THE CHAINS OF IDEA AND THE CAGE OF SOCIETY: Contrasting Gramsci’s hegemony (incomplete)

Man is unhappy and wicked as long as he is chained by law, custom and received ideas. He needs to be freed in order to be saved. The creative power of destruction has become an article of faith.¹

A certain amount of universality exists in such a statement, that a life dictated beyond the realm of humanity is not conducive to a harmonious life. In the scope of the conundrum above, conflicts persist in society due to the subordinate role of its consisting members in relation to its norms. Norms can be defined in a number of ways, including the form of laws, regulations, and traditions as Gramsci previously states. In a broader sense, norms might be stated as but one half of larger systemic analysis, placed within the framework of the Marxist thought heavily influencing Gramsci. One segment works to satisfy the material desires of the society, meanwhile another segment acts as the environment in which the laborers interact. The interaction between the two formulate a world propelled by conflict: whether within the sphere of political economy or political culture. But to directly address the problem stated above is to look at the latter—the social environment of the economy that determines the distribution of assets—is to focus upon the cultural materials of a society, and how it interacts with the process of satisfying the material concerns of society.

Defined through Marx, conflict through domination of norms can be seen as the perpetuation of ideology through a base-superstructure system. In analyzing his scholarship (in particular The German Ideology and Preface to a Critique of Political Economy) with a focus upon the superstructure, one finds that it creates a viewpoint suitable for reinforcing false consciousness into humanity regardless of class identity. Further scrutiny of Marx and Engels’ definition of this relationship can be sought by the suitable term hegemony by Gramsci, through his early Prison Notebooks. Identifying hegemony in conjunction with a Marxist definition of superstructure should provide the basis for Gramsci’s cynicism towards “recieved ideas”. Hegemony is best understood in three forms: how he describes it (compared to Marx), how hegemony is established and maintained (especially through intellectuals), and how it is a necessary condition for historical materialism and therefore revolution of the proleteriat (and freedom in a Marxist sense). A case study is provided to demonstrate the interaction of  humanity satisfying their desires and how they organize themselves to achieve this goal. Through only a brief glance at Max Weber’s analysis of the reciprocal development of Capitalism and Protestant Christianity through The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, it is evident that domination through a closed system that influences the interests of involved parties consequentially changes the definition of agency in the perceived world, perpetuating a form of alienation of mankind from their social interests through constant rationalization in a time where the legal underpinnings of the rational are becoming more and more obscure in satisfying societal needs.

To Gramsci, the ideal method of reading intellectual material is the method of a prisoner, drawing a the guiding spirit from the book like blood from a stone. Through attentive, almost obsessive, detail of the larger themes in texts and the motives behind their creation, and who encompasses the population receptive to these themes². It is in such a spirit of sensativity of context that Marx’s analysis of dialectical materialism can be explained. With a focus placed heavily upon social relations and the superstructural portion of society as a whole, reading Marx can act as a suitable background for a close reading of Gramsci. Discussion of the themes of (a) the development of a dominant class, (b) the definition of ideology, as well as (c) Marx’s understanding of the two interacting teleologically creates a definition of Marx effective for describing the dialectical materialism for the sake of Gramscian critique.

Dominant class is naturally defined through class. Class is defined by commonality in labor as well as the entire production system. Labor defines class only insofar as the division of labor shapes the social relations of production. Production changes with time, as do the  science, technology, and the instruments of labor. As production changes, a surplus of value-added by labor is observed, and creates the beginnings of the division of labor. With the advent of the social class, comes historical modes of relation, otherwise seen as different regimes of exploitation. Bourgeoise Capitalism is the stage of exploitation that Marx identifies as the contemporary regime. Yet, the domination of the capitalists—the dominant class—only serves to create an opportunity for the subordinate class to resist. By virtue of recognizing their subordinate position of society, the proleterian class can begin revolution. Hence, once one recognizes their identity through a Marxist scope, one can survey the whole of the social landscape, host to the theory of historical materialism that determines the terms of domination between classes. It is reasonable to believe that the existence of the dominant class as a theoretical of view society creates the possibility of the creation of a praxis to accompany the theory. Any activity that exhibits having an application to the means-end formula can be said to be praxis. Marx and Engels argue that one condition suitable for furthering the historical materialism is the balance of practice and theory to a state of equilibrium. The best course of action is Communism; proleteriat political cooperation, prostelization of class consciousness to bourgeoise, and the end of exploitation of surplus labor by means of capital.

