Gramsci and Contemporary Politics

Beyond Pessimism of the Intellect

Anne Showstack Sassoon

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2002
• eBook ISBN: 9781134717118
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Can politics now be both radical and realistic? Gramsci and Contemporary Politics is a collection of Anne Showstack Sassoon's writing which spans the major transitions from Thatcher and Reagan to Clinton and Blair; the collapse of communism to the regeneration of social democracy. Applying original interpretations of Antonio Gramsci's ideas on the intellectuals, political language, civil society and political leadership, she argues that drawing from the past, and broadening contemporary sources of political and academic knowledge can contribute to a grounded, radical hegemonic politics which can bring about change.

1

Facing the Future, Evaluating the Past

A collection of essays provides the occasion to revisit an intellectual and personal itinerary. Changes in political, social and economic contexts, and implicitly or explicitly the author’s own growth and development, all come into play. These pieces were written during major transitions spanning the Thatcher and Reagan governments, the collapse of communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe, attempts to regenerate social democracy, and the election of centre-left governments throughout Western Europe and in North America. They reflect my continuing interest in the work of the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937), in women’s changing socio-economic roles, and in projects to refashion left politics to take account of major socio-economic change, and are accompanied by a desire to demystify academic practices. Theoretical discussion is joined to political and personal reflection. The majority of the essays have been substantially revised for this book. All are explorations of themes of continuing contemporary relevance. They do not pretend to be definitive. They are often tentative and suggestive. The intention is to open up discussion rather than close it down.

Themes and Conjectures

As political and intellectual signposts change so dramatically, a rush to judgment is to be resisted. The dynamic of the tennis match of many academic and political debates, which simply bounce arguments back and forth, can detract from the need to confront significant questions. Above all, polarised positions often mean that the inconsistent and contradictory nature of social development is either considered a problem to be eliminated or becomes a rationale for abstaining from engagement. It is striking how rare it is to find work which draws out what could be useful from what appear to be otherwise contradictory positions, or, indeed, which makes an analysis that searches for the contradictions and inconsistencies in social development in order to learn from them. The definition of being analytical and critical is too often reduced to describing the negative aspects of reality and the limits of social thought and political practice, rather than trying constructively to draw on what is potentially positive and useful. At the same time, social analysts have the right to ‘de-construct’ earlier traditions of ideas as they seek answers to today’s questions without endorsing them in their entirety or reducing their importance to their contemporary relevance.¹

Participating in an open-ended process implies recognising a continuous need to change and to grow. Such a need is too rarely acknowledged. The absence from most academic or political debate of explicit self-interrogation is not surprising given the vulnerability which this can expose. The strange pretence that we—authors, readers, collective agents—have always been what we are now provides a defensive shield. In order to be convincing and authoritative, it is assumed that intellectual and political argument, whatever the content and whatever the gender or provenance of the author, must don the cloak of infallibility. By convention academic and political legitimacy and authority are rooted in certainty, which is required both of those in leading roles, and, it is expected, of those who accept such leadership. All too often a parent-child relationship is constructed in which little if any change and development is expected on the part of either.

Reflective modes of intellectual and political conduct run the risk, of course, of self-indulgent narcissism which is neither interesting nor productive. Nonetheless both political processes and intellectual engagement have much to gain from thoughtful reflection, even if the manner in which academic careers or political power and influence are achieved hardly encourages it. Tracing personal trajectories can offer an additional, even if small, contribution to producing some of the questions which can inform wider discussions. Individual biographies are not representative or even pre-figurative of wider truths, but they can provide insights into more general phenomena. And in a book which weaves together a variety of themes, discussion of the different influences on the writer may help to guide the reader.

Gramsci’s ideas, feminist debates, empirical work on women’s changing socio-economic roles, discussion about the futures of welfare states, and reflection on professional practice and personal experience all inform these essays. The topics covered range from Gramsci’s ideas on the intellectuals and his use of language, to citizenship and the concept of civil society, contemporary left politics, the relationship between parents and teachers, and ways of working in the social sciences. The essays are linked by a number of themes, above all, the idea that political projects to change society for the better need to avoid both passive, fatalistic resignation to seemingly overwhelming historical trends and schemes which have little basis in reality and therefore little chance of success because they are unlikely to win widespread consent. This is encapsulated in the phrase, ‘pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will’. Indeed, the subtitle of the book, Beyond Pessimism of the Intellect, links a current concern, the politically debilitatingeffects of cynicism about the possibility that reform programmescan make a positive difference to society, with the major intellectual influence in the essays, the work of Antonio Gramsci.²

Influences from the Past

Yet my encounter with Gramsci’s ideas was almost accidental. Although at that time few people outside of Italy had heard of Gramsci, he was suggested as a research topic by one of my teachers during my final year at the University of California, Berkeley where I had returned after a year at the University of Padua. When I took up this challenge, I had no idea how the decision would shape what was to come. The complexity of Gramsci’s writing and the specificities of his context forced me to learn about theoretical and political debates and political and social history far from my previous education or background. But over many years his writing has served as a foundation to tackle a range of other topics well beyond his own concerns. His analysis of changes in the role of the state and the transformation of the meaning of politics from the end of the nineteenth century, his sensitivity to what was new in social development in all its contradictions, and his insistence on taking the reactions and activities of the mass of society as an essential point of departure even, or especially, when confronted by political defeat from a prison cell, have all contributed to lateral thinking.

