Gramsci Puns

"Every morning, when I wake again under the pall of the sky, I feel that for me it is New Year’s Day.

That’s why I hate these New Year’s that fall like fixed maturities, which turn life and human spirit into a commercial concern with its neat final balance, its outstanding amounts, its budget for the new management. They make us lose the continuity of life and spirit. You end up seriously thinking that between one year and the next there is a break, that a new history is beginning; you make resolutions, and you regret your irresolution, and so on, and so forth. This is generally what’s wrong with dates.

They say that chronology is the backbone of history. Fine. But we also need to accept that there are four or five fundamental dates that every good person keeps lodged in their brain, which have played bad tricks on history. They too are New Year’s. The New Year’s of Roman history, or of the Middle Ages, or of the modern age.

And they have become so invasive and fossilizing that we sometimes catch ourselves thinking that life in Italy began in 752, and that 1490 or 1492 are like mountains that humanity vaulted over, suddenly finding itself in a new world, coming into a new life. So the date becomes an obstacle, a parapet that stops us from seeing that history continues to unfold along the same fundamental unchanging line, without abrupt stops, like when at the cinema the film rips and there is an interval of dazzling light.

That’s why I hate New Year’s. I want every morning to be a new year’s for me. Every day I want to reckon with myself, and every day I want to renew myself. No day set aside for rest. I choose my pauses myself, when I feel drunk with the intensity of life and I want to plunge into animality to draw from it new vigor.

No spiritual time-serving. I would like every hour of my life to be new, though connected to the ones that have passed. No day of celebration with its mandatory collective rhythms, to share with all the strangers I don’t care about. Because our grandfathers’ grandfathers, and so on, celebrated, we too should feel the urge to celebrate. That is nauseating.

I await socialism for this reason too. Because it will hurl into the trash all of these dates which have no resonance in our spirit and, if it creates others, they will at least be our own, and not the ones we have to accept without reservations from our silly ancestors."

First published in *A

I've never read Gramsci before, but am familiar with his concepts. Never having read him before, though, is a problem.

What is the best part of the Prison Notebooks to read for an overview of hegemony? I guess, in short, what would be the part you assigned if you were a professor and doing a class on hegemony in Gramsci's work?

i'm particularly interested in texts/analysis that emphasises his material analysis of power/capitalism

most of the popular stuff is about cultural hegemony, which is interesting and worth studying too, but i want to understand more clearly how his cultural/social theory links back to more hardcore economic stuff.and also i'm aware his prison note books cover such a wide range of all of these ideas but sadly i don't have so much time to go through it all though i do hope to one day - so pls if u know of anyone who writes about him, or indeed any shorter bits (like a single essay or something) by him that covers more explicitly the materialism side of his thinking then pls let me know :) thanks, all the best

Hello everyone. I hope you can enlighten me on what Gramsci and Althusser mean by 'spontaneous philosophy'? Thank you.

I am looking for more characters/books that satisfy this criteria: an intellectual with a graduate degree; a bit of a snob; he reads Voltaire, Rousseau, Fanon, Gramsci.

Anything similar you can recommend?

Preface: along with the introduction of post modernism in western universities, another fatal blow to the Marxist Leninist movement in the west was the bastardization that liberal professors that painted themselves as red inflicted against Antonio Gramsci: from an excellent communist thinker he was turned into an “anti Stalinist” social justice warrior advocating for “proletarian freedom and democracy”.

This paved the way for the opportunist Togliattti to castrate the Communist Party of Italy of its revolutionary, anti capitalist and anti imperialist potential, turning it into a Labour style party. The leftover sections devoted to the cause were re directed into uneffective youngish spontanesim of the 1968, leading to a “cultural revolution” without class struggle or, on the contrary, into the mindless terrorism of the brigate rosse.

———

The cynical reformist instrumentalization of Antonio Gramsci

by Amedeo Curatoli

———

"Nothing in the political Gramsci of the legal decade (i.e. before his arrest in 1926) leads one to believe that he posed the problem of democracy in terms different from those current in the Third International, that is, that he glimpsed a regime of political democracy, representative, as a historical ground on which to advance towards socialism. We are in 1916-1926 and not in 1936-46, nor is it appropriate to give Gramsci what is Togliatti's". (Spriano, in: "Gramsci, scritti politici", Editori Riuniti, pg. XXXIV).