Yet, this explanation of exploitation merely accounts for one half of society. The base of society, in Marx refers to this in his Critique to Political Economy as the paring of the base and the superstructure. Marx’s goal may be interpreted as finding an equilibrium between the opposing pair of thought and practice; it follows that it is necessary to find the equilibrium of each opposing pair in Marxist thought. Translated into theory over the base and superstructure, a criticism of Marx is that his focus is upon the base over the superstructure in his analysis. Citing example work such as Capital, the domination of the proleteriat is seen to be predominantly the value the dominant class exploits from the subordinate class, as opposed to the values the dominant class expropriates unto the subordinate class. Existence of such a critique exists for Gramsci to utilize in the confines of his cultural analysis. Effectively, this allows for the interpretation of a force that dominates both realms equally, as opposed to depending upon the dictates of political economy alone, the hegemony, and an elaboration of steps necessary to further historical materialism (the counterhegemony).

Turning the focus to ideology, one can find an elaboration on the true relationship between the base and superstructure. Marx interprets ideology as being related to the Hegelian means: ideology can be used to order the world (as to reach an end), but it obscures the interests of parties adhering to the ideology as well. In combining these two elements, ideology can be illustrated as a function of ethico-political motives to who engineers. Naturally, the dominant class has the ability to engineer ideology more efficiently than the subordinate class, due to their social surplus. The ethico-political motive imbedded in the dominant ideology, therefore, is the maintance of the social surplus. To this end, Marx identifies a link between social relations in the material sense, and in the ideological sense; the former determines the latter, according to Marx. Ideology is also not limited to political doctrines or religious dogma: any social view must contain ideology, for it cannot immediately be proved as objective. Additionally, ideology is rendered as a closed system: contradictions must be solved within ideologies, lest they fall into disuse. Ergo, ideology acts as a link between base and superstructure; the dominant ideology is the subjective means for the dominant class to maintain their domination, self-sustaining in its ability to correct contradictions as they appear, functioning as an extension of the dominant class’ compulsion to sustain their dominance.

Two areas of interest are promulgated by critics of Marx. The workings of ideology in how they maintain this self-sustainability is an area of considerable interest to Gramsci, who finds the notion useful in application to Marxism itself. Critique is used to find the underlying social interests driving ideology, and critique can find the appropriate practice to solve the contradictions in a doctrine. Marx’s teleology benefits the greatest from this act. Second, and primarly, questions have been raised regarding causality. Is evaluating the nature of ideology presupposed to the evaluation of material conditions? Is it not conceivable, that considering the base-superstructure is seen as a unity of opposites, that the base should affect, as well as be affected by the superstructure? Gramsci investigates this claim as reciprocity, and Weber too can be seen as proffering an interpretation on this sort of unitary viewpoint. For now, it is simple enough for the critic to find that the emphasis Marx plays upon the base as the prime mover in determining social conditions allows for the emergence of an alternate focusing upon the superstructure.

Teleology provides an end for the means illustrated by ideology, travelling a path designed to subvert the power of the dominant class. It is with this unity of terminology that allows for a focus upon the notion of Hegelian means and end. Both are in a state of rapid flux, in attempting to create a suitable ideal end point and a suitable procedure for achieving the end point, to match the perceived interests of a subject. Hence, there exist not one but two ends: the subjective end—the ideal satisfaction of the subject’s interests, and the realized end—the outcome that actually occurs. There is an inherent gap between the two end points, however, it is possible to shorten or lengthen the gap between the two, in particular through careful manipulation of means.