A major political defeat, the triumph of fascism in Italy in the 1920s, propelled Gramsci’s politics. He challenged models and preconceptions which inhibited the rethinking essential to the construction of a progressive politics which could provide an alternative both to fascism and to the mistakes of the left which had contributed to its own defeat. Having set himself an ambitious programme of study,³ Gramsci was seriously constrained by prison conditions and restrictions on what he could read and write. Yet his curiosity about what might now appear the minutiae of contemporary debates was not simply the result of his confinement. He was in fact predisposed to a method which seizes on the smallest detail, particular instance, or intriguing episode to open up important wider questions which might not otherwise be posed. He refused to cast such elements aside, to explain them as mistakes, for example, support amongst sectors of the population which had been marginalised and disaffected the Italian fascist regime. Nor did he try to fit his observations into a preconceived model or theoretical framework.⁴

On the contrary, the pieces which did not fit theoretical or political preconceptions served as clues to insights into the mystery and puzzles and potential of wider social development and indicated new questions demanding novel answers.⁵ Moreover, an underlying assumption in his work in prison was that no historical development could be understood as wholly negative or wholly positive. Each had to be analysed in its complexity andcontradictions and, most importantly, grounded in historical and cultural specificities.⁶ This was the only way to begin to grasp the new problems and the new possibilities presented by historical transitions and to map the political terrain on which they would be addressed.

The novel features of contemporary society could, of course, only partly be understood through existing concepts. Gramsci recognised the continuing influence of old institutions, processes, and ideas. But while acknowledging the weight of history, he derived a theoretical and political agenda from the problems and possibilities of the present and future rather than from a programme of the past. Inspired by Machiavelli as well as by Marx, Gramsci confronted the potential and the limits of political creativity with openness and courage in facing the most unfavourable realities. In his attempt to contribute to a renewal of left thinking from a prison cell in the 1930s, Gramsci managed to combine intellectual rigour and political commitment. In so doing, he provides a role model for other, far more modest, efforts.

The simplest, indeed the most simplistic, relationship to thinking from a different period is either to embrace or to reject a thinker. But the tendency towards ‘all or nothing’ polemic runs the risk of losing the very insights which earlier writers offer if we could only develop a mature, secular approach to their ideas. That is, we need to avoid reducing them to crude and partial representations as a reaction to the unfounded expectation that any one thinker can provide all of today’s requirements. Critical adaptation of what is still useful and the need to undertake creative, imaginative new thinking remains our responsibility.

Theoretical Foundations

The first section of the book provides a substantial part of the theoretical foundation for subsequently addressing a number of important issues in the second and third parts which, however, go well beyond both Gramsci’s time and framework. Re-reading the Prison Notebooks in order to prepare a paper about his ideas on education lead me to a re-interpretation of his concepts of traditional and organic intellectuals and to what is still a novel interpretation of Gramsci’s work on intellectuals as specialists in a complex historical and social division of intellectual labour. The first two essays place these ideas in the context of the debates in the 1920s in the Soviet Union and in fascist Italy about the political role of intellectuals. It is argued that Gramsci’s work was generated by urgent and concrete political questions, including the challenge of what he called Americanism and Fordism, and led him to focus on the role of technical, organisational and political expertise in a period of transition.

Themes which are discussed include aspects of educational theory, the problem of bureaucracy, and the pre-conditions of expanding democracy. A critical assessment is made of Gramsci’s argument that, while not everyoneautomatically and unproblematically has the capacity to rule, everyone potentially has abilities which can and must be developed further for a meaningful democracy. In challenging Lenin’s rhetoric, Gramsci puts the problem of creating the conditions for the expansion of democracy firmly on the socialist agenda, and confronts head on some of the enormous obstacles to the realisation of such an objective. A close analysis of the notes shows that he is not a populist but an ‘intellectual democrat’.

Although Gramsci was writing in a very different period, the interpretations of Gramsci’s work on intellectuals in these essays provide a link to contemporary problems. The transformations in Central and Eastern Europe and in South Africa which require new political institutions and legal frameworks, and major changes in old administrative structures, the economy and society more generally demonstrate the enormous difficulties to be faced during major historical transitions. Indeed, any project for substantial change, large or small, confronts pre-existing mentalities and structures and practices of power. Gramsci’s ideas help us to think about these and other issues such as the relationship between professionals like doctors or social workers or teachers and the public at large and the possibility of more active and meaningful citizenship.

