Gramsci shares Marx’s ideals and objectives but not his methodology. For Gramsci, the struggle and preordained victory of the proletariat was not a foregone conclusion. Rather, instead of Marxism being essentially passive in its philosophical ideology, Gramsci believes it ought to be pedagogical. In order for meaningful transformation and egalitarianism to manifest itself, it is essential that we reformulate our social norms and common-sense conceptions of justice, fairness, and equality. Marx argues that economic structure creates the superstructure and that material relations determine consciousness. However he neglects the weight which ideas bear upon human consciousness. The bedrock of the bourgeois’ hegemony of exploitation exists in the realm of ideas. From ideas, cultural, political, and economic modes of legitimization entrench the domination of one class over another. For Gramsci, consent is of utmost importance and in order to persuade the working class and the bourgeois itself, philosophy and eloquence must be used to the fullest. Thus in order to for the working class to emancipate themselves, their psyche must change so that they may reformulate their “commonsense” norms. Gramsci understood that the clash of ideas was essentially a war of positions where nothing could be certain. In order to exemplify the eloquence of Marxist thought, he would rely on the works of previous philosophers. The philosophy of praxis as it has become known, is the fusion of older ideas into new ones and this is precisely what Gramsci sought to
Gramsci shares Marx’s ideals and objectives but not his methodology. For Gramsci, the struggle and preordained victory of the proletariat was not a foregone conclusion. Rather, instead of Marxism being essentially passive in its philosophical ideology, Gramsci believes it ought to be pedagogical. In order for meaningful transformation and egalitarianism to manifest itself, it is essential that we reformulate our social norms and common-sense conceptions of justice, fairness, and equality. Marx argues that economic structure creates the superstructure and that material relations determine consciousness. However he neglects the weight which ideas bear upon human consciousness. The bedrock of the bourgeois’ hegemony of exploitation exists in the realm of ideas. From ideas, cultural, political, and economic modes of legitimization entrench the domination of one class over another. For Gramsci, consent is of utmost importance and in order to persuade the working class and the bourgeois itself, philosophy and eloquence must be used to the fullest. Thus in order to for the working class to emancipate themselves, their psyche must change so that they may reformulate their “commonsense” norms. Gramsci understood that the clash of ideas was essentially a war of positions where nothing could be certain. In order to exemplify the eloquence of Marxist thought, he would rely on the works of previous philosophers. The philosophy of praxis as it has become known, is the fusion of older ideas into new ones and this is precisely what Gramsci sought to