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【Abstract】Gramsci‘s cultural hegemony revealed mild and secluded relationship between the ruler and the ruled locatemd in developed capitalist country. Consequently Said drew desirable inspiration from Gramsci’ cultural hegemony and applied the theory to illustrate the relationship between the east and the west, to some extent, exhibits the cultural hegemony that the west inflicts on the east. Said aims to deconstruct western discursive hegemony and recast a new relationship between east and west under the condition of globalization.
【Key words】cultural hegemony; post colonialism; discourse; deconstruction;Gramsci; Said
1. Introduction:Gramsci’s cultural hegemony
Gramsci, a famous Italian statesman and ideologist, took political practice into consideration seriously in his later lifetime in prison. According to his opinion, capitalist country is composed of “political society” and “civil society”. “political society” represents despotism and “direct rule” depending on army, police, prison and some other coercive constitution, while the “civil society” represents leadership, consisting of family, school, church, and community, medium and so on. Gramsci claimed the political modality mainly presents cultural hegemony, which is the overwhelming cultural and psychological penetration in civil society.And as a result, the ruled is willing to agree with that kind of rule at the bottom of their heart.
Cultural hegemony is the core of Gramsci’s thought as well as critical issue consisting in the relationship between the west and east in the case of globalization. With the increasing economical globalization, conflict between the east and west will be more intense, which attaches the significance to the inner value of this theory. What is more, Said who drew desirable inspiration from Gramsci’s cultural leadership established “Orientalism”, which is the mark of the birth of post colonialism.
2. The way of analyzing and criticizing of post colonialism
The meaning of post colonialism is extensive, consisting of a great amount of theories, such as structuralism, feminism, Marxism and so on. The core concept of post-colonialism critical theory originates directly from Gramsci’s cultural leadership.
Gramsci’s theory originally indicates the relationship of cultural hegemony between the ruler and the ruled in developed capitalist country, Said extended that to the cultural hegemony that west inflicts on the east. He pointed, to most extent, direct colonialism has terminated in comteporary time. [1] (p189) Direct colonialism refers to took other countries as colonies by military aggression, warlike extension. After WWII due to rising anti- colonialism, each country is independent step by step. After Cold War, international pattern gradually becomes pluralistic.Therefore direct colonialism and direct control that the west inflicts to the east seems to be impossible, they has to resort to more cunning colonialism——cultural colonialism that is the cultural hegemony that the west inflicts to the east. Culture is just a concept; cultural hegemony must be accomplished by discourse. There is no doubt cultural hegemony that the west inflicts to the east is also carried out by western description, inculcation and authoritative judges on eastern. In this respect, the post- modernism cast illumination on the theory of post- colonialism that resorts Faulk’s discourse to illustrate Gramsci cultural hegemony. Said claimed the concept of discourse that Foucault described help us to identify the Orientalism. I mean if we don not take research on Orientalism as a discourse, it is impossible for us to understand the subject with huge system. That is to say European makes distinction between European and Asian. The east does not take on what it look on earth in the Orientalism, the east is created by the west——“the east is nearly created by European in terms of imagination.” [2](P1) But in fact, it is impossible for European to create a real geographical east; the east only exists in their description, discourse and knowledge. On the whole, the east is just a symbol in Orientalism. This symbol represented the power relation, dominative relation, hegemony relation, hegemony (Gramsci) is represented in symbol (Foucault).
3. Deconstruction of western cultural hegemony
There is a basic premise in post- colonialism that colonial empire is also the “textual” empire. Imperialism is that a country inflicts authority on another district by military force, whereas colonialism also struggle to consolidate imperialistic power. Said claimed that imperialism refers to practice, theory and attitude of suzerain that governs terrain far away, however, colonialism is almost the direct result of imperialism and refers to colonial practice in distant place. whichever form is a kind of violence on other terrain. Imperialism represents direct violence, while colonialism represents constructive violence. But both of them are indeed powerful politics, relying on cultural violence which defends power politics against moral limitation in order to obtain rationality and validity of aggression.
Colonial discourse is the collection of cultural symbolic action containing a system of ideological means dealing with aggression and ruling, such as language, writing and textual code, which is called “Orientalism” by Said and also called Africanism by Fanon. Colonialism discourse constructs cognitive system that establishes and confirms its authority. The ultimate aim of colonial discourse is adjust the relationship between suzerain and colonist. Colonial empire is wild about encroaching on terrain and looting treasure entitled by civilization, claiming Europeans are born with high quality, while colonial ethnic groups are born with low quality, who is the primitive and barbarian people with underdevelopment. European responsibility is rule, direct and enhance inferior ethnic group. Ideology can stimulate cruel aggression, what is more, can validate the invasion. As a result it is eligible for dispersing any opposition and induces the depressed and marginal colonial inhabitant to adapt to current condition. Colonialism makes effort to convince aboriginal they will fall into calamity of savage, degeneracy and beastliness.
4. Conclusion
There is no doubt that post- colonialism originated form cultural hegemony has revealed the hidden relationship between culture and politics to deconstruct center by pointing the phenomenon. However, it failed to find out an effective solution. To be more exactly, it just discovered the origin of the problem but is puzzled with the right method, which is the crucial shortage of post- colonialism.
References：
[1]Edward Said. Said’ anthology[M].Chinese social scientific publishing firm.1996.