For Marxism, the idealized end point is Communism, an environment devoid of class domination. Emancipation is the end, equilibrium between thought and practice is the means. The historical materialism is described as eventually bringing about the environment suitable for Communist revolution: through the devaluation of labor and expansion of the ranks of the working poor, class consciousness spreads and a strong Communist party is created through the common experience of historical materialism. Yet, the procedure behind creating the strong, cohesive Communist party is not so decidedly simple. Consider the following: if bourgeoise ideology changes constantly, and it obscures the nature of social relations, should it not have the ability to condition class consciousness?

Indeed, Marxism itself holds an ideological component, so it ideally should have pace to constantly change as bourgeoise capitalism does. To hold fast to a static conception of Marxist literature is to be conservative; to think of the gulf between the subjective state of Communism and the contemporary, realized state of Communism is too vast to ever be bridged is merely a result of the false consciousness instilled by the ideological component. The solution for ideology is simple: critique. Through critique, contradicitions are found and exposed; the dialectical materialism is expanded in this manner to encompass the superstructural component of society, and in an ideal scope it adopts the Hegelian dialectical. Dialectical process is defined by creating a theory (thesis), subjecting it to critique (antithesis), resulting in the creation of a new means (synthesis). The means created by such a process is a purposive means. For Marx, this explains why he believes that thought must be tempered by practice to fullfill the potential of historical materialism. What he fails to realize is that his philosophy of praxis garnered activism and critique of bourgeoise society in a pronounce material sense, his fight was for social equality through socially progressive legislation. What needed to be subjected to critique was not only the static conception of Marxism, but the manifold elements in bourgeoise society exhibiting elements of ideology. To not subject critique to these elements would be to neglect a process necessary for forging the means to reach an end closer to the ideal state of Communism. [1]

Thus, through combining dominant class, their ideology, and the teleology behind it, one finds ample room for critics of Marx to synthesize new forms of Communism. For Gramsci, this meant literature sketching out the appropriate actions necessary to overcome the dominance of the bourgeoise through the superstructure and to adapt to the changing nature of the bourgeoise capitalism that allowed domination to persist in the face of mass exploitation.

In this sense Gramsci acts as both critic as well as disciple of Marx rooted in the parameters of his dialectical materialism, generating critique in order to further the flag of Socialism. His thoughts  are a function of his environment: the Prisoner Notebooks Gramsci produced focuses upon popular culture because it was only tracts he was allowed to have access to. Yet, through close reading, it is obvious that his scholarship is as important as it is influential. Gramsci’s attack focuses upon common sense not only because the constraints of his environment, but also the form of domination it represented. Societal norms represent an ideal combination of coercion and force used to ensnare the mind of the masses. So coercive is the force of norms that it demands universal consent from the masses at a level of individual lifestyles. Such coercion is almost devoid of conspicuous use of force because they can lack formalized codification, usually deriving their common adherence from long de facto culture-based behaviors. Norms are ideal exercises of power, in essence, because they are so deeply ingrained into society that the majority of individuals cannot possibly conceive of acting against them. Through the exploration of this form of power, Gramsci represents a greater movement of postmodern political theorists to analyze what defines false consciousness in its purported existence. This totality of base rule and superstructural domination is called a hegemony.

The new form of domination can be thrown off, naturally. To explain the appropriate actions, Gramsci relies on three terms to explain the bourgeoise hegemony. He adapts Georges Sorel’s idea of the historic bloc to explain the unity of the base and superstructure, and sketches out a practice based upon the didactic value of the interaction between the two sectors. Using this didactive currency are organic intellectuals, who are capable of spreading class consciousness through exerting a brand of ethico-political leadership. Once a party of sufficient size has been organized through the work of the intellectuals, the nature of their class struggle is rendered by Gramsci as a war of position. The type of struggle Gramsci envisions is seperated from Marx’s revolution in the areas of society where it predominantly affects—particularly civil society, via cultural and ideological struggle. Understanding the three terms allows for one to arrive at the definititon of counterhegemony, of which the success of Socialism lies.

