Cultural hegemony describes the domination of a culturally diverse society by the ruling class, who manipulates the culture of the society — the beliefs, explanations, perceptions, values, and mores — so that their Weltanschauung becomes the worldview that is imposed and accepted as the cultural norm; as the universally valid dominant ideology that justifies the social, political, and economic status quo as natural and inevitable, perpetual and beneficial for everyone, rather than as artificial social constructs that benefit only the ruling class.^[1][2] As a philosophy term and as a sociology term, cultural hegemony derived from the Ancient Greek word hegemony (leadership and rule), the geopolitical method of indirect imperial dominance, with which the hegemon (leader state) rules subordinate states, by the implied means of power, the threat of the threat of intervention, rather than by direct military force, that is, invasion, occupation, and annexation.^[3]

Background

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Etymologic

In Ancient Greece (8th c. BC – AD 6th c.), hegemony (leadership) denoted the politico–military dominance of a city-state upon other city-states, as in the Hellenic League.^[2] In the 19th century, hegemony (rule) denoted the geopolitical and cultural predominance of one country upon other countries, as in the European colonialism imposed in the Americas, Africa, and Asia.^[4] In the 20th century, the political-science denotation of hegemony (dominance) expanded to include the ruling-class cultural domination of a socially stratified society. By manipulating the culture (values and mores) of the society, the ruling class can intellectually dominate the other social classes with an imposed worldview that ideologically justifies the social, political, and economic status quo as natural and normal, inevitable and perpetual.^[2][5][6][7]

Historical

In 1848, Karl Marx proposed that the economic recessions and practical contradictions of a capitalist economy would provoke the working class to proletarian revolution, depose capitalism, restructure societal institutions (economic, political, social) per rational, socialist models, and thus begin the transition to a communist society. Therefore, the dialectical changes to the functioning of the economy of a society determine its social superstructures (culture and politics), and the composition of its economic and social classes. To that end, Antonio Gramsci proposed a strategic distinction, between a War of Position and a War of Manœuvre. The war of position is an intellectual and cultural struggle wherein the anti-capitalist revolutionary creates a proletarian culture whose native value system counters the cultural hegemony of the bourgeoisie. The proletarian culture will increase class consciousness, teach revolutionary theory and historical analysis, and thus propagate further revolutionary organisation among the social classes. On winning the war of position, socialist leaders would then have the necessary political power and popular support to begin the political manœuvre warfare of revolutionary socialism.

Cultural hegemony

The initial, theoretic application of cultural domination was as an analysis of the economic class, which Antonio Gramsci developed to comprehend social class. Hence, the theory of cultural hegemony proposes that the prevailing cultural norms of society, which are imposed by the ruling class (bourgeois cultural hegemony), must not be perceived as natural and inevitable, but must be recognized as artificial social constructs (institutions, practices, beliefs) that must be investigated to discover their roots as instruments of social-class domination. That such praxis of knowledge is indispensable for the intellectual liberation of the proletariat, so that urban workers and peasants can create their own culture, which specifically addresses their social and economic needs as social classes.

In a society, the praxis of cultural hegemony is neither monolithic nor a unified system of values, rather it is a complex of stratified social structures. Each social and economic class has a societal purpose and an internal class logic allowing its members to behave in a particular way that is different from the behaviour of members of other social classes, whilst co-existing with them as constituents of the society. As a result of their different social purposes, the classes will be able to coalesce into a society with a greater social mission. In a person perceiving the social structures of cultural hegemony, personal common sense has a dual structural role (personal and public). Personally, individual men and women apply common sense to cope with daily life, and to explain (to themselves) the small segment of the social order stratum that they experience as life. Publicly, the perceptual limitations of common sense emerge and inhibit individual perception of the greater nature of the systematic socio-economic exploitation made possible by cultural hegemony. Because of the discrepancy in perceiving the status quo — the socio-economic hierarchy of bourgeois culture — most men and women concern themselves with their immediate (personal) concerns, rather than (publicly) think about and question the fundamental sources of their social and economic oppression.^[8]

At the personal level, cultural hegemony is perceptible; although each person in a society lives a meaningful life in his or her social class, to him or her, the discrete classes might appear to have little in common with individual private life. Yet, when perceived as a whole society, the life of each person does contribute to the greater societal hegemony. Although social diversity, economic variety, and political freedom appear to exist — because most people see different life-circumstances — they are incapable of perceiving the greater hegemonic pattern created when the lives they witness coalesce as a society. The cultural hegemony is manifested in and maintained by an existence of minor, different circumstances that are not always fully perceived by the men and the women living the culture.^[9] (See: Marx's theory of alienation)

Gramsci’s intellectual influence

Cultural hegemony much influenced Eurocommunism, the social sciences, and the activist politics of socially liberal and progressive politicians. The analytic discourse of cultural hegemony is important to research and synthesis in anthropology, political science, sociology, and cultural studies; in education, cultural hegemony developed critical pedagogy.

In 1967, the German student movement leader Rudi Dutschke reformulated Gramsci’s philosophy of cultural hegemony with the phrase Der lange Marsch durch die Institutionen (The long march through the institutions), denoting the war of position, in allusion to the Long March (1934–35) of the Communist Chinese People's Liberation Army.^{[10][11][12][13][14]}