Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
In Gramscian sociology, the term "hegemony" refers to a type of cultural leadership exercised by the ruling class. Hegemony is distinct from coercion, which utilizes executive or legislative powers or police intervention to maintain the ascendance of the dominant elite. According to Gramsci, intellectuals sustain the dominant order by creating and popularizing a worldview that convinces the oppressed that their subordination is appropriate, inevitable, and just. In this manner, the masses are socialized to believe that their political situation cannot be altered and should not be opposed (Boggs 1968:161; Kiros 1985:51). Gramsci uses the term "spontaneous" to describe the supposed normalcy and intuitive origin of these hegemonic ideas. They are "'spontaneous' in the sense that they are not the result of any systematic educational activity on the part of an already conscious leading group, but have been formed through everyday experience illuminated by 'common sense'" (Hoare and Smith 1971:199). Hence, ruling class intellectuals produce hegemonic ideas that persuade the masses to consent to the existing political order and so to their own oppression. Gramsci sets forth the notion of counter-hegemony as a revolutionary, psychocultural ideology created by intellectuals from the exploited class in order to overturn the standing capitalist order and replace it with democratic socialism. He argues that these ideologues have to create a counter-hegemonic vision through anti-ruling class institutions and lead the masses in staging a universal revolution through cultural subversion as opposed to violence (Boggs 1968:164).