437391

2012
CRS0010.1177/0896920512437391ReedCritical Sociology

Article

Critical Sociology
39(4) 561591
Theorist of Subaltern Subjectivity: The Author(s) 2012
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DOI: 10.1177/0896920512437391
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Learning

Jean-Pierre Reed
Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, USA

Abstract
Some recent positions on Antonio Gramsci portray him as a vanguardist who outright rejects
common sense and popular culture as playing a role in counter-hegemony or political resistance.
This manuscript seeks to provide a corrective to these recent portrayals. It does so by accurately
evaluating Gramscis position on the dialectical relationship subaltern (popular) beliefs have to
counter-hegemony; by considering his bottom-up stance on the relationship organic intellectuals
have to the subaltern; by focusing on his cutting edge position on ideological articulation; and in
light of his articulations regarding the role of subaltern passion and subaltern-centered pedagogy
for counter-hegemony. As a way to illustrate the significance of the subaltern for counter-
hegemony, the potential of popular religion for counter-hegemony is explored.

Keywords
counter-hegemony, political passion, popular beliefs, subaltern pedagogy

Introduction
Despite noteworthy contributions by Grasmcian (Adamson, 1980, 1985; Billings, 1990; Fontana,
1993; Fulton, 1987; Holub, 1992) and Leftist (Aronowitz, 1990; Bennett, 1986; Larrain, 1983;
Mouffe, 1981; and Turner, 1996) scholars in the English-speaking world, Antonio Gramsci remains
misunderstood as a theoretical figure. In his magnum opus, Prison Notebooks, Gramsci sets out to
theoretically formulate a counter-hegemonic strategy out of capitalist domination.1 A central posi-
tion that he advances in this work is the need to develop a referential and critical relationship
between the philosophy of praxis (Gramscis term for Marxism) and popular beliefs (i.e. common
sense or the philosophy of the people or non-philosophers, including popular religion) as a

Corresponding author:
Jean-Pierre Reed, Department of Sociology, Faner Hall - Mail Code 4524, 1000 Faner Drive, Southern Illinois University,
Carbondale, IL 62901, USA.
Email: reedjp@siu.edu
562 Critical Sociology 39(4)

necessary and strategic step for the unfolding of counter-hegemony.2 In the 1980s and 1990s this
was widely accepted to mean that subaltern culture was a significant material force through which
counter-hegemony or political resistance may be embodied (e.g. Bennett et al., 1986; Scott, 1985,
1990; Thompson, 1993). This general insight has been further theoretically elaborated since by
many (e.g. Aronowitz, 2002, 2009; Allman, 2007, 2010; Borg et al., 2002; Clayton, 2006; Coben,
2002; Crehan, 2002; Green, 2011; Green and Ives, 2009; Ives, 2004) but especially by Italian
scholars who have focused their theoretical energy on the contradictory potential of common sense
and popular religion for counter-hegemony (e.g. Baratta, 2003, 2007; Burgio, 2003, 2007; Fontana,
2005, 2006; Frosini, 2009, 2010; Liguori, 2006, 2009a, 2009b; and Liguori and Frosini, 2004). Yet,
some positions continue to portray Gramsci as an elitist vanguardist (heretofore understood as
intellectual and political leadership of a revolutionary character) who outright rejects popular
beliefs in their varied forms as playing a role in counter-hegemony or even political resistance
(Hill, 2007; Robinson, 2005, 2008).
This article seeks to provide a corrective to these recent anomalous portrayals. It does so by
accurately exploring Gramscis position on the relationship subaltern beliefs have to counter-
hegemony; by considering his bottom-up stance on the relationship organic intellectuals have to
the subaltern; by focusing on his cutting edge position on ideological articulation; and in light of
his theoretical articulations regarding the role of subaltern passion and subaltern-centered pedagogy
for counter-hegemony. As a way to illustrate the significance of the subaltern for counter-hegemony,
I elucidate on the potential of popular religion as a counter-hegemonic force. The analysis below
is primarily based on an evaluation of his position on the subaltern as found in Prison Notebooks
more specifically, Selections from Prison Notebooks (SPN, 1987). I also rely on Further
Selections from the Prison Notebooks (FSPN, 1995), Selections from Cultural Writings (SCW,
1991), and Selections from Political Writings (SPW, 1990) because they help underscore his
insights on the political potential of the subaltern. I conclude with a two-part conclusion: (1) with
a general appraisal of the significance of Gramsci for Marxism and (2) with a specific appraisal
of the counter-hegemonic potential of the subaltern.

