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From a generic perspective, in my classes, I mean by this term to imply the unwanted domination of one by another—e.g. as in a racist society, or in a patriarchal society, or a colonial society, and so on. However, hegemony can occur at many levels in many different ways, and in fact it is possible that victims of hegemony may not even know that they are victims of it. This is especially so in the case of ideological hegemony–of which capitalism, as an ideology, is a good example. But how is ideological hegemony imposed? Very simply, through the process of socialization. (n1)
(n1.) From a theoretical perspective, this term (hegemony) has very specific meaning in that it is one of the key concepts that was advanced by the Italian neo-Marxist thinker, Antonio Gramsci (lived 1891-1937) who argued that the hegemony of the capitalist class in a capitalist society is secured at the ideological level through the mechanism of “common sense,” where the dominated (the working classes) willingly accept capitalist hegemony because, through socialization, they come to view capitalist power relations in society from the perspective of the capitalist class; that is, the worldview of the capitalist class becomes the worldview of the subordinated classes because what appears as common sense to the capitalist class now also appears as common sense to the subordinated classes. This process, however, is not permanent or irreversible. Through revolutionary struggle what had always appeared to be common sense to the subordinated classes may no longer be so as the wool is pulled from their eyes to speak (implying the acquisition of political consciousness).
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