File spoon-archives/lyotard.archive/lyotard_2001/lyotard.0102, message 37


From: "sebastjan jeretic" <sebastjan_jeretic-AT-hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: hegemony
Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 18:16:08 -0000


The concept of hegemony has been developed in a magnificent way by Laclau 
and the whole althusserian legacy. I agree with You that it can explain the 
way the rulling bastards remain in power. I understand the concept as a 
combination of learned dispositions and the symbolic system that prevails in 
a society.
In Slovenia, as in any other post-socialist countries, we experienced a 
school-case of hegemony transition. From an authoritarian socialist system 
we have shifted to a ruthless liberal capitalism in just a decade. I have 
just read an article stating that the foreign capital entering Slovenia as a 
first move just eradicates the research department. So, a country that 
borders Italy and Austria and that has a higher GDP pc than two of the 
European Union countries, became a sort of a semi-developed third world. The 
foreign capital can achieve this only because the rulling liberal party 
succeded in establishing liberalism in the hegemonic position.
It is an interesting case study, since it can show that hegemony is much 
more than ideology if you understand it only as a symbolic system (I mean a 
discursively created social reality), since the people still praise some of 
the values that were part of the socialist religion. The role of the 
hegemony is much deeper - perhaps it could be best explained by 
psychoanalysis, and here the main man is a Slovenian, Slavoj Zizek. Its role 
is to make people accept the fact that life and politics as a part of it is 
going completly wrong. Slovenia has a much more westernised mentality than 
most of the postsocialist countries, and still, the population is coldly 
accepting that it is being brainwashed. The liberal rulers are happy that 
their politics is beeing succesfull, according to their criterias. The 
problem is that those criterias are composed of mathematics: statistics 
covering inflation, public debt, and similar. Hegemony means that the only 
discourse that can succede in politics is the discourse constituted by this 
liberal criterias. If a political force would try to construct a discourse 
based on people, freedom, happyness, orgasm and simillar, it would just look 
pathetic when juxtaposed on the liberal bullshit.

>From: Joshua Raphael Land <jl001g-AT-mail.rochester.edu>
>Reply-To: lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
>To: lyotard-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
>Subject: Re: hegemony
>Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001 12:22:36 -0500
>
>Keohane in his book "After hegemony" describes how the oil market was a
>need for political exploitation  and manipulation through best possible
>incentive. THe irony is that he describes the state of international
>politics in a world that has only one main super-power, the US and he is
>clealry American.
>ANy thoughts.
>
>
>On Wed, 21 Feb 2001, Mary Murphy&Salstrand wrote:
>
> > "In his Prison Notebooks, Gramsci [applies the term hegemony] to the way
> > in which the bourgeoisie establishes and maintains its rule."
> >
> > from A Dictionary of Marxist Thought, ed. Tom Bottomore
> >
> > -------
> >
> > Since Gramsci has sparked some interest here recently, I would like to
> > explore this quote, even as I recognize such a simplification
> > perpetuates an injustice to the complexity of Gramsci's thought.
> >
> > I believe the concept of hegemony is a useful concept for analyzing
> > contemporary events in the global economy in general and American
> > society in particular.
> >
> > It might prove useful to drop 'bourgeoisie' which has become almost
> > scholastic in its import and replace it with a easier term such as the
> > wealthy, power elite, overclass or simply, the ruling bastards.
> >
> > Stated in this way, hegemony points to the various means in which the 1%
> > or so who have ripped off the wealth of this planet continue to maintain
> > their violent and seductive rule.
> >
> > I believe it was Susan Sontag who coined the phrase 'smiley face
> > fascism' and this seems to describe our current form of government very
> > well.
> >
> > It is not exactly the case that the police and military have gone away.
> > In America in particular they are both on the increase even as the crime
> > rate has gone down and the cold war has ended.  America remains the
> > ultimate rogue state - a macho cowboy with a bad attitude, drunk on
> > money, wanting to rape the world in order to prove its manhood.
> > (Afterwards, it gets down on its knees to pray to Jesus for
> > forgiveness.)
> >
> > However, the difference between a compassionate fascist like George W.
> > and a true bad ass like Mussolini or Hitler is the interlocking
> > directorate of think tanks, media, politics, education, corporations -
> > in other words - www.Kulture.com
> >
> > These are the main vehicles of hegemony today - for the dwindling middle
> > class the carrot of virtual culture; for the boys in the hood - the
> > stick.
> >
> > In the terminology of Lyotard, such hegemony maintains itself through
> > narrative, legitimation, phrase regimes, consensus and linkage.  The
> > usual forms of terror.
> >
> > I hope the discussion of hegemony can continue.  I would like to hear
> > from others their understanding of the concept, the ways in which it
> > needs to be supplemented and the various elements it lacks or even
> > misconstrues.
> >
> > Hegemony is a necessary concept unless you want to believe the rich got
> > that way merely through their diligence, brains, hard work, effort and
> > the grace of a stern, but just God.
> >
> > jesus luvs me this i know because walt disney told me so
> >
> > Eric
> >
>

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