Defining the term “historical bloc” is quite a difficult task. Gramsci never defines it under Sorel’s terms, preferring to define it under his own terms:

Structures and superstructures form a ‘historical bloc’. That is to say the complex, contradictory and discordant ensemble of the superstructures is the reflection of the ensemble of the social relations of production. From this, one can conclude: that only a totalitarian [“all absorbing” according to the footnote] system of ideologies gives a rational reflection of the contradiction of the structure and represents the existence of the objective conditions for the revolutionizing of praxis. If a social group is formed which is one hundred per cent homogeneous on the level of ideology, this means that the premisses exist one hundred per cent for this revolutionizing: that is that the ‘rational’ is actively and actually real. This reasoning is based on the necessary reciprocity between structure and superstructures, a reciprocity which is nothing other than the real dialectical process. ³

A dialectical process, as demonstrated, is a unitary pair of opposites that lead to progress. The progress of historical materialism, defined by Gramsci in this statement, is linked to the dialectical relationship of the base and superstructure. To look at the unity at any given moment is to perceive a historical bloc, a “a particular moment of unity of structure and superstructure and of thought and action”⁴. Hence, in the creation of the historical bloc Gramsci welds Marx’s unitary pairs together. With base and superstructure welded together, the interpretation of Marx’s statement that being is defined through definite social relations, the production of material, is flawed. If the interaction between material inequality and dominant ideology is reciprocal, then it must be that being cannot be clearly defined from thinking, as the world inside the human consciousness mimicks the real world that social relations occur.

Also, it is worth noting that Gramsci’s conception of totality is not simply a political one, for Gramsci says that it encompasses all ideologies—it is a social conception, as well.  The totalitarian system that can bring unity to praxis and structure brings together the economic, moral, and political segments of society. A functioning totality of these segments formulates a notion, a worldview combining subjectivity and objectivity. The notion is generated through continual sublation of old ideas containing contradictions. Bourgeoise capitalism, Marx defines through Capital, stems from the notion that goods can be produced solely for exchange⁵. Communism can inversely stem from the Communist Manifesto‘s notion that the “positive supersecession of private property”, among other factors, are the means to emancipate man. Gramsci’s historical bloc, on the other hand, stems from the notion that unity of culture, ideology and economical life leads to the means to emancipate man. What can be made of this ambivalent disparity?

It is appropriate to return to Hegelian thought to find Gramsci’s key idea. Hegel alludes that the desired end (or beginning) of all subjective means as the unity of notion and being. The emancipation of man is the subjective end man seeks, according to Marx: Notion is defined as Communism and the Being consciousness defined as definite social relations. To Gramsci, the Being does not form a unity with Notion, because Being must be both thought and definite relations (as social relations are determined by ideology). Marx might view that an entirely objective view of the world to be impossible, but he neglects to seek how ideology shapes the subjective view of material. In creating the historical bloc as a moment where superstructure and base is unitary, theory (in the form of recieved ideologies) becomes equal to practice as a criterion of truth. Ambivalence to Gramsci for the sake of this argument is perpetuated because theory and practice reciprocate and are equally important for the revolutionary cause, and that even Marx claims that the unity between theory and practice creates a basis for revolution from below. In this claim, Marx favors one way over the other—that economics hold primacy over human development.

