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Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research Journal Vol. 6, Issue-V, September 2017 ISSN: 2278-9529

Antonio Gramsci’s Theory of Cultural Hegemony in Edward Said’s

Orientalism
Abdellatif El Aidi
PhD Scholar,
The Laboratory of Discourse, Creativity
and Society: Perception and Implication
The Faculty of Arts and Humanities Sais-Fes
Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University
Fez, Kingdom of Morocco
&
Dr. Yahya Yechouti
Head of English Studies Dept.,
Coordinator of Culture, Space and Globalisation Research Group
The Faculty of Arts and Humanities Sais-Fes
Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University
Fez, Kingdom of Morocco

Article History: Submitted-23/07/2017, Revised-29/07/2017, Accepted-15/08/2017, Published-15/10/2017.

Abstract:

There is little doubt that Edward Said’s seminal text Orientalism is still believed to be
one of the most important books of its time. Indeed, although a great amount of academic ink
has been spilt on the discussion of Said’s masterpiece, because of its academic value, there is
still a need for more in-depth thinking and research on the book. In this respect, among the
aspects of the book which the present paper proposes to explore is the profound influence
which the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci has on Said’s thought and research. Gramsci, as
probably goes without saying, is best known for his concept of cultural hegemony as the
predominant mode of rule. For Gramsci, the dominant classes maintain their rule through the
use of cultural institutions to establish the consent of the subaltern classes. That is, instead of
using force and coercion, the ruling class develops a hegemonic culture through the use of
ideology to manipulate other classes into accepting their status as subaltern. Gramsci’s
elaboration on the concept of cultural hegemony appeals a lot to the author of Orientalism
because it allows him to uncover the ideological side of the West’s construction of the Orient.
That is, following Gramsci’s concept of cultural hegemony, Said argues that it is through
culture and ideology that the Western powers promote certain ways of thinking which
legitimate their invasion of the Orient. The purpose of this paper is twofold. Firstly, it aims at
exploring the main features characterizing Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony. Secondly,
it attempts to show how Edward Said reinvests the concept to expose the colonialist
ideologies underpinning the Western texts on the Orient.

Keywords: Orientalism, cultural hegemony, consent, ideology, force and coercion, the
ruling class, the subordinate classes, rule.

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Antonio Gramsci’s Theory of Cultural Hegemony in Edward Said’s Orientalism

Introduction:

Antonio Gramsci can considered as one of the most remarkable Marxist theorists in
the previous century. The man’s role in developing Western Marxism is undeniable.
Specifically, Gramsci’s main contribution to Marxism remains his concept of cultural
hegemony. The latter explains how the ruling class manages to dominate and rule over other
classes. In this respect, unlike his Marxist predecessors, Gramsci insists on the role of
ideology by which the dominant class maintains its rule and domination in society. For
Gramsci, instead of imposing its rule by means of force and coercion, the ruling class seeks to
establish the consent of other classes to their rule. Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony is
of great significance in shaping Edward Said’s assault on Orientalism. Therefore, as Said
himself makes the point, hegemony is “an indispensable concept for any understanding of
cultural life in the industrial West.” (7) In brief, this concept is what enables Said to show
how Western cultural discourses portray the Orient in such way as to establish Orientals’
consent to colonialism. The paper is divided into two major parts: whereas the first part
discusses the concept of hegemony in the Gramscian sense, the second part explains how
Edward Said uses the concept in his analysis of Orientalism.

Gramsci’s Concept of Hegemony Explained

It is generally agreed upon that Antonio Gramsci shares with Marx and the Marxists as
a whole their belief that the struggle between the ruling class and the subordinate working
class is what enables society to move forward. However, when it comes to the way the ruling
class dominates and rules, Gramsci distances himself a lot from Marxism. In Other words,
whereas the Marxists focus on the coercive practices of the ruling class and its tendency to
exploit the proletariat by means of force, Gramsci emphasizes the role of ideology. In his
opinion, before the ruling class resorts to direct force and coercion, it seeks to make its rule
acceptable by all classes. This is what Gramsci calls “hegemony”.

