18. Hegemony

From the Ancient Greek ηγεμών (hēgemōn), meaning the leader of a group or society, hegemony is a word with multiple, but related meanings. In history and international relations theory (the study of how countries interact with one another), hegemony describes an unequal or asymmetrical relationship between states, with one state obeying the orders of another. Yet, there also exists another definition which has influenced more modern understandings of hegemony not between societies, but between classes within the same society.

The modern concept of hegemony is associated with the Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937), a Marxist theorist who applied the concept of hegemony to culture and class. Karl Marx (1818-1883) had argued that the most important aspect of a society was its economic system, and that politics and culture were secondary characteristics which were less important to plan to change a society’s structure. Gramsci disagreed with Marx’s claim that the economy was the most important element of society, instead arguing that ‘economics is downstream from culture’, and that a society’s cultural attitudes are key to understanding the relations between classes in society, and ultimately changing society’s structures. Cultural hegemony is the concept that the ruling class in a society can manipulate the cultures of other classes, effectively convincing them to share the attitudes, beliefs, and cultural values of the ruling class as desirable and “normal”, even when these values are harmful to everyone except the ruling class.

As a result, Gramsci thought that changing society was impossible if the focus was on economics and the political structure alone, because change would necessarily be violent and brutal unless people’s’ attitudes shifted enough for them to actually believe in the changes and see them as desirable. To try and achieve this, Gramsci created the concept of ‘metapolitics’; achieving change in society not through a revolution against the political system (which creates deep resentment and hostility among the population), but by transforming individuals’ attitudes and beliefs to align with their own class interests, and then, once society’s atti- tudes were changed, changing the political system itself.