In this contradiction lies Gramsci’s idea for the principal task: he finds that the vast array of intellectual production can create many solutions that contradict each other in finding a fairly common goal (human welfare). His principal task is to organize these diverse philosophic, economic, and political tracts into a dialectical unity. One way to describe this dynamic is that ideology acts the part of form, and material conditions act as the content (for the purposes of critique and aligning form to match content)⁶. When various means are placed within such a unity, the end becomes clear and contradictions are resolved rapidly. This task puts the organic intellectual into the focus of the Gramscian critique. Hegemony is defined by his task: it is a society where all forms of culture reach an end equivalent to material circumstances at the same time shapes the nature of production. Bourgeoise hegemony  is defined by the historical bloc as a moment in history where all cultural facets tout the whims of the dominant class through dominant ideology while the laws garnering economics sustain the dominance. If the superstructure remains an area of enquiry for Marx’s critics, it remains to be seen who and what are the factors perpetuating ideology. [2]

Gramsci’s conception of the intellectual is rooted in the Marxist conception of the intellectual as a manufacturer of ideology. Intellectuals, although an entity to be considered beyond class analysis, have their interests shaped by class.  Accordingly, there are two brands of intellectuals: those who produce “organic” ideologies, and those who do not (inversely, producing “traditional” ideologies). Organism is defined as acting in concert with history, in the sense of showing class consciousness. Paradoxically, acting as a feature of history to Gramsci is marked by collectivity; acting occurs upon the political level, hence one needs necessary political support of the masses to effectively change society in any fashion. Intellectuals can thus be stated to gain their power in through their leadership potential. Political action occurs within the State, but values of the constituting members of society are influenced by the civil society. Intellectual involvement can influence the spheres of civil and public society. Combining these two points Cain states,

the function of the state and of political society is coercion…civil society provides a protective layer between the infrastructure and the state or political control…the conquest of civil society is a prerequisite for the final conquest of political society…hegemony is something like ideological control or control within civil society; in the expanded conception hegemony, like the state, is both civil and political: is a way of saying that a class is in superstructural dominance.⁷

Superstructural control for Gramsci is both political and ideological, and entraps both civil and public society. Coercive power through ideological manufacture can be found to be foundational in the design of common sense, where the production of ideas in civil society ostensibly have a political dimension. If common sense holds political sway, and it is modified by all those who contribute, then it must be that there is a possibility for any part of the masses to become intellectuals. This is tempered by the statement that, “[a] philosophy of praxis cannot but present itself at the outset in a polemical and critical guise, as superseding the existing mode of thinking and existing concrete thought (the existing cultural world).”⁸ Socialist theory in its optimal form should act as a critique of this common sense, so it may engage the masses. The culmination of this theme is that hegemony is the production of a dialectical relationship between force and consent: hegemony cannot exist without an intellectual leadership⁹. Intellectual force is a requirement for the creation of the collective will, of which historical acts cannot occur¹⁰. Through intellectuals, historical bloc can be pursued: in its organic nature, when ideologies become analyzed at a class level, it becomes the necessary framework for every struggle to occur.  [3]

Struggle organically is still a zero-sum game, according to Laclau, because “a failure in the hegemony of the working class can only be followed by a reconstititution of bourgeoise hegemony.”¹¹ But, this statement to Laclau is not to emphasize economic determination, but as a limit to hegemony. Where one is relative to the modes of production cannot be a valid presupposition for where one is relative to this political battle, because of the fashion intellectuals operate in constantly redefining the norms of society. Within hegemony, political ideologies as a representation of peoples’ interests, is not really representation. Contrary to this statement, the act of representation changes the nature of what is represented; hegemony is dependent on constructing interests for the sake of constructing a collective will. Class struggle is not the name of the game through this sort of theory, but a war of subjective positions, and battles between social agents and classes¹². Gramsci describes the battle in a manner that expands upon class struggle and places it into this complex social system, where oppositional identity is undefined from the beginning of the hegemonic process¹³. Revolution in Gramsci’s gaze is an  ambivalent relationship between the notions that (a) interests are static and linked to class struggle, and (b) that their interests are wholly subjective upon the historical bloc with which they are identified.

