What�s unfortunate is that many would-be academics and salonists misuse the term, hegemony, a term loaded with political meaning by Antonio Gramsci. For those who don�t know Gramsci�s work, he was a communist. He wrote his prison notebooks while in prison for being a communist and having hegemonic tendencies himself because he was a communist. Mussolini, who also had hegemonic tendencies, put him there in the mid 1920s.
Gramsci has had an enormous, if not immediately obvious effect, on left politics in the post-WWII era in North America (along with Chomsky, Zinn, Foucault and Wallerstein). Like many great theorists, he tends to be most popular with other theorists. My blog is based on some of his most important ideas. I don�t agree with Gramsci on every tiny detail, but Gramsci doesn�t require that. Many people use 'hegemony' as a synonym for authoritarianism, fascism and other specific politics, but that is not how Gramsci means it.
When a group attains hegemony, Gramsci merely means that they are in a position of sufficient social power in order order social relations mostly (although not totally) to their advantage. A hegemonic group organizes those social relations based on a coalition of friendly groups through a combination of leadership and coercion. That is, they provide hope to their allies, and they strike fear into the hearts of their opponents.
The Republicans attained hegemony in the United States in 2000 when Little W led a coalition of religious, fiscal and social conservatives to power. As the Republican coalition was whittled away over the next 8 years, we all witnessed how the specific interests of those groups were often in competition with one another, even if they agree substantially on supporting Bush's administration. The coalition a hegemonic group forms is sometimes referred to as ruling relations by Gramsciists, and the individual groups often have competing interests. Change happens when group allegiances change, power shifts, new coalitions emerge and social relations shift.
What Grasmci proposes is not that communists and other leftists should oppose hegemony per se, but that they do their best to attain their own cultural hegemony against right wing and reactionary groups and their hegemony. This is sometimes referred to as �counter-hegemonic practice� by Gramsciists, since most hegemonies tend to be right-wing. But that doesn't make hegemony itself reactionary; it depends on the politics involved.
Lord knows, I�m trying my best to bring my hegemonic tendencies to fruition. And I don�t believe in hegemonic tendencies just for myself. I also believe that other abolitionist vegans should have hegemonic tendencies as well. I would love nothing better than to see to the world reorganized based on veganism and the rights of other animals. I am not a utilitarian liberal in a poncho and no deodorant who believes that any criticism is a form of hierarchy; and I am not afraid to criticize others if they require criticism.
If other would-be leaders of our movement do not have hegemonic tendencies, are not willing to stand alone in the field of cultural struggle, that is their prerogative. I am prepared to struggle by myself. I agree, without reservation, with the view that:
�[the animal advocacy movement has] ceded the authority to these leaders of these national organizations, and activism has become, �Let me write a check to this group or to that group.� And that�s never gonna work. We need to see ourselves as moral centers for change�each of us.� (Gary L. Francione).
If there were 1,000 abolitionist vegan groups, each with petty demagogues like myself, refusing cheques, refusing half-measures, refusing violence, insisting on education and change, where would the struggle for the rights of other animals be today?
If there were only 10 abolitionist vegan groups each creating their own literature, writing their own pamphlets, performing their own plays, holding their own knit ins, holding their own bake sales, running their own shelters, building their own sanctuaries, we would show our opponents a kind of power and tenacity that the proponents of an adolescent adventurism can only barely begin to understand.
A revolution of the heart, as Francione puts it, is not something that can be undone. Solidarity with the oppressed, properly understood, cannot be stopped by petty inconveniences. An insurance check can�t cover it. Industry can�t lower prices fast enough to strangle it. It cannot be hushed up or papered over with a stangnant and recycled propaganda. It is a social transformation embodied in each agent of change; so long as there is one abolitionist vegan, the system will always have to answer to someone.
Each of us should be prepared to be that someone.
If we want to strike at the walls of oppression, to shake its foundations, rather than merely contenting ourselves with complaining vacuously about the wallpaper, then advocates should put down the petty antics and pick up some truly revolutionary work. And that�s education. Not raising awareness, but serious, hands-on, �read the book, think about the ideas, make the changes required to pay what you owe others� education.
Someone who has been �educated� about gravity but still walks off of cliffs has not been educated about gravity. Someone who has been �educated� about veganism but still persists in the use of other animals has not been educated about veganism. Advocates need to stop saying education won�t work and start understanding that they have misunderstood education at a fundamental level.
If being handed a pamphlet is education, I�d have a dozen PhDs by now.
In closing, dear colleagues, you are either with me or against me. By that, I mean that you either support immediate, unconditional and unequivocal abolition, veganism and animal adoption, or you are not clearly and unequivocally in favor of these things. If you are against me, then you should be prepared to read a never ending set of poorly designed pamphlets, poorly proof-read blogs, and a mountain of tweets until you change your mind. My talents may be meager, but my sincerity is unrivaled and my will is a force of nature.
I am simply the kind of advocate who will not stop until everyone has been educated, no matter how intransigent. It is not because I am hopeful. It is because when we experience real solidarity with other animals (whether human or non), we know that the only victory is their absolute emancipation and the restoration of their personhood by the wholesale transformation of society.
We cannot experience real solidarity and coddle ourselves with fantasizes about our defeat. We cannot pursue real solidarity work and pursue "shortcuts" that will never bring us to the future to which we all aspire. There is simply too much at stake in the life of one nonhuman animal in slavery for the movement to continue the way that it is has. Trying to turn back the clock is reactionary. Inviting defeat with a carnival of tactics that don't work is reactionary.
We must change course and devote all energies to abolition, veganism and adoption. Not because I say so, but because reason and empirical evidence say that we must change and because change is what justice and virtue demand of us. I am for the hegemony of justice, virtue, but most of all, love. I will not apologize for it and neither should anyone else.
If you are not vegan, you should go vegan today. If you are not an abolitionist, you can learn more about the approach at www.abolitionistapproach .com.
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