We, too, are inclined to distinguish in the political life of Antonio Gramsci, the decade of freedom and the decade of the Fascist imprisonment, but we make this distinction for reasons opposite to those of Spriano.

Before his arrest, says Spriano, Gramsci was a Leninist, completely aligned with the positions of the Third International, and he did not yet "glimpse" "representative democracy" as a "ground for progress towards socialism". Since Togliatti was the theorist of representative democracy as a field of advancement towards socialism, we must be careful, warns -Spriano- to keep Gramsci (before his imprisonment) well separated from Togliatti, it will not be "convenient" to give Gramsci what belongs to Togliatti. However... during his imprisonment, a miracle took place: Gramsci became the spiritual father of the Italian path to socialism and Togliatti became its executor. This is the most cynical and fraudulent of Migliore's revisionist misdeeds, in which all of Togliatti's leading theorists participated, from Na

Saluti, compagni! Ho appena trovato questo film sui Gramsci e la sua stanza nella carcere di Turi. Cosa ne pensate? (Mi scuso per gli errori, sono imparando l'italiano ancora)

https://youtu.be/Mi9T0mrFrIs (il film ha sottotitoli in spagnolo e portoghese)

The quote is attributed to many, most famously to George Orwell, but Gramsci is another good choice. No matter who said it, the words ring true, always.

Hello. First of all happy new year.

I am trying to find reading material on Gramsci's 'contradictory conciousness'. I found that it is quite obscurely been discuss to compare with his concept of hegemony.

If you guys know any reading material that discuss on this 'contradictory conciousness', I am humble ask for your help to share with me.

Thank you.

Participants have to guess whether something was said by Faris Monshi in the company Slack, or by Italian Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci

I am working on an educational podcast about socialist theory, strategy and history, inspired by Gramsci’s writings called The Working Class Intelligentsia, if you are interested.

https://theworkingclassintelligentsia.wordpress.com/about/?fbclid=IwAR1HnTUroGm3OMKuKIqIfFVhl9IE1-umwAC_nrmgHSgLkWhPkZpKC5_WE8Y

Hello,

I would like to start reading Antonio Gramsci's texts and familarize myself with his thinking.

Would anyone have a recommendation on how to proceed? Either start with the easiest, most clearly written of his texts, or if there is a seminal work which is necessary to read prior to any other.

Thank you un advance.

I've recently started reading Antonio Gramsci's Prison Notebooks. There's this passage where he is talking about Contradictory Consciousness. He describes it as:

> two theoretical consciousnesses (or one contradictory consciousness): one which is implicit in his activity and which in reality unites him with all his fellow-workers in the practical transformation of the real world; and one, superficially explicit or verbal, which he has inherited from the past and uncritically absorbed. But this verbal conception is not without consequences. It holds together a specific social group, it influences moral conduct and the direction of will, with varying efficacity but often powerfully enough to produce a situation in which the contradictory state of consciousness does not permit of any action, any decision or any choice, and produces a condition of moral and political passivity.

I believe I have an idea of what he is talking about but I'm having trouble fully grasping it. What does he mean by this? And what would be an example of this sort of thinking?

I’m a member of DSA. As the pandemic derailed our prior organizing efforts I started a podcast about socialist history, analysis and strategy, inspired by the texts of Gramsci. I hope it can be educational, and help us become more informed and strategic. I just put out an episode on a general strike in Italy Gramsci wrote about, and the Seattle General Strike of 1919. I’d love to hear your thoughts. I’m new to podcasting, but trying to learn from my mistakes, making each episode better than the last. https://theworkingclassintelligentsia.wordpress.com/about

Preface: along with the introduction of post modernism in western universities, another fatal blow to the Marxist Leninist movement in the west was the bastardization that liberal professors that painted themselves as red inflicted against Antonio Gramsci: from an excellent communist thinker he was turned into an “anti Stalinist” social justice warrior advocating for “proletarian freedom and democracy”.

