerns, and so do not think about and question the fundamental sources of their socio-economic [[oppression]], and its discontents, social, personal, and political.<ref>{{cite journal |doi= 10.1177/019685998601000203 |format= [[PDF]] |title= The Problem of Ideology — Marxism without Guarantees |year= 1986 |first= Stuart |last= Hall |authorlink= Stuart Hall (cultural theorist) |journal= Journal of Communication Inquiry |volume= 10 |issue= 2 |pages= 28–44 |url= http://www.ram-wan.net/restrepo/hall/The%20problem%20of%20ideology.pdf |citeseerx= 10.1.1.1033.1130 }}{{dead link|date=August 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> The effects of cultural hegemony are perceptible at the personal level; although each person in a society lives a meaningful life in his and her social class, to him and to her, the discrete social classes might appear to have little in common with the private life of the individual man and woman. Yet, when perceived as a whole society, the life of each person does contribute to the greater social hegemony. Although social diversity, economic variety, and political freedom appear to exist—because most people ''see'' different life-circumstances—they are incapable of perceiving the greater hegemonic pattern created when the lives they witness coalesce as a society. The cultural hegemony is manifested in and maintained by an existence of minor, different circumstances that are not always fully perceived by the men and the women living the culture.<ref>{{cite book |first=Antonio |last=Gramsci |authorlink=Antonio Gramsci |editor-first =Joseph A | editor-last = Buttigieg |title=Prison Notebooks |publisher= Columbia University Press |location=New York City |year=1992 |pages=233–38 |isbn=978-0-231-10592-7 |oclc=24009547}}</ref> ==Intellectuals== In perceiving and combating cultural hegemony, the working class and the peasantry depend upon the intellectuals produced by their society, to which ends Antonio Gramsci distinguished between bourgeois-class intellectuals and working-class intellectuals, the proponents and the opponents of the imposed, normative culture, and thus of the social ''[[status quo]]'': {{Quotation| Since these various categories of traditional [[intellectual]]s [administrators, [[scholar]]s and [[scientist]]s, theorists, non-ecclesiastical philosophers, etc.] 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 [[Ruling class|dominant social group]]. This self-assessment is not without consequences in the [[Ideology|ideological]] and [[Politics|political]] fields, consequences of wide-ranging import. The whole of [[Idealism|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.<ref>''Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci'' (1971), Quentin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith, eds., pp. 7–8.</ref>}} {{Quotation| 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 labor, 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.<ref>''Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci'' (1971), Quentin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith, eds., pp. 9–10.</ref>}} ==Gramsci’s influence== [[File:Rudi.jpg|thumb|right|300px|In the 1960s, the German student leader [[Rudi Dutschke]], of the ''[[German student movement|68er-Bewegung]]'', said that changing the bourgeois West Germany required a long march through the society’s institutions, in order to identify and combat cultural hegemony. This quote is often mis-attributed to Antonio Gramsci.<ref name=JaButt>{{cite journal|last1=Buttigieg|first1=J. A.|title=The Contemporary Discourse on Civil Society: A Gramscian Critique|journal=Boundary 2|date=1 March 2005|volume=32|issue=1|pages=33–52|doi=10.1215/01903659-32-1-33}}</ref>]] Cultural hegemony has philosophically influenced [[Eurocommunism]], the [[social sciences]], and the [[activist]] politics of socially [[Liberalism|liberal]] and [[Progressivism|progressive]] politicians. The analytic [[discourse]] of cultural hegemony is important to research and synthesis in [[anthropology]], political science, sociology, and [[cultural studies]]; in [[education]], cultural hegemony developed [[critical pedagogy]], by which the root causes of political and social discontent can be identified, and so resolved. In 1967, the [[German student movement]] leader [[Rudi Dutschke]] reformulated Antonio Gramsci's philosophy of cultural hegemony with the phrase ''[[The long march through the institutions]]'' (German: ''Marsch durch die Institutionen'') to identify the political war of position, an allusion to the [[Long March]] (1934–35) of the [[Communist Party of China|Communist Chinese]] [[People's Liberation Army]], by means of which, the working class would produce their own organic intellectuals and culture ([[dominant ideology]]) to replace those imposed by the [[bourgeoisie]].