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What is the function of hegemony, in Gramsci's sense? Ultimately it is the pleasurable illusion of belonging to a ruling class. The so-called elites are always tormentors whose own hermetically sealed hegemony floats above the drab hegemony of compliant adoration. For the compliant, consuming herds, not thinking itself becomes a pre-requisite for pleasure: escapism is always titillating and money alone makes this drug available. Hegemony, in Gramsci's sense, shunts the masses away from the anxiety with its redemptive powers as proposed by Kierkegaard. Comfort, offered up through hegemony, is therefore the poisoned chalice. Ultimately, as we have seen, the poisoned chalice morphs magically into the poisonous syringe and hordes of hegemonists are then lining up to be mass-murdered. The whole thing starts with an inner emptiness which is the offshoot of materialism and consumerism. To fill the void in your gut you buy stuff. To fill the void in your brain you buy into stuff. The stuff you buy and the stuff you buy into are equally toxic and pre-processed. The marketplace itself is a premeditated assault on human liberty. With Convid, the marketplace became by all definitions a lab and a slaughterhouse. Hegemony, to sum up, is therefore the comfort of yielding, through obedience, to immediate reward. It stems from a certain flaccidity in human character amplified in the mass and easily manipulated by mass media (which of course today is called social media).

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This can be taken to its brutal conclusion with how little children are turned into murderous Zionists. And how even if we're not personally doing the brutalising, we remain silent because we've been brought up under the white western patriarchy that rewards dominance (or submission) over women, animals and non-white people.

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*White

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Oct 5Liked by Toby Rogers

And our society at this very moment is ripe for the picking due in a big part to the effects of daily pharmaceuticals. I believe in the past if you had two in one hundred who would stand against the tide now you would be lucky to even have one person. Taking a Xanax and watching Netflix takes away any idea of resistance for the majority!

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Stunning. I’m floored.

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Oct 3·edited Oct 3Liked by Toby Rogers

Wow wow WOW! Fascinating and I love it! "The whole thing starts with an inner emptiness..."... yes yes YES!

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author

Wow, this is brilliant! I'm pinning it to the top of the comments section! 🙌

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Oct 2Liked by Toby Rogers

AGREED!

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Thank you. Much appreciated your essay and line of thinking.

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Oct 2Liked by Toby Rogers

Grateful for your post and for this pin!💚🙏

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Oct 2Liked by Toby Rogers

Very well stated comment!

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Oct 2Liked by Toby Rogers

GREAT comment and a cogent expansion of the original essay. Both are absolutely essential.

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An interesting essay but I was surprised that it contained no mention of the effects of social media. Are there ANY analyses of SM out there that anyone can recommend?

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PS. Toby, you identify as a 'dissident scholar'.This made me laugh for quite a long time, I'm not sure why?

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'That’s the human story and the human condition — the struggle between what’s dominant versus what’s true, between succumbing to the dark versus seeking the light, between fitting in versus standing up for what’s right' indeed and I'd say the MAHA and the free speech movements seem to be fitting in nicely with the climate crisis denying aims of the fossil fuel industry and the pro-Israel establishment view of the world ie with what's wrong.

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'And people who cannot see the operations of hegemony (ie patriarchy and Imperialism) all around us and who are not actively working to resist and dismantle it are just not that interesting'

I totes agree. The patriarchy has got a real grip on those supporting the fossil fuel, animal ag and war industries. On those who don't speak out against Israel or call out Trump and RFK's support for genocide.

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'Meanwhile the political right has never been keen on this sort of anti-corporate social psychologizing so it never crossed their minds that power and control work on these subconscious levels (even while they participate in the hegemonic system).' The political 'right' know all about how power works subconsciously! They constantly reinforce the hegemonypatriarchy

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'No one on the political left wrote about Gramsci’s view of hegemony during Covid because nearly the entire political left was consumed by the black hole of hegemony and came out the other side as neofascists.' what rubbish. The 'left' weren't more consumed than the right by the hegemony/patriarchy that we've all been brought up under. They believed, and probably still do, that the community can achieve what the individual cannot. They foolishly believed what they were told by politicians aka big pharma, that we all needed to vaccinated for them to work, because they really believed the lies.

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Yes we are all products of our conditioning. Awareness helps us to break free.

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Agree the Stockholm Syndrome comparison is helpful. More to the point, the psychological manipulation triggered a SURVIVAL MECHANISM.

IMO: This is most consistent with the behaviors of those subjected to narcissistic abuse which triggers an adrenaline response. We all learned about "fight or flight" response to adrenaline, but psychologists have come up with more f-words, all of which have been demonstrated in the Age of Covid:

- FAWN: make a big deal over praising those evoking the adrenaline-fueled fear response (deify Fauci)

- FLUFF: give periodic small signs of appreciation to the abuser to appease ego of abuser (booster compliance)

- FLOCK: huddle with others for emotional support (polarization of communities)

- FREEZE: paralysis which can lead to depression and death (mental health crisis)

Look up for more technical details in social psychology. Or consult part 2 of my book: “Dance with the Devil: Love in the Age of Covid” for plain English description and examples using an intimate relationship as an example.

