Hegemonic

From MarxWiki

Hegemonic/Hegemony- Hegemony was initially understood in Marxism as the concentration and application of power of the dominant class over the subservient class. This was understood primarily in an economic sense, meaning the capitalists dictated the means of production and the distribution of resources while the working class was essentially powerless and alienated from the means of production.

This concept of hegemony was complicated with the writings and later interpretations of Gramsci, and became a central subject of Marxist Cultural Theory. Hegemony in this sense must be understood as a complex relationship between groups of dominant and subdominant populations established and identified not only by their economic status, but also race, gender, ethnicity, religion and other subjective elements. Hegemony must be negotiated for by the dominant class and must be accepted, either through coercion or consensus, by all those under its sway.

Hegemony uses the ideological bases of the society to normalize not only the official institutions, economies, and government artifices, but also the cultural, artistic and traditional practices of every day life. The idea of hegemony as developed to exist in relation to but beyond ideology. It is the “saturation of the whole process of living” (Williams 110). It is a crucial element in the daily practices, expectations, and perceptions both of ourselves as subjective beings and of our society and world.

In such, the relationship between the hegemonic and the subordinate is significantly complicated. It no longer suffices to explain the relationship as one in which the dominant ideology creates a false consciousness through manipulation and thus maintains hegemony and control over the means of production. As Raymond Williams writes, “a lived hegemony is always a process” (Williams, 112). Hegemony is constantly resisted and reshaped. Hegemony is in this view, no longer the totalizing and exclusive force that is written about by Adorno and Horkheimer. Theorists like Williams, Hall, and Hebdige begin to address the counter-hegemonies, counter-cultures, and sub-cultures and consider how they actively participate in the recreation of hegemony.

Cultural movements and artifacts, according to these theorists, are consistently rising from marginalized groups to challenge the hegemonic norms. These challenges may meet a variety of fates: they may be crushed outright, they may be ignored and continue to exist only on the periphery of the cultural panorama, or they may be incorporated, re-appropriated, and re-assimilated to varying degrees back into the dominant culture.

The hegemonic, is then, not a static and totalizing force, but the critical site of social and cultural struggle; the discourse through which the practices, ideas, tradtions, and norms that shape our lives are formed.