<ref>{{Citation | url = http://english.nd.edu/faculty/profiles/joseph-a-buttigieg/ | editor1-first = Joseph A | editor1-last = Buttigieg | edition = English critical | last = Gramsci | title = Prison Notebooks | at = p 50 footnote 21 | quote = Long March Through the Institutions²¹ | deadurl = yes | archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20100616163619/http://english.nd.edu/faculty/profiles/joseph-a-buttigieg/ | archivedate = 2010-06-16 | df = }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal| doi = 10.1215/01903659-32-1-33| issn = 0190-3659| volume = 32| issue = 1| pages = 33–52| last = Buttigieg| first = Joseph A.| title = The Contemporary Discourse on Civil Society: A Gramscian Critique| journal = Boundary 2| year = 2005}}</ref><ref name= "davidson">{{Citation | format = web log | url = http://carldavidson.blogspot.com/2006/04/strategy-hegemony-long-march.html | title = Strategy, Hegemony & 'The Long March': Gramsci's Lessons for the Antiwar Movement | first = Carl | last = Davidson | date = 6 April 2006}}.</ref><ref>[[:de:Marsch durch die Institutionen|Marsch durch die Institutionen]] at German Wikipedia.{{Circular reference|date=May 2019}}</ref><ref>[[wikiquote:Antonio Gramsci#Misattributed|Antonio Gramsci: Misattributed]] at English Wikiquote for the origin of “The Long March Through the Institutions” quotation.</ref> ==Critique of Gramsci== ===The ideological apparatuses of the State=== As conceptual criticism of cultural hegemony, the [[structuralism|structuralist]] philosopher [[Louis Althusser]] presented the theory of the [[Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses|ideological state apparatus]] to describe the structure of complex relationships, among the different organs of the State, by which ideology is transmitted and disseminated to the populations of a society.<ref>{{Cite book|title=On The Reproduction of Capitalism|last=Althusser|first=Louis|publisher=Verso|year=2014|isbn=9781781681640|location=London/ New York|pages=74–75; 103–47; 177, 180, 198–206; 218–31; 242–6}}</ref> Althusser draws from the concepts of hegemony present in ''cultural hegemony'', yet rejects the absolute [[historicism]] proposed by Gramsci. He argues that the ideological state apparatuses (ISA) are the sites of ideological conflict among the social classes of a society. That, in contrast to the repressive state apparatuses (RSA), such as the military and the police forces, the ISA exist as a plurality. While the ruling class in power can readily control the repressive state apparatuses, the ISA are both the sites and the stakes (the objects) of class struggle. Moreover, the ISA are not monolithic social entities, and are distributed throughout the society, as public and as private sites of continual [[class struggle]]. In ''On the Reproduction of Capitalism'' (1968), Louis Althusser said that the ideological apparatuses of the State are over-determined zones of society that comprise complex elements of the ideologies of previous [[modes of production]], thus, are sites of continual political activity in a society, which are:<ref>{{Cite book|title=On the Reproduction of Capitalism|last=Althusser|first=Louis|publisher=Verso|year=2014|isbn=9781781681640|location=London/ New York|page=243}}</ref> * the religious ISA (the system of Churches) * the educational ISA (the systems of public and private schools), * the family ISA, * the legal ISA, * the political ISA (the political system, e.g. political parties), * the trade union ISA, * the communications ISA (press, radio, television, etc.) * the cultural ISA (literature, the arts, sport, etc.) Althusser said that the [[parliament]]ary structures of the State, by which the “will of the people” is represented by elected delegates, are an ideological apparatus of the State. That the political system, itself, is an ideological apparatus, because it involves the “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.”