Re: Hegemony:
“‘Hegemony’ will allude to an absent totality, and to the diverse attempts at recomposition and rearticulation which, in overcoming this original absence, ” according to Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, “made it possible for struggles to be given a meaning and for historical forces to be endowed with full positivity.”
What are Laclau and Mouffe talking about when they refer to an absent totality and an original absence? Some sort of pretended universality that is in fact contested and contingent? But isn't that not so much an absence as a partiality? And I can imagine how contingency could allow for the rearticulation of meaning, but what do they mean by full positivity? Is that another way of saying pretended universality?
“The emerging hegemonic culture is not merely an ideological mystification but serves the interests of ruling groups at the expense of subordinate ones."
How exactly does hegemony relate to false consciousness? In turning to the concept of hegemony as more useful than the notion of false consciousness, might we not also question whether subordinate groups are in fact acting against their interests? Might they not be acting consciously in their own best interests in buying in to the hegemonic culture? Does a hegemonic culture necessarily serve the ruling groups at the *expense* of subordinate groups? Are subordinate groups just settling for the little they can get, or are they getting more than we might recognize? Is hegemony a function of the limiting of the options of subordinate groups in such a way as to make limited options seem inevitable? And what degree of control do ruling groups actually have over the hegemonic culture? How is consciousness/agency/power distributed within a hegemonic culture? What kind of power does the rank-and-file claim by buying in to neocon nationalism? Why can neoconservativism plausibly claim to represent the interests of society at large?
(And...isn't "best interest," and especially narrowly-defined economic self-interest, ultimately an incomplete and unsatisfying way of understanding human motivation?)
Re: Homer:
What does he care about? What motivates him? How conscious is he of the power structures and societal systems that frame his life? Does he ever act against his own best interest, given his choices? To what extent is he manipulated by ruling groups? How does he exercise power? Under what circumstances would he buy in to neoconservativism?
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Gramsci and the Neocons
As I have been unable to focus on much lately other than my current thesis project, I thought I would contribute my first official post in the form of a draft excerpt from a section I am composing on the application of Antonio Gramsci's theory of "hegemony" to the neoconservatives and their war on terror. Hopefully this will add to the ongoing discussion, while perhaps laying a foundation for future discourse on hegemony (and culture, power, history in general) in relation to our intellectual interests. For my next post, I will perhaps try to cover the "Homer" angle...d'oh!
“For Gramsci,” writes David Forgacs, “changing socio-economic circumstances do not of themselves ‘produce’ political changes. They only set the conditions in which such changes become possible.” Continuing his interpretation using Marxian theoretical language, Forgacs notes:
What is crucial, in bringing about these changes, are the ‘relations of force’ obtaining at the political level, the degree of political organization and combativity of the opposing forces, the strength of the political alliances which they manage to bind together and their level of political consciousness, of preparation of the struggle on the ideological terrain.
Thus describing the process through which factional competition determines the political-ideological (super-structural) articulation of socioeconomic (base) transformation, Forgacs adds that “It is in the context of this discussion that two central concepts develop: ‘hegemony’ and ‘historical bloc.’” By this definition, neoconservatives have thus evolved into a Gramscian historical bloc through their coalitional struggle within ideological and political terrains, whereby they succeeded in attaching their cultural vision of militant nationalism to the material interests of US global power.
Continuing this theme, Stuart Hall argues that “Hegemony, once achieved, must be constantly and ceaselessly renewed, reenacted…Central to this is the notion of various forms and intensities of struggle.” By this definition, the neoconservative bloc has thus been central to the production of the “war on terror” as a hegemonic construct not merely because its members have occupied positions of influence and authority, but rather, because they have consistently engaged and reengaged in the struggles through which they articulated the discourses (ideologies) of a “clash of civilizations and “war on terror” as commonsensical continuations of the “cold war” social imaginary (construct). In this context, “it is the various outcomes of these struggles,” Hall adds, “not the reinscription in place of what already exists, that determines the nature of the unstable equilibrium on which the authority of a social bloc is founded and that also defines its weak or unstable points, the points of further unrolling and development.”
