Hegemony and Socialist Strategy (2nd Ed), C Moufe and E Laclau (2001, Verso) :
A side note here is that during my research I found out that these two authors are founders of the Essex school of discourse analysis! Political philosophy doesn't get more glamorous than this!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essex_School_of_discourse_analysis
Anyway... Back to the critiquing of Gramsci:
In this seminal work on Hegemony and Marxist politics the authors make several observations on the flaws of Marxist though and on Gramsci's theory of Hegemony.
"For Gramsci, political subjects are not — strictly speaking — classes, but complex 'collective wills'; similarly, the ideo- logical elements articulated by a hegemonic class do not have a necessary class belonging." (pg67)
This is a key problem for Marxist thinkers. What if class, or conceptions and barriers of class, didn't exist? Do people really act and behave in a class based way? Is it not more fluid and ambiguous than this. Gramsci's ideas are important here. He is offering a much more insightful understanding of human and group behaviour than was previously noted. It also leads to his ideas around positioning:
A side note here is that during my research I found out that these two authors are founders of the Essex school of discourse analysis! Political philosophy doesn't get more glamorous than this!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essex_School_of_discourse_analysis
Anyway... Back to the critiquing of Gramsci:
In this seminal work on Hegemony and Marxist politics the authors make several observations on the flaws of Marxist though and on Gramsci's theory of Hegemony.
"For Gramsci, political subjects are not — strictly speaking — classes, but complex 'collective wills'; similarly, the ideo- logical elements articulated by a hegemonic class do not have a necessary class belonging." (pg67)
This is a key problem for Marxist thinkers. What if class, or conceptions and barriers of class, didn't exist? Do people really act and behave in a class based way? Is it not more fluid and ambiguous than this. Gramsci's ideas are important here. He is offering a much more insightful understanding of human and group behaviour than was previously noted. It also leads to his ideas around positioning:
For Gramsci, by contrast, 'war of
position' involves the progressive disaggregation of a civilization
and the construction of another around a new class core. (pg 70)
They also help identify perceived inconsistencies in Gramsci's arguments :
They also help identify perceived inconsistencies in Gramsci's arguments :
Gramsci's thought appears suspended around a basic ambiguity concerning the status of the working class which finally leads
it to a contradictory position. On the one hand, the political centrality of the working class has a historical, contingent character: it
requires the class to come out of itself, to transform its own identity
by articulating to it a plurality of struggles and democratic demands.
On the other hand, it would seem that this articulatory role is
assigned to it by the economic base — hence, that the centrality has a
necessary character. (pg 71)
So to argue for the working class to change and adapt itself into something new you first must assume that there is such a thing as a 'working class' in the first place.
So to argue for the working class to change and adapt itself into something new you first must assume that there is such a thing as a 'working class' in the first place.
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