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The term "hegemony" was introduced into political lexicon of the XXth century by Antonio Gramsci
but due to his luck, it gained widespread popularity and today the term hegemony is used by representatives of most diverse currents of thought
by various scientists, political scientists, intellectuals and in various disciplines: international relations, political philosophy...
The term itself is very interesting.
Gramsci was a Marxist. But he fundamentally reevaluated Marxism from the perspective of most effective elements that impact politics.
Marx believed that all political events are completely predetermined by events and characteristics of the economy. That is, the basis totally predetermines the superstructural events.
Lenin, on the other hand, added emphasis on the political factor, having shown that a socialist revolution is possible even in a country with an underdeveloped proletariat as long as the Party is united, active, and strong-willed.
I.e. he demonstrated a certain autonomy of the political factor, having empirically proven, that it is possible.
And Gramsci thought about the following. If politics can be autonomous in relation to the basis and in fact lead the basis, as in Leninism, then there must be another sphere that Gramsci called civil society.
And understood by it the collective of active intellectuals: artists, philosophers, and scientists -- people of liberal professions who do not enter, strictly speaking, the economic process.
That is, those who do not own means of production, who are not strictly members of the bourgeois class, but who are not proletarians either.
Consequently, their economic class identity is undefined. Neither are they representatives of any specific political structures -- the state, political parties, or any institutions of strictly political nature.
So this civil society (the way Gramsci understood it, from his point of view) is a very important factor, one that determines many issues in the political system.
Gramsci took note of the fact that this layer of society -- the intelligentsia, one might call it the creative class or the civil society as the collective of artists, scientists, people of culture -- has a great deal of influence.
And Gramsci showed that this civil society is largely liberated from the constraints of economic and political laws.
Nevertheless, in bourgeois society they broadcast the hegemonic discourse, i.e. they are the carriers of hegemony.
And because of this, their cultural activities, their descriptions of politics, of science, and of art in one way or another solidifies power structures...
... thereby helping the class of exploiters, with the help of political institutions of bourgeois democracy, continue the exploitation of the proletariat.
And he called this hegemony.
Hegemony is not political power. Political power is political power: parties, elections, usurpation.
Neither is it about economics. Economics deals with one's relation to the means of production. If you own the means of production, you're bourgeois; if you don't, you're a proletarian. Here everything is quite clear.
Here you have economic domination, in politics you have political power. Meanwhile in the domain of civil society, of this intellectual class, there exists hegemony.
Gramsci defined hegemony as establishment of power relations which are not noticed by those against whom they are used.
I.e. when we are being governed and have the illusion of making our own decisions. When we are being programmed and we think we are free.
When we are being nudged in some direction and we are convinced that we are acting out of own volition and are realizing our own wishes.
That is hegemony. Hegemony, therefore, falls under the category of concealed power.
So from Gramsci's point of view, this hegemony is realized to a large degree thanks to certain institutions of this creative intellectual class.
Nobody forces them to broadcast bourgeois values, bourgeois systems, sing praises to the bourgeois society's status quo, thereby solidifying the bourgeois political and economic domination over the proletariat with their creative potential.
The intellectual class is free. It can choose hegemony, or it can choose counter-hegemony. And nobody will dare stop it because the meaning of this class is exceedingly important.
This was the founding of political Gramscism, and it gave colossal results. By 60-70s an overwhelming majority of European intelligentsia was Marxist. It was critically disposed towards the bourgeoise.
Although not quite that harsh, counter-hegemonic discourse became the norm of European intelligentsia; Gramscism worked.
And in the 70s, Alain de Benoist, a conservative philosopher this time, articulated Gramscism (or metapolitics) from the right, calling on the conservative elements of intelligentsia to likewise freely speak out against their own enemies...
... liberals for example, who are incompatible with true traditionalist conservatism ...
Benoist urged [conservative intelligentsia] to use science, art, intellectual activity in general with the aim of overthrowing the liberal hegemony.
So Gramscists and Neomarxists did this from the left, while Alain de Benoist proposed doing this from the right.
And this hegemony is very important. Why? Because both theoretically (acc. to Gramsci) and empirically, the intelligentsia is free enough to make the rest of society reckon with its ideas whether or not it has political representation
And it can do this in relative independence from the economic basis.
Of course, there are always certain for-hire political spokesmen within the intelligentsia whose labor is paid for by the government...
... but they are not true members of civil society, they are more like guest workers; we have plenty of them. They're experts who will voice any idea paid for and bestowed upon them from above by political oligarchs ...
... but they do not belong to this society. Gramsci is talking about a different sort of people: ones who can freely say "yes" or "no" to any political and social system.
Gramsci's analysis is interesting to us because in our society, the intelligentsia and the creative class broadcast ideas of liberal hegemony.
Whoever these people are and whatever orders they receive, they broadcast Americano-European set of norms, values, and visions of the future.
So our creative class, our so-called civil society, to use Gramsci's term, is super-hegemonic
yet it is not a hegemony limited by the state, but rather a global hegemony. They've taken over this entire field. They serve not so much our state, as the global Western empire, the wealthy North.
They serve it either because of their own convictions or because they are hired to do so.
But that's of secondary importance. And here we are faced with a very interesting thing. Gramsci said that the meaning of this field where hegemony is developed is exceedingly important irrespective of whether or not political representation exists.
Our liberals have no political representation in the parliament. Yet they have most direct impact on our society, our youth, our culture, science, art, and education.
I think that today, our society faces this imperative -- to bring down this liberal, Atlanticist, Western, Amerocentric, imperialistic hegemony ...
... to deracinate that section of Russian intellectual elite, limit its rights, expose it and its essence, expose its deeds, and begin the process of counter-hegemony.
Though our society has already gone through Marxism, there may be interesting ideas in that direction.
But what is most important, in my view, is that counter-hegemony must become the aim of our new intellectual conservative elite.
If we fail in this respect, we will not be able to create a stable, autonomous, independent, sovereign society.
Not to mention the destructive political and economic consequences that will take place sooner or later [if we fail].