Greetings, my sisters, brothers & others —

These past days, I’ve reflected on the accomplishments of peoples’ movements in recent years and, while the establishment often gets its way, I couldn’t help but notice that we’ve succeeded in bringing some key issues & concepts into the public conversation that used to be taboo. For example, since the Occupy protests in 2011, the concepts of “the 99%” & “the 1%” have entered the public imagination. These concepts aren’t exactly new — the way they’re used is actually strikingly similar (pun intended) to the way social revolutionaries once spoke & wrote about “the proletariat” & “the ruling-class.”

As a writer, I might be biased but I believe the struggle to change the social & political narrative (or the “story,” as it were) is essential to the greater struggle for social revolution — after all, how can the people stand with a social or political cause if the cause can’t be articulated & understood?

Today, I’d like to write about this ideological struggle and, luckily, there’s a ready-made word to describe it — hegemony.

H is for Hegemony !

Hegemony [HEDGE-uh-moan-ee or hedge-Eh-mun-ee] is a word that’s been used in different ways throughout history. Originally, it referred to the domination of the Greek city-states by one city-state, called the hegemon — but the hegemony that we’re going to talk about was first described in the 20th century by a fellow named Antonio Gramsci, who ended up spending a considerable amount of his time in one of Benito Mussolini’s dungeons. The hegemony Gramsci described is an idealogical & cultural hegemony¹ — or, to put it simply, it is one version of the story oppressing all of the other versions.

The dominant culture, value-system, & ideology is almost always the same culture, value-system, & ideology of whoever happens to be “the 1%” at the moment, aka the ruling-class. This is largely because the ruling-class typically owns the media & writes the history-books, though conformity is enforced in many subtle & not-so-subtle ways. Of course, the ruling-class naturally acts in its own interest — and the unsurprising result is that the narratives or stories that become accepted by the public tend to support the “status quo” or the agenda of the 1%.

The Snowden Affair :

An Example of Hegemony in the Media

As an example, consider what happened with Edward Snowden & the NSA spying scandal. When Snowden revealed that the US government had been spying on its citizens (& our allies, too!), there was what seemed to be considerable backlash from both the public & the media — but take a closer look at what really happened. There was a ton of discussion about how the government should deal with whistle-blowers, whether or not Snowden ought to be punished, whether or not it had caused the military too much of a headache, what the extent of the spying was, whether it was or wasn’t justified by the “war on terror,” what impact the spying would have on diplomatic relations, etc. There were intense debates, with popular commentators & celebrities taking both sides of the issues — but do you notice what was missing?

There was essentially no meaningful & public demand that the situation be fixed.

In fact, much of the media took a stance that basically amounted to, “well, of course they’re spying on us!“ — as if the obviousness of a fact completely explained & excused its existence, which should have been the central issue. Instead, the media (&, by extension, the rest of us) accepted the inevitability of the NSA’s spying program’s existence, apparently without ever considering or even acknowledging the possibility that people might have a choice in the matter — and enough of us went along with it that it worked.

If anyone had stood up to demand that the situation be fixed ASAP, they would have been teased for being too “naive” or “idealistic” or they would have been discredited for being an “extremist” who was unwilling to compromise. Or — worst of all, perhaps — they would’ve been ignored. To the ruling-class, the notion that government should be immediately accountable to its people (as it sometimes is in Iceland) is simply not an acceptable idea. The system by which unacceptable ideas are suppressed by other acceptable ideas is cultural & ideological hegemony — one version of the story controlling & dominating the other versions.

How It Works

If you pay close attention, you can find examples of cultural & ideological hegemony everywhere. For instance, members of the two state-backed parties strongly disagree about why, when, & how the US should use its global military dominance but neither will ask whether global military dominance is basically a good or bad idea because that falls outside the 1%’s ideology, which says the United States should have the largest military in the world. Alternative views don’t need to be directly censored, however — the corporately-funded media has learned that it’s much more effective to tolerate opposing viewpoints, while branding them with marginalizing labels like “idealistic,” “ineffective,” & “unelectable.”

By occasionally pretending to listen to alternative viewpoints, the corporate-media keeps up the appearance of being unbiased & trustworthy, even while they’re distorting the public’s perception of those viewpoints & undermining the reputation of people who voice them. This is perhaps one of the most effective ways to shape public opinion — by limiting the scope of what the public believes is possible. With the ruling-class setting the limits on what is politically, socially, & economically possible, the public can even be persuaded to give their consent to candidates or policies that are obviously against their own interests.