Hegemony is therefore always incomplete and must be constantly reordered in conjunction with the changing nature of human struggle. In this sense, “‘Hegemony’ will allude to an absent totality, and to the diverse attempts at recomposition and rearticulation which, in overcoming this original absence, ” according to Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, “made it possible for struggles to be given a meaning and for historical forces to be endowed with full positivity.” Laclau and Mouffe add, in a particularly relevant interpretation with respect to the neoconservative bloc’s vision of American empire:” ‘Hegemony’ will not be the majestic unfolding of an identity but the response to a crisis.”
In response to a perceived perpetual threat of declining US global power, the neoconservative bloc responded, for instance, by formulating Committees on the Present Danger in order to “educate” the public about the crises posed by the Soviet Union, Communism, Al Qaeda, and political (militant) Islam. In this context, the hegemonic result has been a high degree of mass participation of in the construction of elite generated “cold war” and “war on terror” social imaginaries. This outcome was not, however, inevitable. Nor is it bound to remain in place.
Therefore, as T.J. Jackson Lears argues, “A historical bloc may or may not become hegemonic, depending on how successfully it forms alliances with other groups and classes.” He thus adds: “to achieve cultural hegemony, the leaders of a historical bloc must develop a world view that appeals to a wide range of other groups within the society, and they must be able to claim with at least some plausibility that their particular interests are those of society at large.” Indeed, while forming and reforming various alliances across the political and economic spectrum of US nationalists, from traditional liberals rightward, the neoconservative bloc also produced a powerful cross-cultural coalition between Jewish and Christian Zionists interwoven with the geopolitical imperatives of American power in the Middle East.
Yet, in order to conscript the general public into their moral geographic vision of US global power, the neoconservative bloc articulated ideologies of Americanism that perpetuated anticommunist and anti-Islamic sentiment generated by the fear of Soviet world domination and mass destruction at the hands of a global “terror network.” Such elite appeals to mass patriotism operate as “selective accommodation to the desires of subordinate groups,” according to Lears’ description of the historical bloc, which means that “The emerging hegemonic culture is not merely an ideological mystification but serves the interests of ruling groups at the expense of subordinate ones.
Sources:
David Forgacs, An Antonio Gramsci Reader: Selected Writings 1916-1935 (New York: Schocken Books, 1988); HTML mark-up by Andy Blunden, December 2002: http://www.marxists.org/archive/gramsci/prison_notebooks/reader/notes.htm#vi[5]; http://www.marxists.org/archive/gramsci/prison_notebooks/reader/.
Stuart Hall, “The Toad in the Garden: Thatcherism among the Theorists” (1983), page number?
Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics (London: Verso Press, 2001) 1.
T.J. Jackson Lears, “The Concept of Cultural Hegemony: Problems and Possibilities,” The American Historical Review, Vol. 90 no. 3 (Jun., 1985), 567-593.
“For Gramsci,” writes David Forgacs, “changing socio-economic circumstances do not of themselves ‘produce’ political changes. They only set the conditions in which such changes become possible.” Continuing his interpretation using Marxian theoretical language, Forgacs notes:
What is crucial, in bringing about these changes, are the ‘relations of force’ obtaining at the political level, the degree of political organization and combativity of the opposing forces, the strength of the political alliances which they manage to bind together and their level of political consciousness, of preparation of the struggle on the ideological terrain.
Thus describing the process through which factional competition determines the political-ideological (super-structural) articulation of socioeconomic (base) transformation, Forgacs adds that “It is in the context of this discussion that two central concepts develop: ‘hegemony’ and ‘historical bloc.’” By this definition, neoconservatives have thus evolved into a Gramscian historical bloc through their coalitional struggle within ideological and political terrains, whereby they succeeded in attaching their cultural vision of militant nationalism to the material interests of US global power.
Continuing this theme, Stuart Hall argues that “Hegemony, once achieved, must be constantly and ceaselessly renewed, reenacted…Central to this is the notion of various forms and intensities of struggle.” By this definition, the neoconservative bloc has thus been central to the production of the “war on terror” as a hegemonic construct not merely because its members have occupied positions of influence and authority, but rather, because they have consistently engaged and reengaged in the struggles through which they articulated the discourses (ideologies) of a “clash of civilizations and “war on terror” as commonsensical continuations of the “cold war” social imaginary (construct). In this context, “it is the various outcomes of these struggles,” Hall adds, “not the reinscription in place of what already exists, that determines the nature of the unstable equilibrium on which the authority of a social bloc is founded and that also defines its weak or unstable points, the points of further unrolling and development.”
