Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) was once referred to as "the Marxist you can take home to mother."

Gramsci was an Italian intellectual who is seen as one of the leading Marxist theorists of the 20th centruy.  He was one of the founding members of the Comunist Party of Italy and for that he was imprisoned.  Gramsci was seen as a threat to the Italian government because of his Marxist view that the people should have the power and and after an attempt on Mussolini's life, he imprisoned by the Fascist government.  He was sentenced for 20 years and there is where he wrote his Prison Notebooks.  While in prison, he wrote over 30 notebooks containing more than 3000 pages of text.  In these pages, he writes about history and developed many of his epic theories during this time. He puts a great emphasis on history, and stresses to look at events and situations in a historical, social, culture, etc. context. 

Three of the most key concepts that Gramsci develops are the role of intellectuals, praxis, and hegemony.  

The role of intellectuals is important to Gramsci's theory. He believed that everyone had the capacity to become an intellectual. He said, "all men are intellectuals...but not all men have in society the function of intellectuals." What he means by this is that while anyone can be an intellectual, only some of them are legitimated as such. He distinguishes between organic and traditional intellectuals. A traditional intellectual is one that functions in society, is recognized as, and holds the authority of an intellectual because he/she is legitimized by the system (see Robert Goldman). Essentially it is their profession that legitimates them. An organic intellectual is an individual that emerges from the community. They are not legitimated as intellectuals in the way the traditional ones are, but they use critical thought to think and spread their views about the world. Your blues singing grandma for instance. The traditional intellectuals hold the power, the hegemony over society. However, it is the organic intellectuals that Gramsci believes will be able to provide a counter to hegemony and the common sense behind it. How so? The organic intellectuals, who have the capacity to think critically, have the intellectual ability of the traditional intellectuals. While they may not be recognized as intellectuals themselves, they have the tools and they have something the traditional intellectual hegemony lacks: support from the community. In numbers there is power, yet it must be combined with the praxis of theory. That is to say, there must be the combination of theory, which comes from the intellectual, combined with the support and practice of the community as a whole. Gramsci notes, "...there is no organization without intellectuals, that is without organizers and leaders, in other words, without the theoretical aspect of the theory-practice nexus being distinguished concretely by the existence of a group of people "specialized" in conceptual and philosophical elaboration of idea"( Lemert, 2004:261).

     Continuing on the idea of praxis (theory + motivated action), Gramsci says it must be a criticism of common sense (uncritical acceptance of what "is").  And stresses its importance in bringing about social change.  This combination of theory and motivated action is much easier said than done, however.  It is the mass (working class) who by shear number have to be the ones to bring about change, but it is them who suffer most from a constrast between their thought and action, to which he writes:

"[The masses have] adopted a conception (ideology) which is not its own but is borrowed from another group; and it affirms this conception verbally and believes itself to be following it, because this is the conception which it follows in 'normal times' -that is, when its conduct is not independent and autonomous, but submissive and subordinate."

This contradictory state of consciousness creates a condition of "moral and political passivity."  But Gramsci is hopeful! He sees praxis as an inevitable part of the historical process, and the first step towards this union is recognizing that you are a part of a particular hegemonic force. A particular way of thinking and seeing and understanding in a particular time frame. AKA, know thyself (as a product of history)!

And for those of you who wish to create a cultural movement and challenge "common sense", he offers two pieces of advice:

1. Repeat your arguement. Over, and over.

2. Educate the mass, and support the growth of organic intellectuals.

Ta-da! Revolution.

Ideological Hegemony

     Antonio Gramsci's theory of hegemony is based within his ideas of the influence of ideology.  For Gramsci, ideology is the power behind hegemonic relationships which is essencially the collected and shared beliefs/ideas of a dominant group which reinforces their legitimacy.  He believed that through specific ideologies the masses could be brought together.  In The Study of Philosophy he used the Catholic Church as an example of ideological hegemony.  He discussed how the Church used it's ideology to bring both intellectuals and "simple" people (those who have not yet reached their potencial as intellectuals) together.  However they ran into problems when (as a way to keep their power) they tried to keep the intellectuals down at the level of the simple people as a way of creating solidarity.  Gramsci claims that then the intellectuals will eventually split from the hegemonic group in order to create new ideologies which often follow a specific intellectual such as Francis or Dominic.  These groups, he argues, become less about faith and increasingly more geared towards political parties. 

     Gramsci claims that in order to get real change, intellectuals need to come up with an ideology which unites the people from the bottom up, which essentially means, bringing everyone up to the level of the intellectuals.  He argues that this kind of unification comes through praxis, the combination of action with theory.  By intoducing praxis to the simple it allows them to become critical thinkers thus fully understand the ideological hegemonies that they participate in. 

     Gramsci explains how ideological hegemony works by discussing a man of the masses as being a part of two consciousnesses.  As a "mass man" (thats my newest idea for a super hero) he has not yet learned to be an intellectual thus his thoughts are unconsciously absorbed and untheoretical.  His practical actions then come out of these unconscious thoughts that are historically and verbally inherited from the rest of the world/reinforced by the dominant group.  This conception of the world acts as the glue of society in that it influences "mass man's" moral conduct as well as his actions.  Gramsci argues that this essentially creates morally and politically passive people because they are following the ideological hegemony unconsciously.  He believes that this can be remedied by changing "mass man" into an intellectual by intorducing praxis and thus gaining critical self consciousness, ideological hegemonic awareness as well as a conscious conception of the world.