Antonio Gramsci's Concept Of Cultural Hegemony In The Early 20th Century

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Antonio Gramsci
Introduction
Antonio Gramsci was born on January 22 of 1891, in Sardinia, Italy. Gramsci’s journey began in 1915 where he became a journalist for the Italian Socialist Party. However, it was not until 1921 when Gramsci had become a prominent member of the party which split into the Italian Communist Party. On November 8th of 1926 he was arrested for speaking against fascism. Gramsci’s familiarity began in the confine of Regina Coeli prison. His long sentence resulted in his death in 1937 as he suffered from intracerebral haemorrhage. Gramsci produced a theory known as ‘hegemony’ which was found in his prison notebooks. His work contributed to the Marxist theory in the early 20th century.
I will be focusing on Gramsci’s key
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The term hegemony can be defined as the process by which dominant culture maintains its position in power. These are through social institutions such as: the media, education, religion etc. These institutions then compose societal views on appropriate norms and values and what is deemed as acceptable behaviour. Gramsci’s concept of hegemony is achieving consensus of the masses through consent as opposed to coercion. The concept of hegemony can be exercised in two distinctive ways. The first, adopting the method of coercion, using intimidation or force such as the police and armed forces to evoke fear in people to bring them to consensus with capitalism. The second is gaining consent through ideological control. This can be done if the people can be convinced their best interest is at stake therefore it may be possible to gain control of them. Hegemony so presented through social institutions such as the family, media, resligion etc. ‘For Gramsci, consent and force nearly always coexists, through one or other predominates’. (Lears, …show more content…
The RSA are the institutions that maintain their power through coercion whereas the ISA are institutions that maintain hegemony through ideological persuasion. Althusser’s work can be credited by Gramsci only to this extent where the similarity lays. However, the difference between both work is that Gramsci was more interested in how society could produce consent for individual’s subjugation. His work demonstrated class struggle whereas Althusser focused more so on production.
In a place like Bangladesh a tool of social oppression is the domination of men and women being the inferior of that particular society. Gramsci’s differentiates between political and civil society. In a country like Bangladesh it is fair to say that the country is thriving through political fear; the use of coercion is inadmissible. Here is a good situation to demonstrate how the dominate group have control through coercive control, also that change is mandatory!
Organic

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