This web page discusses 'hegemony',
a Marxist sociological concept, but also conceptualised by
Weber, and
particularly Gramski (an Italian Marxist). The fact that most
of you have never heard of hegemony is an indication of just how
uninformed and ignorant the public is kept about sociological
perspectives (which is not the same as being informed but choosing to
reject it). Hegemony is a process whereby the public institutions and
social structures (including economic stratification) of a society, which are
created by the ruling class, serve to mould the values, morality,
ambitions, fantasies, fears, and desires of the citizens to those of the
ruling class.
For example,
consider a leadership or a ruling class who maintain their control
over their society through astrology. These leaders would probably use
their power within the society to create a culture in
which....
- elitism is based upon
astrological knowledge (and because of this, most citizens would not
have access to an advanced education in astrology);
- the society's educational
and scientific institutions regard astrological beliefs as true;
- certain astrological events
become associated with feasting, gift-giving, public holidays, and
public rituals or ceremonies;
- the media continually regards and
reaffirms astrological knowledge and beliefs as being the only
sensible, fair, and valid things to base the rules and social
structure of a society upon;
- the yearly calendar
may be
based upon star signs, and the year zero or one may be based upon some
astrological event;
- peoples' daily or
weekly lives include (superstitious) rituals, or modifications of
individuals' behaviour, which are associated with
promoting or inhibiting events that the stars have indicated might
be a possibility;
- the laws and policies of the state
are based upon astrology;
- the state and major public and private
institutions make decisions based upon astrological events;
- the institutionalised religion
preaches astrology and supports the economic and social
stratification that is based upon astrological knowledge;
- peoples' successes and failures in
life (and economic life) are continually rationalised,
analysed, and reaffirmed in terms of astrological events and
beliefs;
- the society becomes much more
fatalistic (e.g. Births, deaths, and sickness are written in the
stars);
- individuals applying
for jobs or marriage partners may be assessed by their birth date
and time;
- droughts, storms, etc
are attributed to astrological events, or by people breaking taboos
that are based upon astrological beliefs;
- the state's successes
or failures are attributed to astrological events; and
- the physical structure,
appearance, and locations of prominent building, towns, and roads reflect astrological
beliefs.
In such a society, the citizens' values and beliefs, and what they
think they know become rationalised upon what they think they know
about astrology because the culture is rationalised upon
astrological events. And many citizens would develop fantasies and
ambitions about being a great astrologist, not just for
personal enlightenment, but mainly because they fantasise
about enjoying the same social and material benefits that the
current elite class does. And these fears, desires, fantasies, and
ambitions that develop within ordinary citizens (from
infanthood)
serve to keep the value of astrology and elitism very high
within the society, and this serves to reproduce the same
form of rule and social structure (i.e. an institutionalised astrological domination
culture that serves to favour the ambitions and fantasies of
elite astrologists).
As in any materially stratified society, social and
environmental problems, which are more often than not, quite acceptable to the
ruling class, ensue, but now it is also these culturally
developed values, beliefs, desires, etc of the citizens that
are serving to keep the dysfunctional culture/constitution
reproducing itself over and over again, even
when the public does not like or trust the current leader.
Most
citizens, and especially those born into the society, would accept
astrological beliefs as normal or obvious, and regard astrology is being
all-important. But even if some citizens don't believe in astrology,
they will have no choice but to pander to these beliefs if they hope to
get by or to succeed within their society and if they hope to be regarded
as normal. And in doing this, they helplessly support and reinforce
astrological beliefs within their society and the astrologists' control
of their society. Many citizens would develop the desire to know
as much as they can about astrology, but because this
knowledge is inaccessible to most people (because it is a means of
acquiring high status), most citizens are
likely to develop a fear of being without their leading
astrologists. Not only does this serve to keep astrologists in
power, the citizens are more likely to worship
or display gratitude to their astrologist leaders, and to accept that
they do deserve to be rewarded more than all others for undertaking this
vital job for their society.
Hegemony can hardly be considered an
accidental phenomenon. It would appear that ruling classes
learnt long ago that if you succeed in achieving this
transmission of values, beliefs, etc, the leadership will
remain far more stable than when one is ruling through more
blatant forms of domination. As such, and as the list above
indicates, we see important social
institutions such as religion, science, law, and government
being controlled and manipulated to validate and consolidate
the values, desires, fantasies, ambitions, etc of the ruling
class, and therefore the existing structure of the society. It is blatant social
construction; it is never admitted to; it is denied that it does condition peoples'
minds; it is
evident in all elitist forms of rule, and it works. That is,
hegemony is a form of conditioning, and as you can see, it is very different to
the process of deducing what is the right or the most fair or logical
thing to do.