[2] Edward Said. Orientalism[M].Beijing:三联书店.1999.
[3]罗钢.刘象愚.后殖民主义文化理论[M].中国社会科学出版社.1999.
【Key words】cultural hegemony; post colonialism; discourse; deconstruction;Gramsci; Said
1. Introduction:Gramsci’s cultural hegemony
Gramsci, a famous Italian statesman and ideologist, took political practice into consideration seriously in his later lifetime in prison. According to his opinion, capitalist country is composed of “political society” and “civil society”. “political society” represents despotism and “direct rule” depending on army, police, prison and some other coercive constitution, while the “civil society” represents leadership, consisting of family, school, church, and community, medium and so on. Gramsci claimed the political modality mainly presents cultural hegemony, which is the overwhelming cultural and psychological penetration in civil society.And as a result, the ruled is willing to agree with that kind of rule at the bottom of their heart.
Cultural hegemony is the core of Gramsci’s thought as well as critical issue consisting in the relationship between the west and east in the case of globalization. With the increasing economical globalization, conflict between the east and west will be more intense, which attaches the significance to the inner value of this theory. What is more, Said who drew desirable inspiration from Gramsci’s cultural leadership established “Orientalism”, which is the mark of the birth of post colonialism.
2. The way of analyzing and criticizing of post colonialism
The meaning of post colonialism is extensive, consisting of a great amount of theories, such as structuralism, feminism, Marxism and so on. The core concept of post-colonialism critical theory originates directly from Gramsci’s cultural leadership.
Gramsci’s theory originally indicates the relationship of cultural hegemony between the ruler and the ruled in developed capitalist country, Said extended that to the cultural hegemony that west inflicts on the east. He pointed, to most extent, direct colonialism has terminated in comteporary time. [1] (p189) Direct colonialism refers to took other countries as colonies by military aggression, warlike extension. After WWII due to rising anti- colonialism, each country is independent step by step. After Cold War, international pattern gradually becomes pluralistic.Therefore direct colonialism and direct control that the west inflicts to the east seems to be impossible, they has to resort to more cunning colonialism——cultural colonialism that is the cultural hegemony that the west inflicts to the east. Culture is just a concept; cultural hegemony must be accomplished by discourse. There is no doubt cultural hegemony that the west inflicts to the east is also carried out by western description, inculcation and authoritative judges on eastern. In this respect, the post- modernism cast illumination on the theory of post- colonialism that resorts Faulk’s discourse to illustrate Gramsci cultural hegemony. Said claimed the concept of discourse that Foucault described help us to identify the Orientalism. I mean if we don not take research on Orientalism as a discourse, it is impossible for us to understand the subject with huge system. That is to say European makes distinction between European and Asian. The east does not take on what it look on earth in the Orientalism, the east is created by the west——“the east is nearly created by European in terms of imagination.” [2](P1) But in fact, it is impossible for European to create a real geographical east; the east only exists in their description, discourse and knowledge. On the whole, the east is just a symbol in Orientalism. This symbol represented the power relation, dominative relation, hegemony relation, hegemony (Gramsci) is represented in symbol (Foucault).
3. Deconstruction of western cultural hegemony
There is a basic premise in post- colonialism that colonial empire is also the “textual” empire. Imperialism is that a country inflicts authority on another district by military force, whereas colonialism also struggle to consolidate imperialistic power. Said claimed that imperialism refers to practice, theory and attitude of suzerain that governs terrain far away, however, colonialism is almost the direct result of imperialism and refers to colonial practice in distant place. whichever form is a kind of violence on other terrain. Imperialism represents direct violence, while colonialism represents constructive violence. But both of them are indeed powerful politics, relying on cultural violence which defends power politics against moral limitation in order to obtain rationality and validity of aggression.
Colonial discourse is the collection of cultural symbolic action containing a system of ideological means dealing with aggression and ruling, such as language, writing and textual code, which is called “Orientalism” by Said and also called Africanism by Fanon. Colonialism discourse constructs cognitive system that establishes and confirms its authority. The ultimate aim of colonial discourse is adjust the relationship between suzerain and colonist. Colonial empire is wild about encroaching on terrain and looting treasure entitled by civilization, claiming Europeans are born with high quality, while colonial ethnic groups are born with low quality, who is the primitive and barbarian people with underdevelopment. European responsibility is rule, direct and enhance inferior ethnic group. Ideology can stimulate cruel aggression, what is more, can validate the invasion. As a result it is eligible for dispersing any opposition and induces the depressed and marginal colonial inhabitant to adapt to current condition. Colonialism makes effort to convince aboriginal they will fall into calamity of savage, degeneracy and beastliness.
4. Conclusion
There is no doubt that post- colonialism originated form cultural hegemony has revealed the hidden relationship between culture and politics to deconstruct center by pointing the phenomenon. However, it failed to find out an effective solution. To be more exactly, it just discovered the origin of the problem but is puzzled with the right method, which is the crucial shortage of post- colonialism.
References：
[1]Edward Said. Said’ anthology[M].Chinese social scientific publishing firm.1996.
[2] Edward Said. Orientalism[M].Beijing:三联书店.1999.
[3]罗钢.刘象愚.后殖民主义文化理论[M].中国社会科学出版社.1999.