Subnostr

I have been quoting Gramsci to people for two decades now. It's not like the guy didn't clearly state what the strategy and the plan was.

His thesis was that because the well-to-do industrialized West was NOT like Czarist Russia, and people lived in relative comfort, violent revolution wasn't possible, as seen in Germany, Italy, the UK, etc.

Since the mechanism by which the bourgeoisie controls society and keeps "workers" in check and docile is "cultural hegemony", that is, ideology imposed and spread by cultural and political institutions, that's what the Marxists had to do to bring about the changes they want.

Specifically, Gramsci perfectly identified education and academia at large, and universities and media specifically, as the priority target for infiltration. He wrote all this in the 1910 and 20's!

They've been at it for 100 years, and probably in earnest since the 60's, especially in Europe where they have achieved basically total and absolute hegemony, as he wished. I always remark on this fact: it's taken them 100 years, and they've done it.

Even if we all become aware of it, and we decided to undo it, how long do you think it's going to take? No "democratic mandate" completely conditioned by the 4 year electoral cycle can ever be enough. This is a much deeper and longer process that must be undertaken.

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nobody 1y ago

Even the Polish Solidarnosc movement, which achieved the superficial success of “free and fair” elections and reasonable concessions for workers’ rights over a more than 30 year period through mass work stoppages, was not without blood. And much of the ground that was gained from these relatively peaceful actions has since been lost.

IMO, until humans figure out a way to make incrementalism work equally well for those seeking liberty as those who seek to oppress, we will always be locked in a cycle whereby periodic violent revolution is the only thing that achieves more than marginal success in throwing off shackles.

Wait until people in the west start routinely missing three days’ food at a time. It’s the only stressor that ever brings about real action and mass abandonment of belief in peaceful solutions at a critical enough mass to make a difference.

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hh 1y ago

Well, to begin with, do not misinterpret Gramsci: he wasn't "against" violence. He just thought that from the utilitarian point of view, cultural warfare was more productive. He has been proven right.

Marxism in various forms and branches is the hegemonic ideology in Western Europe, almost completely unchallenged. It is *completely* unchallenged as *the* academic methodological framework in all social sciences, thus in political science too.

This is what has brought about the current fascist regime (to be more academic: "Corporate State"), also called "mixed economy", "social democracy", etc.

Nobody can question that Gramsci and the Marxists have won utterly, when the State in most of Western Europe actively collects and controls 50% or more of the GDP, and doesn't leave a single gap untouched in any aspect of society, the economy, morals, for individual autonomy and free association. Not even the Soviet Union achieved such levels of complete control over "the means of production".