Our three readings give us a beginning to the attempt of the geography of our environment, the world.
Marx (plus Engels I guess, almost forgot him) begins with a rebuke of mystical, ideological formulations about reality and urges us to begin at the observable material circumstances of life, (how the environment shapes humans) and progress from there to form a picture of the world's political and civil societies. Patel and Moore draw our attention to the way humans have (up to the present) shaped the environment through capitalism, which employs strategies to profit from the cheapening of seven categories of material things.
Gramsci, finally, offers us a chance to consider our own place in developing our own and others' consciousness of the material world, as he writes about how consensus of thought in civil society is developed and maintained (and possibly overturned!).
I'm a sucker for epistemological problems. I posed a vague statement/question last class about how individual and collective consciousness is affected by the current pandemic. I don't have a direct connection to that from Gramsci's work yet, but his direct address of group consciousness reaches in that direction, so I'll focus on him.
He starts by introducing one of two types of "intellectuals:" individuals arising within a social group who serve to create and maintain a unified and self-aware consciousness within that group. Elite entrepreneurs are a prime example of this type, as they are "organizers of society in general" I can't help but stop here to wave toward Jeff Bezos, as a super-entrepreneur who has more of an obvious hand in the arrangement of everyday life then anyone else I can think of. How does he fit Gramsci's description, in your opinion? There's probably some good examples in P+M's text as well.
The second type he comes to is of individuals who do not appear to arise from the current social group, and who have an apparent unbroken continuity of thought and interest through history. G points out ecclesiastics (church folks) as the outstanding example. Their religious and mystical approach to consciousness looks like it ties in with the German Philosophers that Marx (who was that other guy?) tore up in the first three pages of our text to make a nice nest for his Materialist Method.
Gramsci goes on from these two to point out the latent inclination and capacity of every individual to step into the role of an intellectual and take part in shaping group consciousness. He says that the key to this is fostering one's intellectual activity, and connecting it directly to the practical occupations of the body, which informs and is informed by the former. Such intellectuals, he suggests, would be well equipped to change dominant frames of consciousness. Does anyone see contemporary folks acting in this capacity? In my experience, it seems like people have utilized social media very strongly to this effect. However, how often is social media activism directly connected with practical material effects?
(I do struggle with the connection of this "new intellectual" and the following subject of hegemony. The best transition I can see is that the new intellectual would be equipped to observe and resist the ruling ideas)
He follows these thoughts on intellectuals with the presentation of his idea of how the power of the ruling class is maintained through both cultural hegemony and force. Hegemony refers to the way that the ruling class creates a sense of normality that is accepted without thinking by the "masses." Force is employed when people reject the ruling idea of normality.
To circle back to our class discussion of current events, I'd hazard that racism is a part of America's hegemony, and the fact that there is violent "state coercive power" being used against people who are protesting racism is a sign that that element of the hegemony has failed at some level. What do you think? How does that make sense? (or not)
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