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