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Of the all theorists who have dealt with the complex and controversial nature of modern society, I like Antonio Gramsci. Gramsci is not mentioned in the text; so here is some brief information about him and his ideas on the changes present in modern society.
| Antonio Gramsci was born in Italy in 1891. In spite of the rigors of his personal biography, he remained optimistic about human progress. In brief, Gramsci was an Italian political theorist and founder of the Italian Communist Party who nevertheless rejected Marx's rigid economic determinism. He had a physical handicap- he was hunchbacked and was in poor health most of his life. He was imprisoned in 1926 for opposition to Italian fascist dictator and ally of Hitler, Benito Mussolini. He died in prison in 1937 at the age of 46. His ideas, while little recognized outside of Europe, were central to critical theory and the development of Italian government after WWII. |
One of Gramsci's many contributions to political thought and class perspective theories on modern society was his conceptualization of hegemony. Briefly a hegemony concerns the ability of the elite, of powerful groups and the dominant class in a society, to convince the rest of society to accept a given reality as the truth. This accepted reality (or cultural hegemony as it is sometimes called), in other words, is one in which the ruling elite gets the general population to accept and believe in the values and norms that benefit the powerful groups- the elite. Thus the elite has control over ideas and uses those ideas to rule by consent. The dominant class therefore manages to maintain power by manipulation of ideas (including propaganda), not by simple brute force. (Although coercion and force may also be used against groups which openly oppose the elite. And the ideological manipulation is more subtle than just outright propaganda.)
According to Gramsci, even the things we do in our everyday lives that seem to be unconnected to politics, are influenced by the choices we make- or more likely- by the choices we think we can make. And these choices have been defined by the cultural hegemony that dominates our society. We construct our own chains from the ideologies perpetuated to benefit dominant groups. (Was this an idea in The Matrix?!)
But Gramsci was not pessimistic- he believed that positive social change was possible:
"I give culture this meaning: exercise of thought, acquisition of general ideas, habit of connecting causes and effects ... I believe that it means thinking well, whatever one thinks, and therefore acting well, whatever one does."While many would vilify Gramsci for being a communist, his ideas resonate with those basic American values we studied at the beginning of the course especially, equal opportunity, democracy, and freedom and choice. Gramsci exercised the sociological imagination. He doubted; he questioned; he dared to think. And he was a criminal, like Socrates...
"I can only show you the door. You're the one who has to walk through it. You must let go of fear, doubt, to free your mind. "
"The challenge of modernity is to live without illusions and without becoming disillusioned."- Antonio Gramsci