Cultural hegemony
Cultural hegemony is a concept developed by Italian communist theorist Antonio Gramsci in the 1930s, explaining how the dominant cultural worldview in capitalist societies is accepted by the majority, despite primarily benefiting a minority elite. This notion represents a shift from traditional Marxist theory, suggesting that the relationship between oppressors and the oppressed is maintained not only through coercion but also through the consent of the oppressed. Gramsci argued that the elite's worldview permeates major societal institutions—such as religion, education, and popular culture—making their perspectives appear as common sense to nearly everyone, including the lower classes. As a result, alternatives to the status quo are often viewed as unrealistic or threatening. Although Gramsci's ideas were largely overlooked until their translation in the 1970s, they have since significantly influenced various fields, including political theory, sociology, and cultural studies. This framework continues to inspire contemporary theorists and critics, who explore how cultural narratives and norms shape societal structures and individual beliefs. Understanding cultural hegemony offers valuable insights into the subtle ways power dynamics operate within society.
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Cultural hegemony
Formulated by Italian communist Antonio Gramsci in the 1930s, the concept of cultural hegemony describes the way capitalist society’s cultural worldview is willingly accepted by a majority of its members, even though that worldview primarily benefits only the elite minority. It represents a modification of traditional Marxist theory by positing that the relations between the oppressors and the oppressed in capitalist society are maintained not through force alone, but also through the consent of the oppressed.
Overview
The concept of hegemony originated in ancient Greece (from the Greek word hēgemonia, or leadership) and is still used in international relations theory to denote the dominance of one country over its neighbors, not through direct military force but through the implied threat of force. A hegemonic power is able to exert significant economic and cultural influence over a wide area while only rarely resorting to the use of force.
In the nineteenth century, communist theorist Karl Marx predicted the capitalism would fall due to its inherent flaws. One of the most important Marxist theorists of the twentieth century, Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) briefly led the Communist Party of Italy before being imprisoned by the Fascist government of Benito Mussolini in the late 1920s. While in prison, he wrote volumes of historical analysis and political theory later published as the Prison Notebooks. In these writings, Gramsci applied the idea of geopolitical hegemony to capitalist society to explain why capitalism had not yet fallen. According to Gramsci’s more flexible analysis of capitalism, the elite worldview makes itself so pervasive in society’s major institutions—religion, popular culture, education—that it becomes a matter of “common sense” to almost everybody, including the lower classes. Alternatives to the status quo seem far-fetched, unreasonable, or even dangerous. Thus, in Gramsci’s view, modern capitalist society is not a culture in which all levels of society participate consciously and cooperatively. Rather, it is an example of cultural hegemony by the elite, who exert control over the kinds of ideas and images that are regarded as reasonable or acceptable—and that, not coincidentally, serve to maintain the existing political and economic order.
Although elaborated in the years before World War II, Gramsci’s ideas did not become well known in the English-speaking world until they were translated in the early 1970s. Since that time, his idea of cultural hegemony has exerted great influence, not just on the political left, but also in the humanities and social sciences more broadly, from history and sociology to media and cultural studies. The idea of cultural hegemony was carried forward and further elaborated by cultural theorists such as Stuart Hall in Great Britain, and its influence can be seen in ideas like “manufacturing consent,” articulated by American social critic Noam Chomsky, among others.
Bibliography
Adamson, Walter L. Hegemony and Revolution: A Study of Antonio Gramsci’s Political and Cultural Theory. Berkeley: U of California P, 1980. Print.
Artz, Lee, and Bren Ortega Murphy. Cultural Hegemony in the United States. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2000. Print.
Fax, Joanna. “Vulnerability as Hegemony: Revisiting Gramsci in the Age of Neoliberalism and Tea Party Politics.” Culture, Theory and Critique 53.3 (2012): 323–37. Print.
Fontana, Benedetto. “Logos and Kratos: Gramsci and the Ancients on Hegemony.” Journal of the History of Ideas 61.2 (2000): 305–26. Print.
Gramsci, Antonio. Prison Notebooks. Trans. Joseph A. Buttigieg. New York: Columbia UP, 2011. Print.
Hall, Stuart. “Gramsci’s Relevance for the Study of Race and Ethnicity.” Journal of Communication Inquiry 10.2 (1986): 5–27. Print.
Lears, T. J. Jackson. “The Concept of Cultural Hegemony: Problems and Possibilities.” American Historical Review 90.3 (1985): 567–93. Print.
McNally, Mark, and John Schwarzmantel. Gramsci and Global Politics: Hegemony and Resistance. London: Routledge, 2009. Print.