<ref>{{Cite book|title=On the Reproduction of Capitalism|last=Althusser|first=Louis|publisher=Verso|year=2014|location=London/New York|pages=222–223}}</ref> ==See also== * [[Cultural capital]] * [[Cultural conflict]] * ''Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts'' (1990), by [[James C. Scott]] * [[Hegemonic masculinity]] * ''[[Hegemony and Socialist Strategy]]'' (1985), by [[Ernesto Laclau]] and [[Chantal Mouffe]] * "[[Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses]]" (1970), by [[Louis Althusser]] * [[Marx's theory of alienation]] * [[Nicos Poulantzas]] * [[Political consciousness]] * [[Post-hegemony]] * [[Social capital]] * [[Southern strategy]] * [[Subaltern (postcolonialism)]] * ''[[The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society]]'' (1962), by [[Jürgen Habermas]] == References == {{Reflist}} == Further reading == *{{cite book |title=The Free Art Collective Manifesto for a Counter-Hegemonic Art |year=2007 |first=Dave |last= Beech |author2=Andy Hewitt |author3=Mel Jordan | isbn = 978-0-9554748-0-4 |oclc=269432294 |publisher=Free Publishing |location=England}} * {{Citation | editor1-first = Alan | editor1-last = Bullock | editor2-first = Stephen | editor2-last = Trombley | title = The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought | edition = 3rd | year = 1999}}. *{{cite book |first=Lenny |last=Flank |title=Hegemony and Counter-Hegemony: Marxism, Capitalism, and Their Relation to Sexism, Racism, Nationalism, and Authoritarianism |year=2007 |location=[[St. Petersburg, Florida]] |publisher=Red and Black Publishers |isbn=978-0-9791813-7-5 |oclc=191763227}} * {{Citation |first=Antonio |last=Gramsci |authorlink=Antonio Gramsci |editor-first =Joseph A | editor-last = Buttigieg |title=Prison notebooks |publisher = Columbia University Press |location=New York City |year=1992 |isbn=978-0-231-10592-7 |oclc=24009547}} * {{Cite journal |title= The Dominant Ideology Thesis |first= Nicholas |last= Abercrombie |first2= Bryan S. |last2= Turner |journal= The British Journal of Sociology |volume= 29 |issue= 2 |date= June 1978 |pages= 149–70 |jstor= 589886 |doi=10.2307/589886}} * Anderson, Perry (1977). "The Antinomies of Antonio Gramsci", New Left Review, http://newleftreview.org/enwiki/static/assets/archive/pdf/NLR09801.pdf == External links == * {{Citation | url = http://www.marxists.org/archive/gramsci/ | publisher = Marxists | format = archive | title = Gramsci}}. * {{Citation | url = http://www.internationalgramscisociety.org/ | title = International Gramsci society}}. * {{Citation | url = http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/research/gramsci-journal/ | title = journal | last = Gramsci | place = AU | publisher = UOW | deadurl = yes | archiveurl = https://archive.is/20121128022033/http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/research/gramsci-journal/ | archivedate = 2012-11-28 | df = }}. * {{Citation | url = http://rethinkingmarxism.org/cms/ | title = Rethinking Marxism}}. * {{Citation | url = http://www.einet.net/review/1302-869793/Rethinking_Marxism_Association_for_Economic_and_Social_Analysis_Home_Page.htm | publisher = EI Net | format = review | title = Rethinking Marxism: Association for economic & social analysis | deadurl = yes | archiveurl = https://archive.is/20130221181041/http://www.einet.net/review/1302-869793/Rethinking_Marxism_Association_for_Economic_and_Social_Analysis_Home_Page.htm | archivedate = 2013-02-21 | df = }} * {{Citation | url = http://www.marxists.org/archive/gramsci/prison_notebooks/selections.htm | publisher = Marxists | title = Prison notebooks | last = Gramsci | contribution = Selections}}. * {{Citation | url = http://www.marxists.org/archive/gramsci/prison_notebooks/ | publisher = Marxists | title = Prison notebooks | last = Gramsci}}. {{DEFAULTSORT:Cultural Hegemony}} [[Category:Cultural hegemony| ]] [[Category:Anti-corporate activism]] [[Category:Conflict theory]] [[Category:Antonio Gramsci]] [[Category:Marxist terminology]] [[Category:Marxist theory]] [[Category:Postcolonialism]] [[Category:Postmodern theory]] [[Category:Social concepts]] [[Category:Socialism]]'