Nihilism, Hegemony and Rebellion
in an article i am reading about Gramsci's theory of hegemony the author discusses examples from literature that suggest hegemony (a couple from kafka)...the most poignant is from Joseph Heller (from a story called "Something Happened" i think...the authors notation is off i believe). anyway, the following quote gets to what we were talking about earlier (rebellion and nihilism) and suggests a role hegemony plays in it:
"What would happen if, deliberately, calmly, with malice aforethought and obvious premeditation, I disobeyed? I know what would happen: nothing. Nothing would happen...My act of rebellion would be absorbed like rain on an ocean and leave no trace. I would not cause a ripple. I suppose it is just about impossible for someone like me to rebel anymore and produce any kind of lasting effect."
The notion is that hegemonic leadership disseminates the idea that the existing order is satisfactory, or at least the best we can do, or in any case has no viable alternative. Through civil institutions and practices (mostly cultural) the "dominant" are reinforced when their world-view becomes reified...it transforms itself into "common-sense" as Gramsci would suggest. Three characteristics of hegemony are that it presents itself as universal, natural and rational...hence the dominant interest is "everyone's" interest and is the natural and most rational ordering. This implies that any sort of rebellion against current ordering would be irrational, contingent, and unnatural...or doomed to fail before it begins (the latter of which is largely true because of the pervasive nature of hegemony, hence Gramsci's call for a war of position over a war of manuevre). People's consciousness and conception of the world is so affected that they are often incapable of seeing any other way. So injustice is not experienced with open rebellion, but "a vague sensation of loss and resignation."
I am not a nihilist, I am sure you know. I tend to find a lot compelling in Gramsci and am apt to believe that the kind of nihilism of existential rebellion is a conscious state of personal misdirection. This would fit better into existentialism with its humanist components...one feels resignation, nihilism in the face of aborted rebellion, because of the troubling paradox of freedom. Its much easier to resign oneself to being a thing, an instrument of one's own domination in the case of hegemony, than to assert one's radical freedom...to rebel.
I want to quickly highlight the idea of the act of rebellion being "absorbed like rain on an ocean." This is another aspect of hegemonic leadership that was studied most explicitly by Herbert Marcuse who suggested that modern society has successfully co-opted and/or marginalized dissenting views, making society "one-dimensional." An example is gays, feminists and blacks being "welcomed" into the umbrella of the Democratic Party, and effectively sapped of their substance...institutionalized subordination. I have long argued that the two-party system does this...to assert one's political self one must first streamline one's self...objectify one's self. The options are transformation (which implies self-denial) or subordination.
All this ought not be read as an outright denial of nihilism (although as I said, I am not a nihilist), but to suggest another possibility...social nihilism as a means of dominating dissenting voices. I think this fits more into the existentialist theme than positing a "humanist nihilism" (although this may be precisely what Nietzsche was getting at with his "European," idealistic nihilism).
"What would happen if, deliberately, calmly, with malice aforethought and obvious premeditation, I disobeyed? I know what would happen: nothing. Nothing would happen...My act of rebellion would be absorbed like rain on an ocean and leave no trace. I would not cause a ripple. I suppose it is just about impossible for someone like me to rebel anymore and produce any kind of lasting effect."
The notion is that hegemonic leadership disseminates the idea that the existing order is satisfactory, or at least the best we can do, or in any case has no viable alternative. Through civil institutions and practices (mostly cultural) the "dominant" are reinforced when their world-view becomes reified...it transforms itself into "common-sense" as Gramsci would suggest. Three characteristics of hegemony are that it presents itself as universal, natural and rational...hence the dominant interest is "everyone's" interest and is the natural and most rational ordering. This implies that any sort of rebellion against current ordering would be irrational, contingent, and unnatural...or doomed to fail before it begins (the latter of which is largely true because of the pervasive nature of hegemony, hence Gramsci's call for a war of position over a war of manuevre). People's consciousness and conception of the world is so affected that they are often incapable of seeing any other way. So injustice is not experienced with open rebellion, but "a vague sensation of loss and resignation."
I am not a nihilist, I am sure you know. I tend to find a lot compelling in Gramsci and am apt to believe that the kind of nihilism of existential rebellion is a conscious state of personal misdirection. This would fit better into existentialism with its humanist components...one feels resignation, nihilism in the face of aborted rebellion, because of the troubling paradox of freedom. Its much easier to resign oneself to being a thing, an instrument of one's own domination in the case of hegemony, than to assert one's radical freedom...to rebel.
I want to quickly highlight the idea of the act of rebellion being "absorbed like rain on an ocean." This is another aspect of hegemonic leadership that was studied most explicitly by Herbert Marcuse who suggested that modern society has successfully co-opted and/or marginalized dissenting views, making society "one-dimensional." An example is gays, feminists and blacks being "welcomed" into the umbrella of the Democratic Party, and effectively sapped of their substance...institutionalized subordination. I have long argued that the two-party system does this...to assert one's political self one must first streamline one's self...objectify one's self. The options are transformation (which implies self-denial) or subordination.
All this ought not be read as an outright denial of nihilism (although as I said, I am not a nihilist), but to suggest another possibility...social nihilism as a means of dominating dissenting voices. I think this fits more into the existentialist theme than positing a "humanist nihilism" (although this may be precisely what Nietzsche was getting at with his "European," idealistic nihilism).
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