Hegemony is therefore always incomplete and must be constantly reordered in conjunction with the changing nature of human struggle. In this sense, “‘Hegemony’ will allude to an absent totality, and to the diverse attempts at recomposition and rearticulation which, in overcoming this original absence, ” according to Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, “made it possible for struggles to be given a meaning and for historical forces to be endowed with full positivity.” Laclau and Mouffe add, in a particularly relevant interpretation with respect to the neoconservative bloc’s vision of American empire:” ‘Hegemony’ will not be the majestic unfolding of an identity but the response to a crisis.”
In response to a perceived perpetual threat of declining US global power, the neoconservative bloc responded, for instance, by formulating Committees on the Present Danger in order to “educate” the public about the crises posed by the Soviet Union, Communism, Al Qaeda, and political (militant) Islam. In this context, the hegemonic result has been a high degree of mass participation of in the construction of elite generated “cold war” and “war on terror” social imaginaries. This outcome was not, however, inevitable. Nor is it bound to remain in place.
Therefore, as T.J. Jackson Lears argues, “A historical bloc may or may not become hegemonic, depending on how successfully it forms alliances with other groups and classes.” He thus adds: “to achieve cultural hegemony, the leaders of a historical bloc must develop a world view that appeals to a wide range of other groups within the society, and they must be able to claim with at least some plausibility that their particular interests are those of society at large.” Indeed, while forming and reforming various alliances across the political and economic spectrum of US nationalists, from traditional liberals rightward, the neoconservative bloc also produced a powerful cross-cultural coalition between Jewish and Christian Zionists interwoven with the geopolitical imperatives of American power in the Middle East.
Yet, in order to conscript the general public into their moral geographic vision of US global power, the neoconservative bloc articulated ideologies of Americanism that perpetuated anticommunist and anti-Islamic sentiment generated by the fear of Soviet world domination and mass destruction at the hands of a global “terror network.” Such elite appeals to mass patriotism operate as “selective accommodation to the desires of subordinate groups,” according to Lears’ description of the historical bloc, which means that “The emerging hegemonic culture is not merely an ideological mystification but serves the interests of ruling groups at the expense of subordinate ones.
Sources:
David Forgacs, An Antonio Gramsci Reader: Selected Writings 1916-1935 (New York: Schocken Books, 1988); HTML mark-up by Andy Blunden, December 2002: http://www.marxists.org/archive/gramsci/prison_notebooks/reader/notes.htm#vi[5]; http://www.marxists.org/archive/gramsci/prison_notebooks/reader/.
Stuart Hall, “The Toad in the Garden: Thatcherism among the Theorists” (1983), page number?
Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics (London: Verso Press, 2001) 1.
T.J. Jackson Lears, “The Concept of Cultural Hegemony: Problems and Possibilities,” The American Historical Review, Vol. 90 no. 3 (Jun., 1985), 567-593.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Over the weekend
I was recently in Chicago for a conference in which I presented. I learned many things about what others in my "field" were doing, in particular I learned what others felt about race, being Asian American, hip-hop, activism, political resistance, and culture. At this moment I'm still sorting through my thoughts and I'll post them soon. Let's just say I was very surprised by how people worked through concepts and what concepts they thought were important. In addition, after attending plenty of sessions, and talking to as many people as I possibly could, I've grown even lonelier in this intellectual pursuit. Although, one of the saving graces of the weekend was getting a chance to meet Dr. Barnor Hesse from Northwestern. His presentation and comments alone, I believe, shifted the questions asked at the conference toward a slightly new direction. Searching around I found this article written by him and Dr. Salman Sayyid. I think AR-I in particular will find it amusing.
A war against politics?
P.S. korean food+noribong+soju=good night, horrible morning...
A war against politics?
P.S. korean food+noribong+soju=good night, horrible morning...