At the same time that all
this social construction occurs, an equally intensive campaign is working to
seduce the citizens into accepting that all other forms of rule
are unfair, unjust, ignorant, corrupt, oppressive, unworkable, weak,
inhumane, immoral, or anything else that can be thought up,
and this usually works on us as well (even
though most citizens conversely distrust the motivations of
those people who preach this rhetoric: the ruling class, the elite, and
politicians). You may think that
the leaders of the various forms of rule
would need to justify to the people why their form of rule is the
best and/or rational, and you would be right. However, and I know
that you're not going to like this, but we people are capable of
believing and becoming emotionally attached to the most unbelievable
and unacceptable things through this social conditioning
process, as the example of a society based upon astrological beliefs
indicates. As you will
see shortly in our 'The Capitalist Scam'
and our 'The
Democratic and Undemocratic Nature of the AEM's Egalitarian
Society' web pages, we people of so-called civilized, scientifically
enlightened, and modern western societies are
currently believing the absolutely ridiculous, and accepting the
completely unacceptable (e.g. intellectual labour is worth
more than physical labour). And this is because the rulers
of our society have also deliberately and successfully conditioned us by using all the same techniques that are discussed in the list
above, and they have used them to social create support for, and belief
in two inter-supportive loads of nonsense, capitalism and the
contemporary form of democracy.
So, the context of our culture serves to
modify the way in which we think (i.e. our psyche), and much of
what we are motivated to do. Almost
every fantasy and every goal that the citizens acquire were
developed within a particular cultural context, which would
often not make sense outside of that culture, particularly the
fantasies and goals of those people who were born into an existing
culture (which is everybody in Australia and in most other places). And as the
context of the culture is created from the top down, we feel
that Marx was pretty close
to the mark when he wrote that the ruling values of a society
are the values of the ruling class.
Typically however, most citizens in all cultures usually refuse to
believe that certain of their own values, beliefs (or what they
think they know), desires, fears, and ambitions were developed
within them by their ruling class or the context of their society. Nor do
they accept, or begin to consider that their own values, beliefs, ambitions, etc are the problems
underwriting their own society's greedy or brutal leadership and social problems.
They instead blame bad or greedy individuals in power or those
individuals who are the victims of social problems. As
such, as much as the citizens complain about the social
problems or the poor leadership of their
society, their own values and beliefs, etc serve to keep
things the way they are.
Developing the same fantasies and ambitions
of power and wealth is also why new forms of rule tend to behave a lot
like the form or rule that was just ousted, particularly when they have no
objections to a materially stratified society. The end result is that
although new regimes may come into power on a more humanitarian
ticket, they often end up being just as ruthless as the people they
ousted.
The AEM's task is to
change your values and attitudes regarding all economically stratified
societies, including capitalist societies. This is a difficult task because
our values and attitudes are not just
based upon what we think we know. They incorporate a lot of emotional
investment. Like sexual fantasies, our other fantasies, ambitions,
desires, and fears that we have been developed from living within our
culture don't just stop because a bunch of Egalitarianists have
partially convinced us that they are socially dysfunctional. As with sexual fantasies that have been deemed to be
the product of a sick mind, most of us would rather stay sick than to
give up something that we derive so much pleasure from thinking about or
living out. These are the fantasies and ambitions that keep us motivated
to keep going. However, the AEM doesn't expect you to stop fantasising
about being rich, but we do hope that most of you realise that you are
amongst the 80+% of people who are never going to be rich. To a large
extent, it is too late to save ourselves. We are already the product of
this society. The idea is to stop developing or reproducing these
fantasies in those people being born into the society. We have to
understand that we all want to be rich, just as we all wish we had
magical powers, but this doesn't mean that
certain people should have more wealth than everybody else, just as it
doesn't mean that certain people should possess magical powers (even
though some
people have claimed to possess magical powers in order to gain control of the
society or certain groups of people).
There are quite a few other reasons why
we tend to believe nonsense, and we may expand this page later to
discuss them. For example, we people tend to believe what we hear
first, and particularly so when delivered by someone who is believed to
be a reliable source of knowledge. And because we have been receiving
capitalist hegemony for the outset of our lives, we
tend to believe in the capitalist ideology above all others (which was
the planned outcome).