But — if they’re not our interests — who’s interests do we end up voting for, then? Think of it this way — for obvious reasons, the privately-funded media (a $300 billion dollar industry) delivers the “news” in a way that’s desirable to those who fund them. If that wasn’t the case, they’d have a hard time being funded, you know? Now, in light of the fact that the richest 1% control 90% of the country’s wealth, who do you imagine might be doing the majority of the funding and what kind of “reporting” do you think they’re shelling out hundreds of billions of dollars for?

We Should Smash the 1%’s Media

& Seize the Means of Story-Production

If you stumble across a belief that contains an idea like “this is just the way the world works” or “there’s no way for people like me to change it,” then there’s a good chance you’re dealing with a belief that was manufactured by the 1% to reinforce the status quo. The good news is that those beliefs aren’t technically true — the bad news, however, is that there are enough people believing them to make them true — this is called the “Tinkerbell Effect.”

The Tinkerbell Effect simply refers to things that have to be believed in to be true — for instance, when I was a kid, my collection of Pokémon cards had a lot of value simply because my generation collectively decided that they were awesome! That value has totally disappeared, however, because today’s kids apparently don’t feel the same way about them. Damned kids. Anyway, there are many things that we have to believe in order to make them exist — like the value of money, the relevance of the Kardashians, & the viability or non-viablity of candidates & policies.

There’s one problem, though — no matter how strongly I try to disbelieve in the non-value of my Pokémon cards or the fact that the Kardashians are somehow on TV again, it just doesn’t work because there are literally millions of people out there, watching the Kardashians & not coveting my Pokémon cards! The problem is this — for the same reason that someone gave the money which they should’ve used to purchase my Pokémon cards to the Kardashians, necessary & fundamental public-policy changes are being rejected as too idealistic & competent reformers are being barred from political participation for not being corrupt enough because apparently “this is just the way the world works!”

How much sense does that make?

Leveraging the Tinkerbell Effect

Now that we’ve taken a look at the concept of cultural & ideological hegemony, as well as how the 1% has co-opted the media to construct a seemingly-impervious system of thought-control which manufactures enough public consent to legitimize their global, profit-driven death-machine, I’m sincerely hoping that at least some of you are wondering, “can we do something about this?” To which I’d be happy to reply, “yes!”

The key, I think, is that the Tinkerbell Effect only works when enough people believe — the first thing, then, is to stop believing in their story, ourselves — the story in which the world is dying & there is no alternative to neoliberal-capitalism, where ordinary people have no power & change is as incremental as evolution! Once we ourselves have pulled aside the veil of the corporatists’ hegemony & disbelieved, the second thing we must do is to go out & make disbelievers of others! When we reach the critical threshold, it will be time for the story & the way the story is told to be changed — we citizens can then reclaim our rightful places as co-authors of our society’s “story.”

To Sum It All Up

Now, all that might sound pretty abstract & silly — which is because it kind of is — but there are very real things that you can do personally & that we can do collectively to free our society from the bondage of the 1%’s ideological chains –:

Stop watching, reading, & listening to the lame-stream media — the internet has plenty of alternatives to offer & the corporate “news” networks generate most of their revenue from advertisements, which is based on views that you can deprive them of. Like every capitalist institution they can be weakened or starved to death if they’re not profitable! Support independent media by giving them your views, instead ! Cancel your TV subscriptions & donate the $$$ you saved in small monthly amounts to a few of your favorite independent sources (like me!) — this will help them feel better about themselves & grow up into strong, sophisticated, & effective news-sources that can become better alternatives to the establishment’s propaganda-machines. Be the media ! The existence of independently motivated, critically thinking citizen-journalists can be the difference between an issue receiving public attention or being ignored — do not underestimate the potential for small numbers of good-hearted, determined individuals to change the outcome of the story!

There are other potentially very effective actions that we could dream up together but which would require much more organization, such as sustained online boycotts of strategically chosen “news” websites — depending on the response to this article, perhaps I shall write another on potential strategies… but this article has already grown too long & I must away!

I’ll write again, soon — in the meantime, keep fighting the good fight, my friends!

In solidarity,

John Laurits #NotMeUs

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¹Note: I am almost certainly going to be scolded repeatedly by a few Marxists & neo-Marxists for over-simplifying the subject of cultural hegemony but I’d just like to let any left-nerds in the audience know that this isn’t supposed to be some exhaustive & nuanced treatise — I’m doing my best to introduce the concept to those who are unfamiliar with it.

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