This paved the way for the opportunist Togliattti to castrate the Communist Party of Italy of its revolutionary, anti capitalist and anti imperialist potential, turning it into a Labour style party. The leftover sections devoted to the cause were re directed into uneffective youngish spontanesim of the 1968, leading to a “cultural revolution” without class struggle or, on the contrary, into the mindless terrorism of the brigate rosse.

———

The cynical reformist instrumentalization of Antonio Gramsci

by Amedeo Curatoli

———

"Nothing in the political Gramsci of the legal decade (i.e. before his arrest in 1926) leads one to believe that he posed the problem of democracy in terms different from those current in the Third International, that is, that he glimpsed a regime of political democracy, representative, as a historical ground on which to advance towards socialism. We are in 1916-1926 and not in 1936-46, nor is it appropriate to give Gramsci what is Togliatti's". (Spriano, in: "Gramsci, scritti politici", Editori Riuniti, pg. XXXIV).

We, too, are inclined to distinguish in the political life of Antonio Gramsci, the decade of freedom and the decade of the Fascist imprisonment, but we make this distinction for reasons opposite to those of Spriano.

Before his arrest, says Spriano, Gramsci was a Leninist, completely aligned with the positions of the Third International, and he did not yet "glimpse" "representative democracy" as a "ground for progress towards socialism". Since Togliatti was the theorist of representative democracy as a field of advancement towards socialism, we must be careful, warns -Spriano- to keep Gramsci (before his imprisonment) well separated from Togliatti, it will not be "convenient" to give Gramsci what belongs to Togliatti. However... during his imprisonment, a miracle took place: Gramsci became the spiritual father of the Italian path to socialism and Togliatti became its executor. This is the most cynical and fraudulent of Migliore's revisionist misdeeds, in which all of Togliatti's leading theorists participated, from Na

Preface: along with the introduction of post modernism in western universities, another fatal blow to the Marxist Leninist movement in the west was the bastardization that liberal professors that painted themselves as red inflicted against Antonio Gramsci: from an excellent communist thinker he was turned into an “anti Stalinist” social justice warrior advocating for “proletarian freedom and democracy”.

This paved the way for the opportunist Togliattti to castrate the Communist Party of Italy of its revolutionary, anti capitalist and anti imperialist potential, turning it into a Labour style party. The leftover sections devoted to the cause were re directed into uneffective youngish spontanesim of the 1968, leading to a “cultural revolution” without class struggle or, on the contrary, into the mindless terrorism of the brigate rosse.

———

The cynical reformist instrumentalization of Antonio Gramsci

by Amedeo Curatoli

———

"Nothing in the political Gramsci of the legal decade (i.e. before his arrest in 1926) leads one to believe that he posed the problem of democracy in terms different from those current in the Third International, that is, that he glimpsed a regime of political democracy, representative, as a historical ground on which to advance towards socialism. We are in 1916-1926 and not in 1936-46, nor is it appropriate to give Gramsci what is Togliatti's". (Spriano, in: "Gramsci, scritti politici", Editori Riuniti, pg. XXXIV).

We, too, are inclined to distinguish in the political life of Antonio Gramsci, the decade of freedom and the decade of the Fascist imprisonment, but we make this distinction for reasons opposite to those of Spriano.

Before his arrest, says Spriano, Gramsci was a Leninist, completely aligned with the positions of the Third International, and he did not yet "glimpse" "representative democracy" as a "ground for progress towards socialism". Since Togliatti was the theorist of representative democracy as a field of advancement towards socialism, we must be careful, warns -Spriano- to keep Gramsci (before his imprisonment) well separated from Togliatti, it will not be "convenient" to give Gramsci what belongs to Togliatti. However... during his imprisonment, a miracle took place: Gramsci became the spiritual father of the Italian path to socialism and Togliatti became its executor. This is the most cynical and fraudulent of Migliore's revisionist misdeeds, in which all of Togliatti's leading theorists participated, from Na