Gramsci - James Joll

GRAMSCI - JAMES JOLL

The importance of Antonio Gramsci cannot be overstated. It wasn't me who said that but Noam Chomsky, one of the greatest intellectuals of our modern era, and when such a man says such a thing about another person it's intellectually sensible to take note. Gramsci, I would argue, holds the key to understanding the world and how it's run but that's not to elevate him to any sort of guru status as that would be wholly missing the point and would negate the reasons for making such a suggestion. Gramsci is there if you're interested in such matters and he should be read as part of that general discourse, though on reading him it's akin to laying down the final piece of the jigsaw to complete the whole picture.

Gramsci's greatest doctrine was that of 'hegemony' that he used to explain how a particular social and economic system maintains its hold and retains its support and how a minority can impose its leadership and its values on a majority. Gramsci saw that the rule of one class over another does not solely depend on economic or physical power alone but rather on persuading the ruled to accept the system of beliefs of the ruling class and to share their social, cultural and moral values.

Echoing Chomsky's assessment, according to writer James Joll, Gramsci is one of the most interesting and important thinkers of the twentieth century and the most important European Communist theorist since Lenin. He's not wrong in this and so it's somewhat baffling how so few people have ever heard of Gramsci - but then again, maybe not so baffling when taking into account Gramsci's hegemony theory?

Joll's book, entitled simply 'Gramsci', is an interesting and very readable account of Gramsci's life and of his Prison Notebooks that Gramsci composed after being condemned to twenty years imprisonment by Mussolini. Not that Gramsci should be read, Joll points out, as any kind of guide to revolutionary methods or as a key to a successful revolution because Gramsci was more interested in the long-term process by which a revolution would come about than in what society would look like after a revolution. Moreover, Gramsci was concerned to reach a general understanding of the nature of historical, social and economic change, along with the role of the working class, the intellectual and the political party in it.

Apart from the importance of culture and its relation to politics, Gramsci's attention was also focused on the rise of Italian Fascism but then how could it not? Mussolini at the time was making inroads into the seizing of power although to Gramsci it was obvious that Fascism was the only remaining way at that time in which the capitalists could maintain their authority and preserve their economic system.

Herein lies the lessons from history.

Any political theory is only really relevant if it has a relevancy to the present-day world. Gramsci's doctrine of hegemony is blatantly relevant to modern-day Britain, for example, in regard to the culture wars that inform politics of all stripes but more profoundly it's in regard to who controls the mainstream and even indeed the independent media. Right-wing and conservative values are ubiquitous, insidiously seeping and oft times brutally bludgeoning their way into everyday life and becoming so much the norm that they are presented as being 'common sense'. 

Subsequently, conservative liberalism as practiced by the BBC can be cast as Left-wing bias and no-one bats an eyelid.  A centre-right Labour Party under the governance of Kier Starmer can be cast as Socialist when clearly it's no such thing. Judges, lawyers, chiefs of police and other pillars of the Establishment can be cast as 'woke' when not bending to the will of the Tory government. Political agendas, prejudice and propaganda can be cast as both 'news' and entertainment.

More disturbing, however, are Gramsci's thoughts on Italian Fascism and how his descriptions of it very much match the politics and characteristics of prominent elements within the British Conservative Party. 'The cold contemplation of the suffering of others', for example, is Conservative MP Suella Braverman's modus operandi to a tee.

Whether or not such a thing as hegemony is a good or a bad thing is a moot point. What matters is that hegemony is a very real thing. It exists, whether those living under it or indeed those enforcing or pursuing it are conscious of it themselves or not. To be aware of hegemony and to understand how it works can be eye-opening though that's not to say this can be of any actual, practical use. It can be the same thing - as Gramsci points out - as when politicos use revolutionary language without preparing for a revolution and without actually believing that a revolution is even possible.

Far more important is to be aware of Fascism - of what it is and what it entails - because to not be aware of it is to leave the door wide open for a population to sleepwalk into it, before waking up and finding itself under totalitarianism where those deemed to be inferior or problematic are being pointed to the gas chambers or whatever their modern-day equivalent might be. 

When it comes to such matters, the importance of Antonio Gramsci cannot be overstated.

