Gramsci's Thoughts Of Hegemony And The Meaning To The Present Age

It is known that Hegemony and Cultural hegemony, the primary thoughts of political philosophy of Antonio Gramsci, are of grandness and permanence, and closely related with the times. Lots of scholars now are throwing themselves in the research of Antonio Gramsci. The reasons people begin to consider the thoughts again lie, on one hand, in the philosophical and non-historical understanding, which goes far away from the truth of Marxism; on the other hand, in the call of the times. That is to say, Marxism requires to be succeeded and improved. In this sense, Antonio Gramsci, the founder of Italian Communist Party, a persistent Marxian, questioned consistently on the proletarian struggles after the WWI, then summarized his own political experiences, finally deepened originally the idea of Hegemony, which has facilitated and promoted the Marxist Ideology.It is known to all, the idea of Hegemony, a political term quoted by Russian revolutionists in the early 20th century, describes the roles that proletariats have made in Russian revolutionary against bourgeoisie. Lenin, one of the proletariats, who lead the October revolution, a great metaphysical event called by Gramsci, sacrificed a lot to the improvement of the idea of Hegemony. Lenin emphasized on political hegemony, not cultural hegemony. And Marx put more weight on political hegemony for the purpose of human emancipation, which could be seen in the Outline about Feuerbach and the Communist Manifesto. On the contrast, Gramsci, in pursuit of Marxism, found his own way to discover the meaning of cultural hegemony, which weights ideally and practically. That has brought us a new aspect to study on Marxism.Gramsci's thoughts of hegemony originated from his civil society theory, which could easily show the thoughts of cultural hegemony. In Gramsci's view, the concept of nation is holistic, which unites the political society and civil society and then swings between the two and will not disappear until the political society totally melts into the civil society. Terry Eagleton has said that it is Gramsci that relates the concept of civil society to hegemony. The primary motive of such a civil society aims to executive cultural hegemony. We know that Antonio Gramsci put forward his idea of cultural hegemony with his struggling experiences in accordance with the concept of civil society as a kind of superstructure.Gramsci had been putting his attention on the significance of culture and that of the relations to politics since his youth. In Gramsci's stand, the culture nurtures one's heart and enlightens one's spirit, helps humans to get rid of the political and economic shackles. That function of culture presupposes the human emancipation. In the book of the Prison Notebooks, Gramsci stressed that the leading roles that society played, are predominance and spiritual and mental guidance, and focused on the significance of the latter. In his thoughts, the group of society might and should appear to be the leader before the seizure of a regime. Whenever it made itself the governor, it had to be a governing community, otherwise its leadership would not preserve for a long period. In other words, the group of society that obtained the political leadership has to cultrate the mass culturally and ideologically otherwise all would be in vain.The community has to maintain the leadership on culture and ideology to take over power politically, which could not be achieved without the group of intellectuals who hold the rights to spread the culture. The Prison Notebooks extends the bound of the concept of intellectual, non-academically, to that of all humans, in which the intellectuals were marked traditional and organic. Organic intellectuals relate to industrial civilization tightly, the idea of which is in conformance with the times and shows the societal development. The community of intellectuals, who usually brings into play in the non-state organ of civil society, would be in uniform of its group of society to execute its function of dominance. That is to say, only when the intellectuals are indentified with the mass, could they get united. In the research of the history, Gramsci found that intellectuals, as cultural carriers, relate indivisibly to cultural leadership. He has discussed a lot on the community of intellectuals, which was thought, by David McLellan, to contribute to historically materialistic Marxim.What has been demonstrated is our understanding of the thoughts of hegemony by Gramsci theoretically. In addition, we probe into it practically with an expectation of a more full comprehension.The eventual cause of Gramsci's thoughts of hegemony is the realization of revolution, the emancipation of humans, which with no doubt needs the unity of the great mass, and the participation of any revolutionary party. We discuss the issues of party and revolution, and could see the brightness of Gramsci's political thoughts in pursuit of Marxim. Gramsci preached the undisputable function of party in the constitution and transmission of the world view of Marxism. The victory of proletarian revolution could not be achieved without the participation and struggles of organic intellectuals. The thoughts of Gramsci come from the analysis of history, from the study on the relations of the community of intellectuals and its hegemony, and also from the buildup of Italian parties. He probed into the revolution of France to establish and guide the Communist Party in Italian, thus, illustrated the Party and the community in a full tense, which provided a theoretical foundation for human emancipation. We think the thoughts of Gramsci could not be actualized with the implementation of revolution. The thoughts of Hegemony have to be related to practice, and to the mass. The thesis gives a detailed illustration on the issue of realization of hegemony. Gramsci has put the hegemony of cultural leadership and that of ideology first and foremost, which differs from the emphasis on political hegemony by certain traditional Marxists. For Gramsci,Antonio, revolution is life itself, the idea of which could be discussed in the thesis.In the final part of the thesis, it reveals the meaning and inspiration of Gramsci's hegemony to the present age. We are in belief of the great power of Gramsci's thoughts in modern times both theoretically and practically. Theoretically, we have demonstrated that the thoughts of hegemony are valuable to the comprehension of Marxism. Practically, we have shown the inspiration and guidance in certain aspect to the study of capitalism nowadays, and to socialist construction.