Gramsci’s theory of hegemony accepts the complexities of politics, and at the same time assigns it a primacy in relation to economics. Struggle in his mind accordingly take complex political dimensions that are not wholly determined by identity within modes of production. Struggle, for Gramsci, took a superstructural dimension that went beyond economic status of a society. The conflict found in hegemonic blocs could be advanced as a war of position:

The superstructures of civil society are like the trench-systems of modern warfare. In war it would sometimes happen that a fierce artillery attack seemed to have destroyed the enemy’s entire defensive system, whereas in fact it had only destroyed the outer perimeter; and at the moment of their advance and attack the assailants would find themselves confronted by a line of defence which was still effective. The same thing happens in politics, during great economic crises. A crisis cannot give the attacking forces the ability to organize with lightning speed in time and in space; still less can it endow them with fighting spirit. Similarly, the defenders are not demoralized, nor do they abandon their positions, even among the ruins, nor do they lose faith in their own strength or their own future. ¹⁴

Subversion of bourgeoise capitalism to Gramsci involved entrenched warfare where class struggle did not define politics in the same manner that it did not create static combatents in the conflict. War of position is waged through “progressive disaggregation of a civilization and the construiction of another around a new class core.”¹⁵ Battle is waged not through class struggle naturally, Gramsci argues, but through articulation. Class interests must be asserted through the historical bloc, through every politically accessible sector of civilization, until the hegemonic subject conceives of class interest as their own: an egoistic identity becomes discarded for the sake of one constructed by the historical bloc, and in Communism’s case an identity based upon relations of production. What is essential to be known about the nature of this battle is the fact that “there is no logical and necessary relation between socialist objectives and the positions of social agents in the relations of production; and that the articulation between them is external and does not proceed from any natural movement of each to unite with the other.”¹⁶

How does this social constructivism meld with the activities of the intellectuals with the apparent need for a “collective will”? Common sense is demonstrated to have a political bearing, based upon its historicity. But it is a chaotic one, due to the amount of people modifying it. Found within the common sense is good sense, forming a tentative oppositional relationship with common sense. Good sense is to be promoted as a sense that goes beyond narrow interests and acts as a critique of the imposed will of the dominant culture. For Gramsci philosophy, particularly the philosophy of Marxist praxis, is a form of good sense. It is good sense not because it creates new forms of thought. Marxist praxis is defined by practice, so it is good sense because it “supersedes the existing mode of thinking and existing concrete thought.” Tackling the dominant class through revolution to Gramsci follows this plan of entrenched war. One fights as an intellectual through critique of the society at large, through bolstering common sense into a good form. Political solvency is found through a collective will, and class struggle infiltrates this schema of action not as a natural part of the historical bloc in of itself, but as an ideal regimented into society at large through education provided by the intellectuals.The unity of the base and superstructure is at stake in this form of education, as Gramsci states, “if people become conscious of their social position and their tasks on the terrain of the superstructures, this means that there exists a necessary and vital nexus between structure and superstructure.”

Gramsci’s conception of the war of position is thus constructed upon a Hegelian mindset: critique is the essence of historical progress, exposing and exploiting ambiguities created through discourse. To critique is an essential activity, a self-unfolding extended to society, aimed at exposing the articulations of “the alienated development of the Idea”¹⁷ that sublate into all segments of a civilization. The struggle to make these connections are fraught with logical fallacies, and the most important to Gramsci and his fellow critics is the Freudian concept of overdetermination, that social relations are not determined by one source, but a multiplicity of sources all connected to the unitary Idea. Ultimately, this spells out that social identity lacks a singular literality, “social agents lack any essence, and their regularities merely consist of the relative and precarious forms of fixation which accompany the establishment of a certain order.”¹⁸ Gramsci adds an essential part to this argument with the idea that common sense or norms have primacy as a function of politics, but within this framework that not one element determines the course of history, one must wonder if the creation of hegemony presupposes the view of economic determinism of social identity. If hegemony presupposes economic determinism, how is identity shaped socially outside of the political economy of Marx and Engels? Furthermore, does this logic lend authenticity to the Communist regimes that lack cultural hegemony, to even be called “Communist” in the first place? Gramsci lends credance to mass education to establish an alliance, a totality of Communist interests, and through this political machination the entire truth of class identity in the form of the dialectical of base-superstructure will appear as a monad.

