Cultural hegemony

This article is about social control of society by a ruling class. For control of society by another society, see Cultural imperialism.
The Marxist intellectual Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) developed cultural hegemony to explain the social-control structures of society, arguing that the working-class intelligentsia must generate a working-class ideology to counter the worldview (cultural hegemony) of the ruling class.

In Marxist philosophy, cultural hegemony is the dominance of a culturally diverse society by the ruling class who shape the culture of that society—the beliefs and explanations, perceptions, values, and mores—so that the worldview of the ruling class becomes the accepted cultural norm.[1] As the universal dominant ideology, the ruling-class worldview misrepresents the social, political, and economic status quo as natural, inevitable, and perpetual social conditions that benefit every social class, rather than as artificial social constructs that benefit only the ruling class.[2][3]

In philosophy and in sociology, the denotations and the connotations of term cultural hegemony derive from the Ancient Greek word hegemonia (ἡγεμονία), which indicates the leadership and the régime of the hegemon.[4] In political science, hegemony is the geopolitical dominance exercised by an empire, the hegemon (leader state) that rules the subordinate states of the empire by the threat of intervention, an implied means of power, rather than by threat of direct rule—military invasion, occupation, and territorial annexation.[5][6]

  1. ^ Bullock, Alan; Trombley, Stephen, Editors (1999), The New Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thought Third Edition, pp. 387–88.
  2. ^ The Columbia Encyclopedia, Fifth Edition. (1994), p. 1215.
  3. ^ Comaroff, Jean; Comaroff, John L. (1991). Of Revelation and Revolution. ATLA Special Series. Vol. 1: Christianity, Colonialism, and Consciousness in South Africa. Chicago: University of Chicago Press (published 2008). p. 25. ISBN 9780226114477. Archived from the original on 24 February 2023. Retrieved 7 October 2020. Typically . . . the making of hegemony involves the assertion of control over various modes of symbolic production: over such things as educational and ritual processes, patterns of socialization, political and legal procedures, canons of style and self-representation, public communication, health and bodily discipline, and so on.
  4. ^ Hassig, Ross (1994). "Mesoamerica and the Aztecs". Mexico and the Spanish Conquest (2 ed.). Norman: University of Oklahoma Press (published 2014). p. 28. ISBN 9780806182087. Archived from the original on 24 February 2023. Retrieved 7 October 2020. The more a hegemonic empire relies on power (the perception that one can enforce one's desired goals) rather than force (direct physical action to compel one's goals), the more efficient it is, because the subordinates police themselves.
  5. ^ Ross Hassig, Mexico and the Spanish Conquest (1994), pp. 23–24.
  6. ^ L. Adamson, Walter (2014). Hegemony and Revolution. Echo Point Books & Media.