To foster a better understanding of the gramscian concept of hegemony, it is useful to

highlight its link to earlier Marxist thought. Relatedly, Marx is of the opinion that the world
can not get its real meaning through our views and perceptions as idealist philosophers claim.
For him, our ideas and views necessarily appear within certain historical and social contexts.
In his own words, “life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life.”
(Quoted in Jones 28)

It is to be noted that Marx divides society into two major components: a base and a
superstructure. The first is represented by the economic structure and the second by
socializing mechanisms such as language, religion, education, law, ideology, mass media and
the army. It needs to be emphasized here that Marx believes that the economic base of society
is what determines its social, political and cultural environment. He argues that “the mode of
production of material life conditions the social, political and intellectual life process in
general.” He adds that the society’s economic relations “constitute the economic structure of

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Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research Journal Vol. 6, Issue-V, September 2017 ISSN: 2278-9529

society, the real foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstructure and to which
correspond definite forms of social consciousness.” (Quoted in Williams 75)

According to Marx, since the ruling class owns and controls the means of production,
it must equally control the means of intellectual and cultural production. Consequently, the
ideas of the ruling class must be the most prevailing ideas in society. Put in Marx’s words,
“the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas [. . .] the class which has the
means of material production at its disposal has control at the same time over the means of
mental production.” (Quoted in Jones 28) By implication, therefore, what follows is that since
the economic base is the determining element in society, the success of the working class
revolution requires a fundamental change in the economic base. To argue this point, Steve
Jones says:

To truly change society, the base would have to be fundamentally

changed and this for Marx, writing in the context of industrial society,
entailed workers seizing control of the ‘means of production’ (above
all, the factories). It follows from this argument that superstructural
changes – penal reform, say, or abolishing private education – could
not in themselves be truly revolutionary. This is not to say that they
would be unwelcome, but they would not change the essential
characteristics of capitalist exploitation. (29)

It can, therefore, be argued that Marx and his followers are so obsessed with the economic
factor that they ignore the role culture and ideology can play in the production of social
relations. For them, it is always the economic base that determines the status people occupy in
society. This is to imply that if the working class wants to become the dominant class in
society, it must have total control of the base. That is, revolution would be possible only if
there is a fundamental change in the economic base.

Gramsci rejects the Marxist claim that the power of the ruling class is limited to the
economic base. For him, a social class becomes hegemonic not only by controlling the means
of production and coercing other classes but rather by establishing their consent. In fact,
consent is so important to Gramsci’s theory of hegemony. The point being made is that before
the ruling class resorts to force and coercion, it seeks to indoctrinate the proletariat with those
ideas that make them consent to their subordinate position. Gramsci holds the view that
hegemony is always established on

The “spontaneous” consent given by the great masses of the

population to the general direction imposed on social life by the
dominant fundamental group; this consent is “historically” caused by
the prestige (and consequent confidence) which the dominant group
enjoys because of its position and function in the world of production.
(12)

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Antonio Gramsci’s Theory of Cultural Hegemony in Edward Said’s Orientalism

In the main, Gramsci’s concept of hegemony can perhaps be traced back to Marx’s
prediction that the working class revolution which took place in Russia would spread to all
advanced capitalist societies. Gramsci notices that this was not the case. On the contrary,
although the suffering of the working class was very obvious, the ruling classes of all
capitalist societies managed to maintain their rule, in some cases without even using physical
force and coercion. According to Gramsci, the subaltern people were so manipulated that it
did not even occur to them to question the dominant system of rule which came to be seen as
the “norm”. The dominant groups managed to stabilize their rule by seeking to win the
approval of other groups. To argue this point, Dominic Strinati maintains:

dominant groups in society, including fundamentally but not

exclusively the ruling class, maintain their dominance by securing the
'spontaneous consent' of subordinate groups, including the working
class, through the negotiated construction of a political and ideological
consensus which incorporates both dominant and dominated groups.
(165)

