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).
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.
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!
I was awakened to iatrogenic harm through my own experience with a skiing injury. I became my own advocate and learned to question doctors advice and conclusions. However, due to growing up in an era where polio and smallpox were eradicated and vaccines normalized, where childhood disease was minimized (graveyards show you that) and mortality rate for children radically improved my critically thought out conclusion regarding vaccine for COVID was the risk of vaccine to me (age 70) is less than the risk of COVID. So accusing me of being brainwashed for using my life experience and critical thought doesn’t quite land. I’m open to the possibility this pandemic was manufactured to depopulate the planet but need more evidence. I also see the advent of social media means consensus reality has been decimated into fragments and bubbles and we can no longer trust information. I resist drinking the koolaid on either side and do my best to navigate the landscape as is based on my lifelong experience and coping skills. I have deconstructed the conditioning of my childhood and much of what I was taught.
You arrived to the absolute truth. The behavior of the population during the first three months of the plandemic could be explained as the result of hysteria and mess psychosis triggered by a fear of disease and death, but then it turned into exactly what you described, as about 2/3 of the population decided to conform to what the rulers (authority) wanted for the reason of self preservation. Studies of human behavior during the last 100 years arrived to the same statistics that is about 70% of the population (any given group of people) conform to authority and the remining 30% wont conform if the request is against their moral values or rational judgement. But, some of those who conform to authority, doing it only for self preservation and/or economical reasons, but they know the truth. They are aware of reality. However, around 15% - 30% of the population, are actually hypnotized and believe in the false promises. I saw this same phenomenon through my own eyes when I grew up in Hungary, during the communist regime. The injustice, lies and human rights abuse committed by the communist members were obvious for almost everyone, but there were still a small portion of the population (15-20%), who did not see any problems at all. As a matter of fact, sincerely defended the communist leaders and were ardent defenders of the ideology. These were the people we call nowadays, the useful idiots. Those who were aware of the abusive and unfair system yet still decided to join the force rather than fight against it, did it for financial reasons. They got financially rewarded, and had not faced any drawbacks (except the hate of their fellow citizens, but that type is immune to that), so it was all rewards and no risk. With covid shots, however, there was risk involved. This is why I believe that the covid hegemony was actually defeated in practice. Yes, the hegemons don't admit their defeat openly, but their agenda of mass vaccination and vaccine cards - monthly, semi-annually or yearly is just not happening. Meanwhile communist regimes ruled for generation during the last century. People know that the risk of getting ill or dying is very real due to the covid shot. So, this is why many people cheated and decided to get fake ID's, and the government knew it all. They have the tools to monitoring us. We don't have the tools, so naturally the government knew it before many of us even suspected it. They did not admit it openly, of course, but it was the reality, nonetheless.
My extended family of about 50 people, I believe reflects exactly how the population in large behaved. So, 1/3 did not take the shot, because they understood it was not beneficial and had potentially serious side effects. The other 1/3, who worked for big corporations believed in the same, but did not want to lose their well paying jobs, so got fake covid immunization cards (yes, there was a huge black market and everyone who wanted it, could get it !!!), but 1/3 actually were scared to death and 100% believed in the propaganda, so they went to get the shots. Those 1/3 were so emotionally receptive for the manipulation by the media, that it was impossible to reason with them. My daughter is currently a PHD student in biophysics, but before she worked in mRNA research as a biochemist trying to treat degenerative diseases for three years for a global biotech company. Yet, she could not convince our relatives with facts that she acquired working in that area. She left the mRNA research, because she saw it was all BS, and was so disappointed that decided to leave biochemistry entirely and pursue a PHD degree in biophysics instead.
So, when CDC says that 70% of the population were injected with the mRNA shots, I just laugh, because it's also another lie. My estimate is that the population's injection rate must be very similar as to what it is in my extended family, 30% refused it, 30% cheated and never got it, and 40% took it, either because they believed in the propaganda, or were lazy to get a fake immunization card.
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?
'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.
'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.
'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
'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.
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.
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.
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.
"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."
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
*White
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!
Stunning. I’m floored.
Wow wow WOW! Fascinating and I love it! "The whole thing starts with an inner emptiness..."... yes yes YES!
Wow, this is brilliant! I'm pinning it to the top of the comments section! 🙌
AGREED!
Thank you. Much appreciated your essay and line of thinking.
Grateful for your post and for this pin!💚🙏
Very well stated comment!