A puzzle leads to the next essay, on the subversion of the language of politics. This piece examines the way in which Gramsci stretches the meaning of terms like ‘intellectual’, ‘hegemony’, or ‘state’ almost to the point of absurdity at the same time as he also uses them in traditional ways. It is intriguing how Gramsci uses ‘hegemony’ to indicate consent, when its usual meaning in international relations, and indeed its use by fellow marxists like Lenin or Mao, was so different—as domination over a system of alliances. Curiosity lead me to try to ‘make sense’ of what might otherwise appear simply contradictory⁷ by examining ‘clues’ to a deeper understanding not only of Gramsci but of our own use of language.⁸

What might appear a minor point, Gramsci’s frequent use of inverted commas to warn the reader that the meaning of a word should not be taken for granted, became a ‘lead’ in an investigation which concluded that the reason for this caution with language went well beyond the usual explanation that he had to hide from the censors to encompass profound aspects of his thought and of his politics.⁹ To invent new terminology in an ahistorical way would have run the risk of losing touch with ‘normal’ political language, with those who use it, and also with that part of reality which still corresponds to the old meaning. Gramsci therefore retains common political terminology but stretches it to refer both to the new and to the traditional. For example, there is still a sense in which the state is government, or law and policy making and enforcement, but it is not only that. The state in this sense has power but not a monopoly of power.

Gramsci’s use of terms has a ‘dialectical’ intent; that is, he wants to indicate past, present and potential future meanings all contained within thesame word. His perspective also implies that some aspects of reality are ahead of our ideas and our language, which have roots in the past, because traditional ways of being and thinking are embedded in institutions and practices which are still influential even when they are being undermined by socio-economic change. This poses the problem of how to relate in language and in concepts to a complex past, present and future.

Political Interventions

The first part of the book engages directly with Gramsci’s ideas. The next section addresses a range of topics of contemporary political relevance which go well beyond his framework and reflects other influences: empirical work on women’s socio-economic roles, feminist debates in Britain, Italy, the Nordic countries, the US, and elsewhere, and attempts to re-think social provision in the light of changing socio-economic conditions, in particular changes in the roles of women and men over the life cycle. ‘Equality and difference: the emergence of a new concept of citizenship’ is an exploratory essay which draws on work done on the implications of women’s changing socio-economic roles.¹⁰ The methodology examined in ‘Gramsci’s subversion of the language of polities’ is here applied to citizenship. I suggest that at the same time as traditional meanings continue to be significant, there has been a de facto transformation of the meaning of citizenship.

Both the theory and practice of citizenship have changed as a result of the development of the welfare state and the highly diverse and changing relationships that individuals have with it at any one time and over the life cycle. New kinds of differences are therefore inscribed in the relationship between individual and state. The fight for equality of opportunity and equal protection of the law is nonetheless as important as ever. There is a parallel discussion of the meaning of the abstract individual. For all that its pretence of universality is undermined when we understand how the concept is gendered,¹¹ such a notion, linked to constitutional guarantees of the rule of law, still represented an advance over attributions of legal identity which depended on social status. Rather than a polarised discussion of equality versus difference, I argue that taking account of diversity while providing guarantees of equitable treatment requires complex perspectives derived from the revision of conceptual frameworks in the light of socio-economic change.¹² In this and other essays in the book I attempt to move from theory to empirical reality and back again, paralleling Gramsci’s own methodology. This process reflects the argument running through the book that because of changing reality it is necessary both to go beyond and to learn from earlier traditions of political thought, be they liberal or marxist.

The need to contextualise ideas and thinkers and to relate concepts to a changing reality also applies to contemporary debates on civil society. Therise of neoliberalism, the collapse of communism, and the consequent undermining of traditional left assumptions about the state were the context in which debates about citizenship and the renewal of civil society became widespread. Yet these debates have often remained at an abstract level or taken the form of political rebuttal without making connections with the analysis of wider social change which is itself necessitating new thinking. ‘Back to the future: the resurrection of civil society’ examines the split between theoretical and empirical or historical discussions in the literature in English which this debate has generated. Evaluating Gramsci’s own contribution in the light of factors which he could not fully take into account, such as the growth in the voluntary sector, or which he ignored, such as the relationship between family, civil society, and state, the question is posed whether he is of use for the contemporary thinking necessary to understand recent developments in civil society. The essay examines Gramsci’s argument that the Catholic Church’s claim to represent the whole of civil society in Italy after Italian unification was unfounded and his criticism of Italian fascism’s professed aim to subsume civil society into a political project, and implicitly also the parallel attempt in the Soviet Union. I suggest that Gramsci’s argument that only a full flourishing of civil society makes it conceivable to think about the state receding from dominating society distinguishes him from a long and highly problematic socialist tradition.

Contemporary centre-left attempts to formulate political strategies which can gain widespread consent because they are rooted in the needs of a society very different from that of fifty years ago provided the occasion to reflect on the difficulties faced in constructing a progressive politics which avoids weary cynicism and fatalism on the one han...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• 1. Facing the future, evaluating the past
• Part 1: Theoretical foundations
• Part 2: Political interventions
• Part 3: Reflections and explorations
• Notes
• Index