The main point to get hold of here is that the consent of the people is what makes the rule of
the dominant class secure. This is why the latter relies more on manipulative and ideological
means than direct force and oppressive power. Put differently, when the subaltern people
believe that it is in their interests to accept the leadership of the ruling class, they do so
willingly. In the words of Joseph Femia,

those who are consenting must somehow be truly convinced that the
interests of the dominant group are those of society at large, that the
hegemonic group stands for a proper social order in which all men are
justly looked after. (42)

With this idea in mind it comes as no surprise that the ruling class does not impose its
system of rule by means of force, but rather through what Carl Boggs calls “the permeation
throughout society of an entire system of values, attitudes, beliefs and morality that has the
effect of supporting the status quo in power relations.” (39) This is how the dominated groups
are brainwashed and manipulated into accepting the economic, political and social leadership
of the dominant class. Hegemony in this sense can be characterized as

the ‘organising principle’ that is diffused by process of socialisation

into every area of daily life. To the extent that this prevailing
consciousness is internalised by the population it becomes part of
what is generally called ‘common sense’ so that the philosophy,
culture and morality of the ruling elite comes to appear as the natural
order of things. (Boggs 39)

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Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research Journal Vol. 6, Issue-V, September 2017 ISSN: 2278-9529

It becomes clear that unlike the Marsixts’ obsession with the economic base, Gramsci pays
more attention to ideology and ideas. For him, as long as the ideas of the subaltern people are
dominated, the dominant class will not need to use force and oppression to maintain its rule.

Gramsci takes Marx’s division of the state into a base and a superstructure a step
further when he divides the superstructure into what he calls political society and civil society.
Whereas political society stands for such coercive institutions as the government, armed
forces, police, the legal system and the like, civil society refers to those institutions that are
not coercive, including all institutions used in the construction of public opinion. To put it in
Gramsci’s words, “everything which influences or is able to influence public opinion, directly
or indirectly, belongs to it: libraries, schools, associations and clubs of various kinds, even
architecture and the layout and names of streets.” (389)

In Gramsci’s opinion, “the supremacy of a social group or class manifested itself in

two different ways: ‘domination’ or coercion, and ‘intellectual and moral leadership’,” (Femia
24) or hegemony. Whereas the first type of supremacy (i.e. domination) is exercised through
force by political society, the second (i.e. hegemony) is exercised through consent by civil
society. This is to mean that domination is achieved by the coercive machinery of the state
while “Hegemony is attained through the myriad ways in which the institutions of civil
society operate to shape, directly or indirectly, the cognitive and affective structures whereby
men perceive and evaluate problematic social reality.” (Ibid)

It is to be noted that although those in power can achieve social control in two
different ways: domination and hegemony. The former is used only when the latter fails. In
other words, when the ruling class establishes the consent of the ruled people successfully,
oppression and force are no longer needed. Howard Zinn makes the point in Declaration of
Independence, suggesting:

If those in charge of our society – politicians, corporate executives and

owners of press and television – can dominate our ideas, they will be
secure in their power. They will not need soldiers patrolling the
streets. We will control ourselves. (Quoted in Western 231)

For Gramsci, physical force is used only against those who refuse to consent, or as he says:

The apparatus of state coercive power […] ‘legally’ enforces

discipline on those groups who do not ‘consent’ either actively or
passively. This apparatus is, however, constituted for the whole of
society in anticipation of moments of crisis of command and direction
when spontaneous consent has failed. (12)

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Antonio Gramsci’s Theory of Cultural Hegemony in Edward Said’s Orientalism

Gramsci’s Theory of Hegemony in Said’s Orientalism

As probably goes without saying, the role the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci has
played in shaping Edward Said’s analysis of Orientalism is vital. In fact, his theory of cultural
hegemony is what enables Said to uncover the ideological and cultural side of European
colonialism. Therefore, it is not a big surprise that Said introduces the concept from the very
outset of his analysis as an important one. Relatedly, drawing on Gramsci’s hegemony, Said
affirms that it is through culture that European powers disseminate certain ways of thinking
and seeing that make their conquest of Oriental lands appear legitimate and beneficial for the
natives. This is how hegemony is established over Orientals who are manipulated into
viewing colonialism as “a natural phenomenon”.