Monday, March 12, 2007
as culture is to power
culture is emergent from power
culture is itself a form of power
culture is a medium of constitution of power
culture is a medium of resistance to power
culture is the space of difference
paraphrased from Dirks, Eley, and Ortner, Culture/Power/History
culture is itself a form of power
culture is a medium of constitution of power
culture is a medium of resistance to power
culture is the space of difference
paraphrased from Dirks, Eley, and Ortner, Culture/Power/History
re: race in 300
I haven't seen this film either---
And I don't know if I plan to---
But it seems to me that the primary reason that we think in terms of race at all is to give structure to our ideas about the Other---and that as we move to define ourselves against new kinds of Others our notion of race shifts accordingly---and so in the context of the War on Terror it comes to seem natural to imagine Persians as black and as monstrous.
And I don't know if I plan to---
But it seems to me that the primary reason that we think in terms of race at all is to give structure to our ideas about the Other---and that as we move to define ourselves against new kinds of Others our notion of race shifts accordingly---and so in the context of the War on Terror it comes to seem natural to imagine Persians as black and as monstrous.
Sunday, March 11, 2007
300 Movie Trailer #2
I have not seen this movie but many folks that I know are talking about seeing it. At first I was disturbed by the obvious Orientalist images and the articulation of the East vs. West, "war on terror" discourse. Yet upon being inundated by trailer after trailer I did notice that many of the Spartan King's rhetoric centered around ideas of Liberalism, in particular freedom and justice. What is even more interesting are all the articles I have been reading. There is frequent mention of the homoeroticism implicit in Greek masculine images, and the dismissal of obvious anti-Islam/middle-eastern/Arab for the sake of popular culture and art (when confronted with the racism and sexism, most that I've talked to say: "well yeah, but you have to admit it looks beautiful"). Yet, if one was to look at the gamut, the two discourses never seem to be in dialogue with each other. In essence, if we are to believe, that the 'holy trinity' of catagories (race, class, gender) are to intersect in the modern world, where is it in 300? But to be more bold, if 300 is the supposed Hollywood patriot unbound, where is our analysis of sexuality and race in the "war on terror"? And how has the "war on terror" shaped our ideas of race and sexuality?
ar-I: underground in springfield
For me, Homer and Hegemony is about gaining the knowledge and creativity to unplug ourselves from the Matrix. I am curious how the single breath becomes a conspiracy, and how the spark of life reappears after centuries of death. I come to this blog via many paths, all of which repeatedly converge on a redwood forest near the northern california coastline. My purpose is to dissect the belly of the Beast while recognizing that there are beasts within each of us. My hope is that someday we will all be asking different questions from a higher plane of consciousness, but I fear that day will come too late. I am interested in exploring costellations of all shapes and sizes, from the microscopic to the intergalactic. Eternal fires burn beneath (post)modernity's electromagnetic glow. Can we stoke them? My reading list includes Karl Marx, Antonio Gramsci, Edward Said, Eqbal Ahmad, James Clifford, Gabriel Kolko, Amy Kaplan, Michel Foucault, Lisa Simpson
re: R
My goals here are to think through problems of historiography and theory, to question my own understandings of the political and the ethical as they relate to my reading, my writing, and my life. I am particularly interested in the narratives we construct to frame our identities and to inform and justify our actions---I am interested in what makes a particular story compelling in a particular time and place, and in historical memory and the affective power it can command. I am also interested in imaginings of the future and in our assumptions about what might make a more perfect world. On my current reading list: Hayden White, Dominick LaCapra, Michel Foucault...
The anatomy of: A E S L
In order to contribute to "Homer and Hegemony" I've decided to lay out, at present, the interests and questions that have brought me here. To begin, my analysis tends to focus on power and knowledge. I am drawn, in particular, to the discourses of culture, sexuality, and race; and the circuits inside and in between. In addtion I want to examine the political and ideological relationships between the family, the home, and the state; what some have come to call the domains of the intimate. Because of this interest in the intimate's articulation of pop culture and mass media, I tend to interrogate Hollywood/television images and the political discourse of hip-hop and indie/punk cultures. Finally, broader questions concern colonialism, exile, nation, history, and its production of identities. Works I wish to become more familiar with are those by Gramsci, Foucault, The Frankfurt School, Althusser, Fanon, Memmi, and Butler.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)