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GRAMSCI IN HIS OWN WORDS

(Selection from the Prison Notebooks)

"What we can do, for the moment, is to fix two major superstructural 'levels': the one that can be called 'civil society', that is, the ensemble of organisms commonly called 'private', and that of 'political society' or 'the state'. These two levels correspond on the one hand to the functions of 'hegemony' which the dominant group exercises throughout society and on the other hand to that of 'direct domination' or command exercised through the state and 'juridical' government." (12)

"A social group can, indeed must, already exercise 'leadership' before winning governmental power (this is indeed one of the principal conditions for the winning of such power); it subsequently becomes dominant when it exercises power, but even if it holds it firmly in its grasp, it must continue to 'lead' as well." (57)

"A crisis occurs, sometimes lasting for decades. This exceptional duration means that incurable structural contradictions have revealed themselves (reached maturity) and that, despite this, the political forces which are struggling to conserve and defend the existing structure itself are making every effort to cure them, within certain limits, and to overcome them. These incessant and persistent efforts ... form the terrain of the 'conjunctural' and it is upon this terrain that the forces of opposition organise." (178)

"This criticism makes possible a process of differentiation and change in the relative weight that the elements of the old ideologies used to possess. What was previously secondary and subordinate, or even incidental, is now taken to be primary – becomes the nucleus of a new ideological and theoretical complex. The old collective will dissolves into its contradictory elements, since the subordinate ones develop socially, etc." (195)

"Critical self-consciousness means, historically and politically, the creation of an élite of intellectuals. A human mass does not 'distinguish' itself, does not become independent in its own right without, in the widest sense, organising itself: and there is no organisation without intellectuals, that is without organisers and leaders... But the process of creating intellectuals is long and difficult, full of contradictions, advances and retreats, dispersal and regrouping, in which the loyalty of the masses is often sorely tried." (334)

"So one could say that each one of us changes himself, modifies himself to the extent that he changes the complex relations of which he is the hub. In this sense the real philosopher is, and cannot be other than, the politician, the active man who modifies the environment, understanding by environment the ensemble of relations which each of us enters to take part in. If one's own individuality means to acquire consciousness of them and to modify one's own personality means to modify the ensemble of these relations." (352)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Gitlin, Todd (1979), 'Prime time ideology: the hegemonic process in television entertainment', in Newcomb, Horace, ed. (1994), Television: the critical view – Fifth Edition, Oxford University Press, New York.



Gramsci, Antonio (1971), Selections form the Prision Notebook, edited and translated by Quintin Hoare & Goffrey Nowell Smith, Lawrence and Wishart, London.

Ransome, Paul (1992), Antonio Gramsci: A new introduction, Harvester Wheatsheaf, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire.

Simon, Roger (1991), Gramsci's Political Thought: An introduction, Lawrence and Wishart, London.

Strinati, Dominic (1995), An Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture, Routledge, London.

Williams, Raymond (1977), Marxism and Literature, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

 


Date: 2015-12-11; view: 748


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