Questions on Cultural Hegemony

[MilitantWorker]

Yo! Comrades..hope everyone is well. I am celebrating my 100th post! And where is a better place to celebrate than the Learning forum!

I recently re-read some of Marx's writings on base/superstructure, ideology, and alienation/reification, some of Gramsci's writings on
cultural hegemony, as well as sifting through some Wikipedia articles and here's some of the notes I came up with:

Notes on Cultural Hegemony

- culturally-diverse societies can be culturally/ideologically dominated by one of its social classes, in capitalism the ideology of the bourgeoisie dominates all others

- the ideas of the ruling class come to be seen and accepted as the norm

- the fluctuation of capitalist economies determines cultural and political superstructures

- to Gramsci, there is a strategic distinction between the intellectual culture war which subverts the ideology of the bourgeoisie (gradually replacing it with a revolutionary, proletarian ideology) and the armed insurrection against capitalism

- the goal of this "War of Position" is to increase class consciousness, foster a critical method of thinking, and inspire revolutionary, communist organization

- the perception (aka false consciousness) that certain institutions, practices, and beliefs (i.e. superstructures) in society are "natural" or "inevitable" must be explored...each example must be investigated for its roots in class domination or class liberation

- in capitalist society each person's life contributes to the greater social hegemony, and this remains consistent through numerous and different life circumstances

- because of negligible differences in peoples lifestyles (maybe relates to specialization/division of labor?) the average working person does not see or understand how individual lives coalesce into a functioning (as well as decadent) society

- therefore individual "common sense" has a dual edge-- it allows/limits workers into understanding and coping with the everyday circumstances of their life, their exploitators, and their relation to the societies power structure, while also (in most cases) inhibiting their ability to actualize how the much larger, multi-faceted, multi-layered cultural/ideological hegemony is maintained

- thus most workers in modern capitalist society concentrate their attention upon their immediate concerns and problems, instead of the fundamental sources of social and economic oppression/exploitation

I have millions of ideas/questions floating around in my head-- but I'll kick off the discussion with this one:

Is a cultural renaissance-- where capitalist "common sense" is replaced by a communist "common sense" (aka revolutionary consciousness) -- a necessary prerequisite to inspiring revolutionary organization amongst the proletariat?

If so, by what means does the cultural renaissance come about?

If not, why?

[MilitantWorker]

ttt

[MilitantWorker]

it's a shame no one wants to discuss these issues.

really though.

[A.R.Amistad]

Is a cultural renaissance-- where capitalist "common sense" is replaced by a communist "common sense" (aka revolutionary consciousness) -- a necessary prerequisite to inspiring revolutionary organization amongst the proletariat?


I think such things, like proletarian morality and "common sense," will come but they need not be rushed. People need to first focus on gaining economic and state power, and the rest will follow soon after.

[mikelepore]

This one doesn't seem to be right:


the fluctuation of capitalist economies determines cultural and political superstructures

Modern society has some ideological features that are left over from ancient Greece and Rome, the Medieval age, and so forth. Ideas can have a lot of inertia.

[MilitantWorker]

This one doesn't seem to be right:
Modern society has some ideological features that are left over from ancient Greece and Rome, the Medieval age, and so forth. Ideas can have a lot of inertia.

Good point. The current consciousness of the workers is a totality of historical existence.

[which doctor]

I think it should go without saying that a revolutionary art will accompany period in which we have a revolutionary consciousness. It wasn't a coincidence that the avant-garde was most active during the early 20th century, when the question of socialism was posed most acutely. Now, we don't even have an artistic avant-garde to speak of.

[Ligeia]

Is a cultural renaissance-- where capitalist "common sense" is replaced by a communist "common sense" (aka revolutionary consciousness) -- a necessary prerequisite to inspiring revolutionary organization amongst the proletariat?

If so, by what means does the cultural renaissance come about?

If not, why?
I think at least some level of communist common sense should be held up somewhere in society, somewhere in the media, otherwise a lesser amount of people would think about alternatives to capitalism.
There should be more of "revolutionary consciousnss" in art, in music, in media, in printed media, in books, on the radio,pamphlets and so on, using similar promotional structures as capitalist stuff, though if you look at design, it's always changed.
I'm not sure if a full renaissance is needed though, I guess some actions and events lead to more of a certain common sense which appears then in culture.

[MilitantWorker]

using similar promotional structures as capitalist stuff

You've hit a home run! I was looking for a way to say this...thank you for the articulation.

I think an international proletarian party will need to have better advertising than AT&T, Monsato, or any other MNC...

[Red Commissar]

Is a cultural renaissance-- where capitalist "common sense" is replaced by a communist "common sense" (aka revolutionary consciousness) -- [I]a necessary prerequisite to inspiring revolutionary organization amongst the proletariat?

I would say particularly in our modern day, subversion of the civil society is essential.

Otherwise we run the risk of counter-revolutionary thought seeping back into the state. Gramsci compared civil society to a series of battlements that lie behind the facade of the state. To him the Russian revolution succeeded because Russia was less developed than the Western societies- in the old Russian Kingdom the state was paramount, and maintained clout over everything including civil society. In western societies this is not the case- the civil society can existing beyond the state and continue existing in the event of a sudden change in government.

I think it's obvious though looking at the actions of most communist organizations and political parties in general, they realize the importance of their ideals becoming accepted as the norm in societies, in order to secure their own success. But we need to go beyond mere propaganda like Gramsci is saying. Some of these ideas have had acceptance beyond Marxist interpretation- I'd definitely argue that neo-liberals used this to undermine faith in the old socialist regimes in the 1980s and continue to apply this concept elsewhere.

How to do we take over the civil society? That is the big question. One could try to hijack capitalist methods, but they run the risk of being taken over by that system. One should be careful in that approach so as they not end up like modern day social democrats.

That being said it is not a paramount theory- everything has its shortcomings- but I defintely think Gramsci had some good points with the War of Position and the War of Manuever. It is one way to acheive class consciousness to the point that is necessary for a true revolution, but is it the only way? Probably not.