John Serpico

Antonio Gramsci and the Origins of Italian Communism - John M Cammett

 ANTONIO GRAMSCI 

AND THE ORIGINS OF ITALIAN COMMUNISM - 

JOHN M CAMMETT

There's nothing like a bit of Gramsci on your daily commute. It's where I do a lot of my reading: On the train to and thro from work as the world goes by outside. And therein lies the only difference between me and my fellow commuters: Where they all tend to be surfing social media on their iPhones, there's me with my nose stuck in a book about the origins of Italian Communism. It doesn't in any way make me a better (or worse) person of course just because I'm reading a book because it's each to one's own at the end of the day. It's horses for courses. Same song difference dance. Or as Elton John once put it: 'While the other kids are rocking round the clock, I'm hopping and bopping to the Crocodile Rock.'

But I digress.

Antonio Gramsci was born on the island of Sardinia in 1891 where his parents scratched a living in what was an economically backward area even by southern Italian standards. Poverty and crime were endemic and life was brutal, and it was from these origins that Gramsci developed a natural instinct of rebellion against the rich. After gaining entry into the University of Turin from a special scholarship fund for needy students his writing began in earnest, contributing to the weekly organ of the Turin section of the Socialist Party and then to the national socialist newspaper, Avanti.

Gramsci was a thinker, a contemplator whose analysis was always innovative, cutting and precise. Small wonder then that by 1921 at the age of thirty he was serving as a national leader of the Italian communist proletariat.

John M Cammett's book, Antonio Gramsci And The Origins Of Italian Communism swerves and weaves around and ploughs through the ins, outs and intricacies of the 57 Heinz baked bean versions, splits and factions of Italian Communism with exhaustive attention to detail. He eventually reaches the stage in Gramsci's life where following the attempted assassination of Mussolini, the Fascists pass the Exceptional Laws which orders the immediate dissolution of all opposition parties. After establishing a Special Tribunal for the defence of the State, mass arrests are carried out with Gramsci being one of the first to face the Tribunal. On the advice of the prosecutor, Gramsci is sentenced to twenty years of imprisonment on charges of treason with the prosecutor declaring "We must stop this brain from functioning."

Ironically, it's actually in prison that Gramsci gets to do some of his best thinking particularly in regard to the concept of cultural hegemony, all recorded in 2,848 pages of manuscript to be later published years after his death as The Prison Notebooks. If Gramsci was already considered to be an intellectual, these prison notebooks cemented his position as being one of the masters of twentieth-century political thought.

Gramsci's theory of cultural hegemony is the process by which predominance is obtained by consent rather than force of one class or group over other classes or groups. But how to explain this so it makes sense? How to explain a Universal Truth? 

As Cammett in his book puts it: "Hegemony is an order in which a certain way of life and thought is dominant, in which one concept of reality is diffused throughout society in all its institutional and private manifestations, informing with its spirit all taste, morality, customs, religious and political principles and all social relations.'

I'm loathe to quote Wikipedia at the best of times but as they put it: "Cultural hegemony is the dominance of a culturally diverse society by the ruling class who manipulate 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. 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.' And then 'Hegemonic culture propagates its own values and norms so that they become the 'common sense' values of all and thus maintain the status quo.'

Hegemony, as Gramsci points out, however, is a two-way street and so just as bourgeoisie and conservative values are cast as common sense values held by all and of benefit to all - subsequently justifying and maintaining a world of massive and terrible inequality, values that are actually of benefit to the proletariat could easily replace them. This, however, needs to be done from below, from the lowest social classes though potentially in conjunction with other progressive social elements and some parts (and the accent is on 'some') of the petty bourgeoisie and the intelligentsia. 

The working class, as Gramsci puts it, must create its own Enlightenment.

The significance of cultural hegemony cannot be overstated and though it doesn't explain everything, it explains so much: The present day culture wars, the rise of Trump, how the news is depicted, advertising, the manipulation of algorithms, social media and memes, deference, stereotypes, lifestyles, the acceptance of the unacceptable, the normalization of the immoral, etc, etc, etc.

Cammett's book is probably not the best place to start when trying to understand Gramsci's ideas but as a way of understanding where Gramsci has come from and subsequently where his ideas have come from it serves its purpose. Above all, it serves as a testament to his life and presents the case that Antonio Gramsci is very much deserving of our respect.

John Serpico.