In fact, Said finds in the discourse of Orientalism a perfect example of how hegemony
woks. In the words of Walia Shelly, “He sees the literary texts and the historical accounts of
the West as valuable representations of the ways in which hegemony works.” (34) The point
to get hold of here is that these texts as cultural forms play a fundamental role in the
construction of imperial views and perceptions which have an effect on how Oriental people
look at themselves. That is, these texts become a mirror in which non-Europeans see their
identity and culture. They are, to borrow from Said, “the method colonized people use to
assert their identity and the existence of their own history.” (xiii)

Culture, therefore, can be said to be a much more efficient tool of control than the use
of physical force and coercion. For Said, without manipulating the Orientals’ culture,
hegemony can not be achieved over the Orient. The colonizer may control the Orient
politically and economically, yet this control will not be complete unless the Oriental culture
itself is controlled. The Kenyan novelist Ngugi Wa Thiong’o is of the same opinion. For him,
“economic and political control can never be complete or effective without mental control. To
control a people’s culture is to control their tools of self-definition in relationship to others.”
(16) In this respect, Said tends to view Orientalism as a cultural project whose aim is to
achieve mental control over Orientals. For him, “to speak of Orientalism therefore is to speak
mainly although not exclusively, of a British and a French cultural enterprise,” (4) which aims
mainly to establish hegemony over Orientals by making the Colonialist worldview the
dominant ideology in Oriental lands.

It is to be noted that the relevance of Gramsci’s theory of hegemony to Said’s study of

Orientalism can be attributed to the former’s reflections on the concept of consent. Relatedly,
Said asserts that European colonialism relies much more on the consent of Orientals than on
the use of direct force to subdue them. This is to mean that instead of imposing their political
and economic policy by force, European powers induce in the minds of the colonized a set of
ideological ideas and beliefs which function to manufacture their consent and approval.

Besides, in a similar manner to Gramsci, who asserts that the ruling class manages to
achieve social control in two different ways: domination and hegemony, Edward Said affirms
that the subjection of the Orient itself comes from both of them. In other words, European

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Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research Journal Vol. 6, Issue-V, September 2017 ISSN: 2278-9529

colonization of the Orient depends on both the use of physical force and coercion and the
consent of the subjected people through Orientalism. Put in Said’s words, “cultural
domination is maintained, as much as by Oriental consent as by direct and crude economic
pressure.” (124)

In Said’s perspective, one way to achieve Oriental consent is through Orientalism,

which he qualifies as “an influential academic tradition” (203) whose aim is to construct an
appropriate public opinion in the colonized lands. In other words, the stories and the views the
Orientalists tell about the Orient and its people aim, among other things, to make Orientals
believe that it is in their interests to be colonized by the civilized West. Colonialism therefore
is always talked about in Orientalist texts in such a manner as to manufacture the natives’
consent. Thus, it can be argued that Orientalism not only constrains how the Orientalist tends
to view and talk about the Orient, but it also has a direct effect on the mind and psyche of the
colonized. To argue this point, Said says:

like any set of durable ideas, Orientalist notions influenced the people
who were called Orientals as well as those called Occidental,
European, or Western; in short, Orientalism is better grasped as a set
of constraints upon and limitations of thought than it is simply as a
positive doctrine. (42)

