Cliff Notes version?
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Gramsci was a bitter, resentful, twisted little Albanian. All of his followers and successors have been similarly bitter, resentful and twisted.
Nice summary for those who haven’t made it their business to understand what’s been going on around them.
VP Harris’ father is an expert on this Gramsci cat.
To clarify some things here -
- Gramsci didn’t have his “Prison Notebooks” published in his lifetime; they didn’t reach the light of day until the 1950’s, in Italian and German, and not till the 1970’s in English. He did not create the “long march” paradigm at all, it was already in process when his writings came out. He was an unheard prophet until long after his prophecies were already in process.
- Gramsci DID accurately describe what was going on, as a “natural” process, not a strategy. I suppose some activists in, say, the 1970’s were encouraged by Gramsci in their own part of the “long march”, but that wasn’t the driver.
- Gramsci’s importance is that he created a frame in which to understand what was happening in western societies post-1945. A very accurate one. Unlike Marx, he did successfully foretell the future.
- Gramsci’s analysis is not politically aligned. It is couched in an aspiration for communism, in his writings, but the frame and process he described is fundamentally politically neutral. His ideas of hegemony and control of the “superstructure” work regardless of the ideological content. That’s why Gramsci has been so popular in the right, over the last 20 years. He is rather neglected by the left these days, because THEY are now the hegemons.
And Gramsci had no influence on the Frankfurt School, etc. Those people had no access to his writings. Its not a progression of ideas here, but a sort of parallel evolution.
Before it was called Political Correctness it was called Social Engineering.
Saved to listen to the podcast later. Thanks for posting this!
Had a brilliant prof in grad school (sciences not anything social, literary or political) who had made it out of communist Hungary. He befriended me and he was the one who first let me know about Gramsci. That was over 20 years ago but here we are. He definitely knew what time it was.
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* * * Cultural Marxism / Gramsci * * *