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I was astonished that the Covid catastrophe was mentioned only once during the recent VP debate--when Vance mentioned the censoring of people who objected to mask mandates in schools. It was almost as if the Covid fiasco either never happened or was unremarkable. None of my friends suspect anything nefarious about the pandemic. It blows my mind.

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I read somewhere that the Spanish Flu epidemic in the early 1900s was followed by a collective amnesia. It maybe a psychological feature of pandemics and epidemics.

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I heard this happened following the Spanish flu also. Seems to be a feature of human nature following mass trauma.

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"Intellectual titans like Noam Chomsky." Well, I'm open to applying Gramscian theory to the present Denialism, but that line captures my significant distance from and hostility towards Roger's intellectual roots. Whatever Chomsky knew about linguistics, and despite a few correct guesses about American military malfeasance, he was ever a Marxism-spoiled pygmy in the realm of political thought. Even the leftists at Dissent knew it. It's just sad that people like Rogers looked to his ilk for guidance, when alternatives like Raymond Aron, Aleksandr Solzhenitisyn, Harvey Mansfield, Chantal Delsol, Walker Percy, Pierre Manent, Peter Lawler, James Ceaser, Roger Scruton, etc., have long been out there.

For some more down-to-earth theorizing about one aspect of what I call the Covid/Vax Disaster, which granted is not a theory for explaining the entire phenomenon, see my recent work on Suppression, which tries to capture a media/political-class phenom that is related to, but distinct from, censorship and various censorious forms of control. I am trying in part to grapple with why conservative intellectuals and leaders, who have read some of the thinkers I just listed, have behaved so spinelessly in the face of the MSM's suppression of the covid-vax harms story. (Toby's not the only one, as part of the Disaster, having trouble with his intellectual and political comrades.) The most popular piece of my recent five big essays is The Rationales of the Knowing Suppressors, Pt. 1 https://pomocon.substack.com/p/the-rationales-of-the-knowing-suppressors Or if you love distinction-making, see the more recent "What Suppression Is Not."

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Oct 6Liked by Toby Rogers

Hegemony also defines truth and morality in the absence (or extremely weakened) of traditional religious/ethical framework and historical connections. Hence, we have middle class/lower class brainwashed zealots crusading for their ever changing new “truth” and “morality”, to the point of self-abnegation and erasure. We truly live in unprecedented and bizarre times.

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Oct 6Liked by Toby Rogers

The more powerful force is God. God has access to all information and can share it with us. They are Godless and cannot discern truth. There is no purpose for truth in a Godless society.

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Stockholm Syndrome for sure, induced by a belief in authority that knows better than what someone knows for themselves...propaganda plants seeds that ruminate in veins and water thoughts of fear that circulates through the body directionless...the masses sit in waiting for someone to direct the next actions they should take...here do this, this will save you...only it won't.

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When you use the word "genocidal" are you implying the puppeteers are aware they are committing genocide? I say 'no' for the vast majority. Like their minions even figureheads such as Fauci believe in their own bullshit. They actually believe they are saving the world. The many layers of cognitive dissonance prevent any awareness or insight.

The anthem of the medical freedom movement. Watch the hit music video FOREVER FREEDOM BRIGADE. https://turfseer.substack.com/p/forever-freedom-brigade

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Possibly this is giving the "man in the street" too much credit! I still do not understand how people reacted the way they did, how they are still wedded to the covid narrative and how they simultaneously follow the Putin-is-Hitler, Trump-is-Dangerous, The-Planet-Is-Being-Destroyed-By-Us narratives without asking any questions. I think many people actually don't believe any of it but aren't interested enough to comment - people wore masks to avoid confrontations not to avoid a virus, took toxic jabs because they simply assumed the medical world wouldn't give them something dangerous and the worst that would happen was they wouldn't work. Most people I know have no idea that BigPharma is a thing - they think Thalidomide was a dreadful mistake many years ago and nothing bad has happened since. They think HIV/AIDS killed lots of gay men but medicines now keep them alive. They think CO2 is a dangerous gas thing that we are killing the planet with without knowing it's what plants need to survive. They don't give much thought to anything really - decades of poor education gives generations of uneducated people. There are, obviously, the ones who also think they are very superior because they believe everything they are told and do everything they are told. The only difference between these two types is that the second bunch are insufferable, in the influential jobs and generally have university degrees (which is why they think they are superior to us working class plebs - no offence meant to the small bunch of you nice university types!).

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I am a university type and agree wholeheartedly with you. Whether I am nice is debateable - you wouldn't like me when I am angry!

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