The epithet “durable” is used here by Said to refer to the long-lasting effect Orientalist ideas
have on Orientals. It can therefore be argued that nothing is more dangerous than this “set of
durable ideas” when internalized by the natives. This is why the colonizer keeps inculcating
such Orientalist ideas as “the idea of European identity as a superior one in comparison with
all the non-European peoples and cultures” (7) in the minds of the colonized people until they
believe and adopt them. In the Wretched of the Earth, Frantz Fanon makes the point clearly
when he says: “In the colonial context, the colonizer does not stop his work of breaking in
[d’éreintement] the colonized until the latter admits loudly and clearly the supremacy of white
values.” (43)

According to Said, Orientalism is a cultural tool used by the West to control and
manipulate the Orient by means of ideas and ideology. That is, Orientalism keeps hammering
into the minds of Orientals that they are savage, uncivilized and in dire need of help until they
start to see Western colonialism as a necessity for their salvation. The colonizer therefore does
not need to resort to the use of force to maintain his authority because the colonized already
accepts colonialism as a bless. Because of this Orientalist indoctrination, the colonized can be
said to take part in his own subjection and control. It is may be in this light that Said affirms
that “the modern Orient […] participates in its own Orientalizing.” (325)

Following Gramsci, Said affirms that it is Orientalism rather than military or economic
power that promotes Western hegemony over the Orient. It is through Orientalism that a kind
of pacification with the colonized is established. The point being made here is that
Orientalism functions to convince Orientals that it is for their own good to be colonized by the

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Antonio Gramsci’s Theory of Cultural Hegemony in Edward Said’s Orientalism

West. Therefore, it enables the colonizer to avoid Orientals’ resistance. In Said’s own words,
“The scientist, the scholar, the missionary, the trader, or the soldier was in, or thought about,
the Orient because he could be there, or could think about it, with very little resistance on the
Orient’s part.” (7)

Just to be clear, the European colonizer, as Said believes, does not conquer the Orient
the way, for example, the Spaniards did with the New World. Unlike the Spaniards, who
were interested only in stealing the New World’s natural resources by means of force,
Europeans invade the Orient in the name of civilizing the backward Orientals. In Said’s
words:

What distinguishes earlier empires, like the Roman or the Spanish or

the Arabs, from the Modern [colonial] empires, of which the British
and French were the great ones in the nineteenth century, is the fact
that latter ones are systematic enterprises, constantly reinvested. They
are not simply arriving in a country, looting it and then leaving when
the loot is exhausted. And modern empire requires, as Conrad said, an
idea of service, an idea of sacrifice, an idea of redemption. Out of this
you get these great, massively reinforced notions of, for example, in
the case of France, the “mission civilisatrice.” That we’re not there to
benefit ourselves, we are there for the sake of the natives. (66)

Differently put, Europeans often claim that they are in the Orient for a noble cause, to spread
civilization and progress among the natives. This seemingly philanthropic mission, which is
often called the “White Man’s Burden”, is just a beautiful façade behind which the hideous
face of European colonialism hides. In Said’s opinion, “the White Man's difficult civilizing
mission” (254) is just an excuse to invade the Orient. In his own words, “To have said, as
Curzon once did, that "the East is a University in which the scholar never takes his degree"
was another way of saying that the East required one's presence there more or less forever.”
(215)

In fact, the progress which Europeans promise to bring to the Orient is no more than a
big lie. It is just a romantic discourse which has nothing to do with the sour reality of the
“civilizing mission.” Said makes it clear that what the Occident is concerned with in the
Orient is just the latter’s fortunes. Europeans’ economic interests are the driving force behind
their presence in the Orient, or as Said puts it, “what mattered was not Asia so much as Asia's
use to modern Europe.” (115) Therefore, it can be said that what happens in the “civilizing
mission” is contradictory with what was promised. As Said stresses, the “liberality [promised]
was no more than a form of oppression and mentalistic prejudice.” (254)

