Discussion: Political Ideologies

Political Ideologies: Discussion
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Course
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Political Ideologies-Discussion
For me, the most exciting part of the course reading was Gramsci's chapter on intellectuals. In his discussion, Gramsci's philosophy is an example of the most reputable form of intellectual production. He argued that all people are intellectuals because they all have a specific understanding of the world, which they have fashioned out of their expertise and circumstance. Even though all men possess intellectual and reasoning abilities, not all men perform the societal role of intellectuals. Rather than being only talkers, he saw contemporary intellectuals as practical directors and organizers who established hegemony via doctrinal institutions such as education and the media. He argues that the hegemony of a governing group over the rest of society provides the basis for consent.[Hoare, Quintin, and Geoffrey Nowell-Smith. Selections from prison notebooks of Antonio Gramsci. Lawrence & Wishart, 2005.]
Traditional intellectuals, according to Gramsci, are individuals who, notwithstanding their incorporation into the capitalist mode of production, remain far and alo...