User:Marlon/hegemony

Cultural Hegemony

Cultural hegemony is power not imposed by violence or oppression. It works invisibly: ideas, habits and preferences defined by the dominant minority become the ideas, habits and preferences that adjust the behavior of the majority. A culture that meets the minimum requirements of the majority, but serves the interests and keeps the power in hands of the ruling class.

The Ruling Class and the Ruling Ideas

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

The ruling class, consisting of individuals with intellectual power (thinkers) and material power, produce and distribute ideas. This ideology of classes is how the ruling class maintains or justifies its power. There is the illusion that the predominant "Idea" of a certain period of time exists independently, "a power distinct from the power of the class".

This is succeeded in three steps: by first seperating the ideas from the ruling class, then giving the ruling ideas a "mystical connection" and regarding them as "self determined". Lastly, removing their mystical appearance and applying ideas to a particular person, or persons. They are the "thinkers" that personify these concepts.

History of the Subaltern Classes, The Concept of "Ideology", Cultural Themes: Ideological Material

Antonio Gramsci

Gramsci texts starts with an exploration of the subaltern groups: those of inferior class, excluded from a meaningful role in a power structure ruled by a dominant group. Within these subaltern groups, one social group can exercise hegemony, becoming dominant by exercising power, and "intellectual and moral leadership". For Gramsci, "leadership" results in power, but also maintains it. Ideology, a concept which meaning changed from "science of ideas" to "investigation of the origin of ideas", must be examined historically: "as a superstructure".

Gramsci feels that ideology is used to define a superstructure or the subjective thoughts of individuals. The latter definition he considers the "bad sense of the word", resulting in a changed theoretical analysis of the concept. Ideologies are part of history, because their effect is psychological, in both definitions of the word. Historically, ideology can organize human masses, where arbitrary ideologies only move individuals.

Ideologies and material force are connected: they can both have the same "energy", as Marx proposed. But Gramsci notes that a without ideology (the "form"), material forces would be hard to conceive historically. And ideologies would be "individual fancies" without the material forces, or "content'.

The dominant class has a "ideological structure", in which the press plays the most dynamic part. "Everything which influences or is able to influence public opinion" belongs to it. Gramsci states that by studying how this structure works we become more aware of the dominant forces of a society.

Cultural hegemony in the contemporary world

The Occupy Movement protests against the inequality of wealth and power between the 1% and "the rest of us", the 99%. Occupy feels that this ruling class, while appearing to handle in the interest of the public, manipulates and enforces policies that benefit only them.

Occupy Wallstreet, the first protest, was inspired by the social uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia. Using social media, like Facebook and Twitter (#Occupy,) to grow awareness, the movement spread like a perfect meme. The "We are the 99%"- mantra is almost impossible not to relate to, and easy to copy, edit and paste again. As BBC's economics editer has written: "In fact if #OWS were a global brand [...] it would have a profile to die for among the super-elite."

The Occupy Movement also attracted a lot of mainstream media attention, which makes it impossible to credit the internet and social media for its large following. Internet is a powerful tool, but to reach the masses political and social movements still need the traditional media. Gramsci has credited the press for playing the most important part in maintaining an ideological terrain that fits within the worldview the ruling class is advancing. Is the Occupy Movement just an acceptable political alternative, or have the protesters really made a global impact on policy?

Is the influence of the traditional ruling class on the (new) media fading? And has this allowed the Occupy Movement to gain a large following? Maybe the new media and those who exploit it (Google, Facebook, etc.) are becoming, in a way, the new ruling class that dictates the norms and values of the information society. Will the traditional ruling class be able to resist this change despite the extreme actions taken by WikiLeaks and the hacktivists of Anonymous that show the ruling class can not fully control the new media?

References

• "According to Gramsci, hegemony is a disposition of power which does not merely coerce its subjects into submission through top-down impositions. For Gramsci, hegemony is a power which saturates, influences, and permeates all aspects of one’s life: the economic, cultural, social, ethical, political, and so on. In doing so, it shapes and moulds consciousness, conceptions of common sense and world-views. More importantly, it creates an “ideological terrain” by positing which are the acceptable political alternatives that may be expressed within the particular world-view it is advancing." thegocblog.com
• "With the advent of a new medium, the status quo not only comes under scrutiny: it is revised and rewritten by those who have gained new access to the tools of its creation" / "[...] Most of society remains one full dimensional leap of awareness and capability behind the few who manage to monopolize access to the real power of any media age." Douglass Rushkoff, Program or be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age (2011)