To explain how Western hegemony is established on the Orient, Said draws on

Gramsci’s distinction between civil society and political society. “The former [which] is made
up of voluntary (or at least rational and non coercive) affiliations like schools, families, and
unions,” (6-7) is the site where Orientalist culture – the main tool for inducing Oriental

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Galaxy: International Multidisciplinary Research Journal Vol. 6, Issue-V, September 2017 ISSN: 2278-9529

consent – is located. In Said’s own words, “Culture […] is to be found operating within civil
society, where the influence of ideas, of institutions, and of other persons works not through
domination but by what Gramsci calls consent.” This is to mean that since hegemony is a
culturally-motivated phenomenon, Western political society which consists of “state
institutions (the army, the police, the central bureaucracy) whose role in the polity is direct
domination” (Said 7) is not significant. In other words, Edward Said, in his theorization of
Western hegemony over the Orient, argues that the West replaces the use of its coercive
institutions with the use of certain ideological and persuasive means (“the civilizing mission”
and “the White Man’s Burden”) for the sake of wining the consent of Orientals.

If European colonialism, as Said believes, involves indoctrinating the natives with

those ways of seeing that help establish their consent, then liberation from it does not simply
mean giving land back to its dispossessed owners. A real independence requires a change in
the dominant ways of viewing the world. To argue this point, John McLeod asserts that
“freedom from colonialism comes not just from the signing of declarations of independence
and the lowering and raising of flags. There must also be a change in the minds, a challenge to
the dominant ways of seeing.” (22)

Conclusion:

To conclude, as the above analysis demonstrates, Said finds in the West’s construction
of the Orient the best application of Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony. In this respect,
following Gramsci’s theory of hegemony, Said insists to portray Orientalism as a hegemonic
discourse by means of which the Western powers manipulate the natives. Orientalism, in this
sense, can be seen as an ideological apparatus which the colonizers produce so as to persuade
the colonized people to see the injustice and exploitation which they go through as natural and
acceptable. Therefore, although the colonial system is based on exploiting the natives and
dispossessing them of their lands and properties, it is immune to change. In other words,
despite the pain and the suffering which the colonizers inflict on the natives, it does not occur
to them to question colonialism because they are brainwashed and indoctrinated with those
ways of thinking that establish their consent.

Works Cited:

Boggs, Carl. Gramsci’s Marxism. London: Pluto Press, 1976. Print.

Dominic, Strinati. An Introduction to Theories of Popular Culture. London: Routledge, 1995.
Print.
Femia, Joseph V. Gramsci’s Political Thought: Hegemony, Consciousness and the
Revolutionary Process. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981. Print.
Frantz Fanon, the Wretched of the Earth. New York: Grove Press, 1986. Print.
Gramsci, Antonio. “Selections from Cultural Writings”. Ed. David Forgacs and Geoffrey
Nowell-Smith. Trans. William Boelhower. Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1985. Print.

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Antonio Gramsci’s Theory of Cultural Hegemony in Edward Said’s Orientalism

---. Selections from the Prison Notebooks. Ed. and Trans. Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey
Nowell Smith. New York: International Publishers, 1971. Print.
Jones, Steve. Antonio Gramsci. London: Routledge, 2006. Print.
McLeod, John. Beginning Postcolonialism. Manchester: Manchester UP, 2000. Print.
Said, Edward W. Culture and Imperialism. London: Vintage, 1994. Print.
---. Orientalism. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978. Print.
---. the Pen and the Sword, Conversations with David Barsamian. Monroe, ME: Common
Courage Press, 1994. Print.
Walia, Shellay. Postmodern Encounters: Edward said and the Writing of History. UK: Icon
Books, 2001. Print.
Wa Thiong’o, Ngugi. Decolonising the Mind: the Politics of Language in African Literature.
London: James Curry, 1986. Print.
Western, Simon. Leadership: A Critical Text. London: sage, 2008. Print.
Williams, Raymond. Marxism and Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977. Print.

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