To identify the notion in vaguely Weberian terms, the domination of a larger system of hand acts as a “mechanized petrification, embellished with a sort of convuslive self importance.” By virtue of  the self-interests of the engineers of the system, as well as the self-sustaining nature of ideas, “this nullity imagines that it has attained a level of civilization never before achieved.” Weber writes about the the issues involved with reforming the political system at large in the presence of an overarching “iron cage” of wanton consumption devoid of spiritual meaning in his magnum opus, The Protestant Ethic. For the sake of brevity, the argument is best restrained to three particular incidents of hegemonic culture: (1) the methodological similarities between Weber and the Gramsci and (2) Weber’s likeminded identification of the powerlessness of the individual within his historical conditions.

The methodological of Weber is quite similar to both Gramsci and Marx. All three look upon the historical background of a contemporary condition. For example, Marx analyzes the background of law in The German Ideology, where he outlines the historical materialism as a geneology of domination. Gramsci, meanwhile, discursively writes about everything from Machiavelli to the Italian Renaissance. Weber, too, writes about the history of various religious sects, looking at domination in a similar fashion as the Marxists. In this way all three strive to use critique as their investigation of the axiomatic: to find the hidden processes of historical events. They all seek out how this occurs through relationships of certain events. And all three (especially Gramsci) seek to use multiple points of view to establish a commonality, a sort of discursive objectivity; they seek the leitmotif constituting the connection between discursivity. What is different between the theorists is the nature of such a connection. Marx attempts to synthesize a praxis out of his scholarship, as signified by his Theses on Feuerbach, “The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is, to change it.”¹⁹ Weber, on the other hand, is ambiguous about making a normative stance. Perhaps, it could be said that his ambiguous stance is his ideal of elective affinity constituting the methodological base of his Protestant Ethic: he finds that capitalism and protestant ethic do not presuppose one another, rather, he finds that the two emerge simultaneously to create a “spirit” furthers both causes²⁰. [4] Gramsci advocates, above all else,  “a relationship at once pedagogical and hegemonic”, that revolution is to come from below through mass education, leading to a collective class consciousness²¹. Nonetheless, Weber can claim a more pragmatic, less deterministic, utilizing logic that uniquely does not rely upon historical causality; it is this trait that resembles Gramsci in comparison to Marx, where the true bearing of cultural hegemony upon the end goal of emancipation is tenuous taken out of a Marxist context. [5]

Marx, Gramsci, and Weber all see man as chained to a historical legacy. “The relationship of the world of self-interest to the laws governing it,” states Marx, “[and] the movement of that world within its law is necessarily a continuous abrogation of the law.”²² History in the form of rational self-interests constrains men, where the man is split between his public duties and his civil greed.  In a more general way, men do not have volation over any history but an egoistic view, conditioned through particular historical circumstances²³. To Weber, the history that binds humans is one that requires no choice to pursue. Men are but part of a “tremendous cosmos of the modern economic order”, with the alienating aspect of the world being the lack of passion and value behind this “machine production”. Gramsci, as a Marxist, believes alienation from species-being is the root of conflict. However, in avoiding the vulgar economic determinism, Gramsci cites the political conflict of humanity being based upon scattered leadership that did not utilize organic intellectuals to seek out good sense. Thus, each theorist arrives at a relatively similar end: history creates an environment where humanity is subjected to conditions beyond their control, and emancipation can be found through discarding self-interests and petty materialism to embrace a higher order, whether based upon class consciousness or ascetic spirtuality, to create volition in one’s life.

