Reforma intelectual e moral e a construção da hegemonia: o processo de elevação cultural dos grupos sociais subalternos

Abstract

The aim of this work is to examine Antonio Gramsci's reflections on the need for an intellectual and moral reform, a reform that is conditio sine qua non for the construction of a new hegemony on the part of subaltern social groups. Antonio Gramsci elaborates in the Cadernos do Cárcere the concept of hegemony as the fundamental "theoretical tool" to understand the new configuration assumed by the State in the societies of advanced capitalism, as well as in which resides the exercise of the direction of the dominant social groups. The state in these societies, especially since the second half of the nineteenth century, has become a political society and civil society due to the development of large private organizations of the modern type such as unions, political parties, NGOs. Phase of the state and the dominant groups, since now the exercise of the leadership of the dominant groups is carried out from a combination of coercion and consensus. The State opens channels of social participation for subaltern social groups to present their proposals and to challenge and even incorporate into their policies the demands of these groups, welcomes them and gives them a new meaning. Hegemony is an intellectual direction because it concerns a conception of the world that expresses the interests of a particular social group, presenting it as if manifesting the interests of all social groups. Hegemony is a moral direction because the conceptions of the world imply appropriate forms of behavior and values, forms of behavior and values that, when assimilated by subaltern social groups, become a propitious terrain to guarantee the maintenance and reproduction of Interests of a particular social group. The state that governs on the basis of hegemony can only be overcome from the moment that the subaltern social groups break with these conceptions that they assimilated and are not theirs, conceptions that are the base of the direction of the dominant social groups. In order to break these conceptions and build their hegemony, subordinate social groups need to organize, organize culture, educate themselves, become leaders (specialist + politician). However, there is no organization of culture without intellectuals and it is not possible to build a new hegemony without organizing. Thus Gramsci understands that the construction of hegemony is a process that is neither mechanical nor linear, the construction of hegemony is a "molecular" process and demands an Intellectual and Moral Reformation. But there is no intellectual and moral reform without means and conditions for this, in this sense Gramsci elaborates his conception of Unitary School as homogeneous center of culture aiming at educating the masses in order to making them leaders, preparing them to build their hegemony. Gramsci, when reflecting on the perspectives of social transformation, conceives the construction of hegemony by subaltern social groups, but does not write about counter-hegemony - a concept spread as belonging to his theoretical corpus, but formulated by Raymond Williams. In Quaderni, Gramsci reflects on how to organize culture and carry out an intellectual and moral reform (essential to the conquest of hegemony). In this process, among many interlocutors, the Sardinian thinker dialogues with Georges Sorel and Ernest Renan and their respective concepts "split spirit" and Intellectual and Moral Reform, fundamental to understand the process of building hegemony in Gramsci.