User:Yoana Buzova/trimesterTwo

The Ruling Class and the Ruling Ideas--->Marx and Engels:

Marx and Engels state that the ruling ideas of a specific historical epoch, come from and serve the ruling class of that given time. Though by attributing the ideas an "independent" existence, this is elaborately covered. The illusion is possible because ideas are separated from those who rule and given a certain feeling of “mysticism”. This creates the deception that ideology and philosophy are separated from politics .

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

Ruling classes are historically united in the State. Subaltern classes are not unified until they “become” State. The strive to unify results in building up new parties . Social groups seek supremacy by “domination” and “intellectual leadership”. Gramsci traces the term ideology to the "science of ideas". He analyses is it as a form of superstructure. He makes a distinction between arbitrary and :historically organic" ideologies. Gramsci emphasises how all forms of media shape and mold ideology. Only by understanding the ruling class, only then could resistance apply.

my definition of cultural hegemony: A complex superstructure that creates an ever-lasting loop of very well distributed and incorporated in life ideas that feed back to it, i.e. they serve it.