What is cultural hegemony?

[the last donut of the night]

Can anybody explain this theory of Gramsci?

[ZombieGrits]

As I understand it, its basically how bourgeois values are represented as "the norm" in popular culture, the media, etc., so much so to where the working class begins to associate itself with bourgeois interests. You can see this in action in how the upper crust of the working class (aka the "middle class") tends to see itself as more akin to the rich than to the rest of the working class

There are other facets to the idea I think but I hope this helped out :)

[Invincible Summer]

A good example (I think) is how the standard of "beauty" is usually in line with values of the ruling class - elegance, being white, etc.

It's not by accident that when people are asked about "beautiful minorities" Beyonce is usually named. She's got a much lighter skin color and reflects little to no "blackness" in her image.

[Ligeia]

Can anybody explain this theory of Gramsci?

Cultural hegemony is about the consent of the whole of society that means that the views of the governed and governors are the same mostly.
So if you wanted to do something on a political or social scale you'd have to gain the cultural hegemony first.
It's the leading set of opinions and views which aren't established by force but by forging alliances with civil and non-civil societies, culture is then produced by and with the groups needed and best suited for the achievement of this hegemony. (Then minority opinions can be easily ignored and don't pose a threat anymore if cultural hegemony is achieved).

[Red Commissar]

Like has been said, it is the way the ruling establishment can maintain order in a state. Through a system of social and cultural norms, education, media, and laws those in power can transmit its values and desires onto others, and at many times subliminally and not directly by the state, not through blatantly obvious propaganda.

Taking a look at American society, we can see some examples of this. People are united by some set of national values and standards, such as liberty, independence, hard-work, thriftiness, and a respect for property.

In this way, the politics of of the majority of the people, even if they fall into different political persuasions, are ultimately going to act and enact legislation that is in line with the values of those in power, or at least not harmful to them.

The people who are working may enact values we see as "common sense", again not harmful to the ruling establishment, and various ways for the citizen to cope with their place in society, usually reasoning that "it's the way things are/should be" rather than trying to enact genuine change.

The state doesn't have to put these into through gunpoint or even enforce itself in that matter as we would see in a full blown police state. People take these in as they grow up and begin to integrate themselves into society, even if they think they're different or struggling against those in power.

Ultimately, real opposition is squelched out. The status quo is maintained. Change is only enacted when it is necessary to prevent the state from being overturned.

Gramsci, along with many other Marxists and other socialists at the beginning of the 1900s, were attempting to realize why Marx and Engels prediction of the workers going into a mass revolution due to the conditions that capitalism would create had yet to occur. Gramsci put together Hegemony to explain how the populace can follow the ideals of a state and the rulers (Bourgeoisie/capitalists), even if those are not beneficial to the population (the Proletariat/working class), or at least benefit the ruling class more. The ones actually trying to enact change, such as the Marxists and other socialists, would be ostracized from the public.

Again, looking at the United States for example, where the working class are funneled into other political parties that are ultimately serving the status quo, such as the Democrats hold over them. Same case anywhere else when you see working class votes and support going to other, mainstream, political parties.

Gramsci observed that changes in the 1800s had caused localities to be less autonomous from the state and culture was becoming more and more uniform within a state's borders. To Gramsci, this was aiding the state engineer the consent by the people to rule and had been caused through the process of hegemony.

Gramsci also observed how hegemony could cause a revolution to be co-opted by the ruling class as it ran its course, because civil society could exist through different forms and continue to exert influence if it wasn't addressed.


when the State trembled a sturdy structure of civil society was at once revealed. The State was only an outer ditch, behind which there stood a powerful system of fortresses and earthworks

By "Fortress and earthworks", he means the things that made up civil society, hegemony.

With this said, Gramsci saw that it could be possible for Marxists, socialists, and their allies to wage a social (cultural) war, to take these tools that make up the framework of hegemony. Going into education to spread their ideas through the youth, distributing their opinion through the various means of media, beginning at local communities and instilling socialist ideals in them, and so on. Eventually he reasoned class awareness would reach such a level that the Proletariat would start the revolution and overturn the old order.

At this point the Proletariat, the Proletariat would overturn the bourgeoisie as the masters of the state and civil society, and hegemony would work in their favor as they proceeded to Communism during the socialist transition-state.

So on one front would be the physical struggle for revolution, but on another would be the one to win the hearts and minds of the people. A "War of Maneuver" and a "War of Position" respectively as Gramsci termed it.

However not everything ties into a grand scheme of hegemony. It is not total.

It's an expansive concept. It's not just looked at by Marxists and other socialists, but by all sorts of people studying political science and sociology.

If you want to know more, look up his Prison Notebooks. It came under a larger section of his thoughts on society, typically in most books this is translated as "State and Civil Society". Hegemony is one of the parts of that. Every book that collects the notebooks, even those that are condensed or "selections" of them, has his concept of cultural hegemony in there. Larger libraries should have them and you could probably get a copy through the internet.