Eugenio Enrique Cortés Ramírez
Since Francis Bacon�s Theory of Idols, ideology is for Gramsci a superstructural expression of a contradictory reality, an expression of the kingdom of necessity which looks for popular culture in society. While Lenin�s scientific ideology had to struggle against spontaneous consciousness, Gramsci�s philosophy of praxis expresses a historical spontaneous direction which is led by ideological hegemony.
To Gramsci, cultural and ideological hegemony, as well as the Modern Prince, represents a collective will. Gramsci holds that the Modern Prince is an educator who needs to be educated. It is the proletarian itself which produces its organic intellectuals. Education does not suppress but purifies. It is a catharsis. Education through cultural hegemony becomes a remedy against coercion so that the kingdom of necessity could become the kingdom of freedom as the origin of a popular culture. Regarding ideology itself, Gramsci is aware of the danger of confusion in the use of the concept of ideology in relation to the superstructure: For this reason, Gramsci distinguishes two kinds of ideologies. On the one hand, he is referring to historically organic ideologies, those which are necessary to a given structure, and, on the other, to arbitrary or �willed� ideologies. The former concept has been favoured by Gramsci, giving rise to the conception of ideology as a class world view. And this concept of ideology is supporting cultural hegemony as a method to study popular culture�s education.
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