GREAT comment and a cogent expansion of the original essay. Both are absolutely essential.
I was awakened to iatrogenic harm through my own experience with a skiing injury. I became my own advocate and learned to question doctors advice and conclusions. However, due to growing up in an era where polio and smallpox were eradicated and vaccines normalized, where childhood disease was minimized (graveyards show you that) and mortality rate for children radically improved my critically thought out conclusion regarding vaccine for COVID was the risk of vaccine to me (age 70) is less than the risk of COVID. So accusing me of being brainwashed for using my life experience and critical thought doesn’t quite land. I’m open to the possibility this pandemic was manufactured to depopulate the planet but need more evidence. I also see the advent of social media means consensus reality has been decimated into fragments and bubbles and we can no longer trust information. I resist drinking the koolaid on either side and do my best to navigate the landscape as is based on my lifelong experience and coping skills. I have deconstructed the conditioning of my childhood and much of what I was taught.
You arrived to the absolute truth. The behavior of the population during the first three months of the plandemic could be explained as the result of hysteria and mess psychosis triggered by a fear of disease and death, but then it turned into exactly what you described, as about 2/3 of the population decided to conform to what the rulers (authority) wanted for the reason of self preservation. Studies of human behavior during the last 100 years arrived to the same statistics that is about 70% of the population (any given group of people) conform to authority and the remining 30% wont conform if the request is against their moral values or rational judgement. But, some of those who conform to authority, doing it only for self preservation and/or economical reasons, but they know the truth. They are aware of reality. However, around 15% - 30% of the population, are actually hypnotized and believe in the false promises. I saw this same phenomenon through my own eyes when I grew up in Hungary, during the communist regime. The injustice, lies and human rights abuse committed by the communist members were obvious for almost everyone, but there were still a small portion of the population (15-20%), who did not see any problems at all. As a matter of fact, sincerely defended the communist leaders and were ardent defenders of the ideology. These were the people we call nowadays, the useful idiots. Those who were aware of the abusive and unfair system yet still decided to join the force rather than fight against it, did it for financial reasons. They got financially rewarded, and had not faced any drawbacks (except the hate of their fellow citizens, but that type is immune to that), so it was all rewards and no risk. With covid shots, however, there was risk involved. This is why I believe that the covid hegemony was actually defeated in practice. Yes, the hegemons don't admit their defeat openly, but their agenda of mass vaccination and vaccine cards - monthly, semi-annually or yearly is just not happening. Meanwhile communist regimes ruled for generation during the last century. People know that the risk of getting ill or dying is very real due to the covid shot. So, this is why many people cheated and decided to get fake ID's, and the government knew it all. They have the tools to monitoring us. We don't have the tools, so naturally the government knew it before many of us even suspected it. They did not admit it openly, of course, but it was the reality, nonetheless.
My extended family of about 50 people, I believe reflects exactly how the population in large behaved. So, 1/3 did not take the shot, because they understood it was not beneficial and had potentially serious side effects. The other 1/3, who worked for big corporations believed in the same, but did not want to lose their well paying jobs, so got fake covid immunization cards (yes, there was a huge black market and everyone who wanted it, could get it !!!), but 1/3 actually were scared to death and 100% believed in the propaganda, so they went to get the shots. Those 1/3 were so emotionally receptive for the manipulation by the media, that it was impossible to reason with them. My daughter is currently a PHD student in biophysics, but before she worked in mRNA research as a biochemist trying to treat degenerative diseases for three years for a global biotech company. Yet, she could not convince our relatives with facts that she acquired working in that area. She left the mRNA research, because she saw it was all BS, and was so disappointed that decided to leave biochemistry entirely and pursue a PHD degree in biophysics instead.
So, when CDC says that 70% of the population were injected with the mRNA shots, I just laugh, because it's also another lie. My estimate is that the population's injection rate must be very similar as to what it is in my extended family, 30% refused it, 30% cheated and never got it, and 40% took it, either because they believed in the propaganda, or were lazy to get a fake immunization card.
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?
PS. Toby, you identify as a 'dissident scholar'.This made me laugh for quite a long time, I'm not sure why?
'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.
'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.
'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
'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.
Yes we are all products of our conditioning. Awareness helps us to break free.
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.
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.
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.
I heard this happened following the Spanish flu also. Seems to be a feature of human nature following mass trauma.
"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."
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.
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.
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.