Hegemony through Gramsci seems remearkably familiar to Weber’s conception of the “iron cage” in this analysis. Whereas Marx finds a system based upon a methodology favoring economic determinism,, Gramsci identifies a unique culture espoused by bourgeoise capitalism that allowed for a disjoint development between base and superstructure. Weber is very similar to Gramsci, finding that Protestantism has a certain connection (the elective affinity itself perhaps reflecting the ambivalence of Gramsci and Marx towards determinism) with the development of capital. Moreover, Marx sees a historical path with man chained in labor to a fate of domination, Gramsci sees man chained to history through a cyclical pattern of enslavement of the mind. Weber tends to find a combinatilon of the two, with a particular spirit instilled into human consciousness driving him or her to become dominated in the system of production. The specific constant between the three theorists, it seems, is that domination is present in modern society, and that  dominates the man from his posessions to his mindset. In this spirit, all three act in tandem for creating common ground for the discipline of sociology to blossom into structuralist theory, where intellectuals continue to unlock the secrets of the social conception of man.

When one explores Marx and his terminology (dominant class, ideology, teleology), Gramsci and his ideas (historical bloc, intellectuals, and war of position), and how Weber contributes dynamism to the critique of bourgeoise capitalism in the sense of his methodology and conceptualization of domination, one confronts a handful of conclusions.

ORGANIC INTELLECTUALS

WAR

THE WEBER CASE-STUDY

[0] As a preface, it may seem a bit of a cop-out for me to develop an archaeology of the first generation of Marxists based upon a model of opportunity and potentiality: that by virtue of the very existence of the ability to critique a theory, the criticism is realized. I realize that there are processes behind all reform of dogma; at the same time, I realize that I face the dual crises of focus and scale in writing my essays. I hope then that my cop out with the rational of “it can exists, and so it does” works to mitigate my problem selectively, and in a manner best befitting the notion of sublation. The processes may not appear, but are selectively introduced to fit within the theme of the paragraph.

[1] One may accuse me of lack of germaneness for this paragraph. I acknowledge it is discursive, but only as the current scholarship (based upon Althussian overdeterminism and structuralist theories) dictates. Note that I temper my argument not to the ends of indeterminism versus determinism—that argument in itself is complex subject to debate. I attempt to tackle the “essentialist monism… through a proliferation of dualisms” (Laclau 12) issue of teleology, and attempt to show the ambivalence created through the theories of Marx and first generation Marxists. The argument Laclau engages influences my methodology heavily, coming into my thesis that critique is the device pushing all cogs of historical materialism in any level of dialectic: whether it be atomized to a single argument, or to an entire ideology, and for the sake of Marx, the application gives credance to endogenous criticism. That is, a discourse of change, reform, and revolution cannot be sustained in a single form due to the hypocrises encountered from an endogenous application of the theory.

[2] This view does not really characterize my own, nor a critique of Marx as a whole. Rather, it is a critique of a selective reading of Marx, the like that inspired the rise of “vulgar Materialism”. I use it as an argumentative technique to show the degree that Gramsci rebukes even the possibility of economic determinism.

[3] Oppositional in the sense that good sense inhabits common sense, but contain opposing traits, the former being more coherent, or deserving to be coherent than the latter, for example.

[4] “A final introductory point concerns the purposes or intentions of the pragmatists, i.e. whether they personally and consciously wanted the universalization of rights. The elective affinity argument, however, does not assume that the people who construct the social cause, e.g. the Calvinist preachers who made the Protestant Ethic or the pragmatists who theorized moral equality, foresee and intend the effect. The causal process is implicit and at the level of cultural affinity. It happens behind the backs of the intellectuals who produce the cause. Actually James, Dewey and Mead were liberals and would probably have approved the universalization of rights. Peirce, though, seems to have been a reactionary and not in favor of legal equality. In his case you have to credit the force of the ideas and not the purposes of the thinker. “

[5] That is, unless you believe the second phase of Communism is true emancipation, hegemony for the purposes of achieving individual freedom is a bit contradictory.

~ by thedefinitearticle on May 17, 2008.