Antonio Gramsci: Counter-Hegemony and the Subaltern

Unlike Georg Lukcs (1968) and Vladimir Lenin (1963), Antonio Gramsci (1987, 1991) saw cul-
ture as expressive and co-determining of the materialist base, as heterogeneous and open to
hegemonic re-direction, and as the very terrain on which men [sic] move, acquire consciousness
of their position, [and] struggle for change (1987: 407, 195, 377). For Gramsci class struggle is
therefore more than economic struggle. It necessarily involves struggling over the hearts and minds
of people, their attitudes, beliefs, and conceptions of the world. That is, class struggle is more
appropriately conceived of as cultural struggle: The proletarian revolution presupposes the forma-
tion of a new set of standards, a new psychology, new ways of feeling, thinking and living Just
as [the proletariat] has thought to organize itself politically and economically, it must also think
about organizing itself culturally (Gramsci, 1991: 41; Gramsci, 1987: 165, 184). In the Gramscian
revolutionary scenario, culture enables both capitalist domination and the class struggle against it
(Aronowitz, 1990, 2002, 2009; Bobbio, 1979, 1989; Fontana, 1993, 2005, 2006). While capitalist
domination is produced and maintained by bourgeois hegemony (intellectual and moral leadership)
in civil society, where a set of ideological practices guarantees the status quo anchored in political
society, ultimately legitimating [correspondent] economic practices; it can also be challenged
(and ultimately replaced) through cultural intervention, also produced in civil society, on the part
of working class / subaltern leadership based on praxis, alliances across subaltern classes, and
Reed 563

humanist aspirations to break free from the social, economic, and political imperatives of capitalism
(Holub, 1992: 103). By working class / subaltern hegemony (or counter-hegemony, see note 1)
Gramsci means the elaboration of intellectual and moral reform linked with a programme of
economic reform and the development of the national-popular collective will towards the
realization of a superior, total form of modern civilization (Gramsci, 1987: 132133). Counter-
hegemony refers to, to be more precise, a process that challenges the normative view that capital-
ism is the only viable politico-economic arrangement available to humanity. It unfolds through
moral and intellectual leadership design to gain the consent of the masses. And it stands as an
alternative to the moral and intellectual leadership that reinforces capitalism. Counter-hegemony
(or working class / subaltern hegemony) is ultimately oriented toward human liberation. As a moral
and intellectual process based on the philosophy of praxis it facilitates an analysis of reality, a way
of conceiving or understanding the structure[s of capitalist domination] that would enable people
to change it (Allman, 2002: 207).
His early writings as a journalist for Avanti!, Il Grido del Popolo, and LOrdine Nuovo, before
his imprisonment in 1926, shed light on the cultural dynamics that reinforce bourgeois hegemony
(Hill, 2007). These pre-prison writings demonstrate how religious and political ideas in their
popular literary and commodity form, and as the products of traditional intellectuals, these being,
respectively, the clergy and politicians function to preserve, justify, and legitimate the social and
institutional practices that perpetuate the capitalistic order.3 Following his incarceration Gramsci
continues to elucidate the complex ways in which bourgeois hegemony is directly and indirectly
reinforced, but his writing at this stage becomes more theoretically focused on formulating a coun-
ter-hegemonic strategy out of capitalist domination.4 This latter strategy is detailed in Prison
Notebooks, and it primarily involves studying various ideological orders of social reality namely
folklore, common sense, religion, and philosophy and the relationship they have to counter-
hegemony. In this theoretical project Gramsci sets out to tackle the problem of consciousness a
counter-hegemonic (or revolutionary) project faces as it attempts to prepare the ground for the
fundamental transformation of society. His purpose in Prison Notebooks is to conceptually and
historically understand the psychology of the masses or their spontaneous philosophy; that is, to
comprehend how people make sense of their world, their daily lives, and, most importantly, poli-
tics from their perspective as subaltern (marginalized) subjects. This focus on coming to terms with
mass psychology is a significant component of his theoretical enterprise in Prison Notebooks
(Gramsci, 1987: 348). It requires him to ascertain the nature and meaning of folklore, common
sense, and religion, as disparate subaltern forms of consciousness, not because he conceives of
these as ideologically unproblematic Gramsci in fact identifies more negative than positive fea-
tures associated with subaltern thought but because he recognizes that the way out of capitalism
is ultimately predicated on the ideological alignment the philosophy of praxis has to these forms of
consciousness (Gramsci, 1987: 323). Transcending capitalism as a social formation, Gramsci
notes, requires a counter-hegemonic effort to take into account the interests and the tendencies of
subaltern groups but these must be made ideologically coherent in order to move society beyond
its present capitalistic state (1987: 161, 421, 323). A key factor to the process of counter-hegemony
or moral and intellectual reform is the role of intellectuals. Intellectuals and the organizational
platforms they lead play a pivotal role in this scenario of societal transformation. Gramscis term
for the type of intellectual at the helm of the political will behind the fundamental transformation
of society is the organic intellectual. He conceives of them as national-popular leaders and orga-
nizers from the ranks of the workers and other subaltern groups (Aronowitz, 2009: 13). They aim,
unlike traditional (status-quo oriented) intellectuals, to replace existent conceptions of the world.
They do this by helping make critical an already existing [cultural] activity (Gramsci, 1987: 330).
564 Critical Sociology 39(4)

In an insight about folklore, but which is also applicable to the two other forms of subaltern thought,
Gramsci notes:

Folklore must not be considered an eccentricity, an oddity or a picturesque element, but as something
which is very serious and is to be taken seriously. Only in this way will the teaching of folklore be more
efficient and really bring about the birth of a new culture among the broad popular masses. (1991: 191)

Counter-hegemony, Gramsci here and elsewhere suggests, unfolds as subaltern ideological orders
are transformed from within, i.e. as these are dialectically overcome by the philosophy of praxis
during the course of counter-hegemony itself.
In Prison Notebooks Gramsci reveals each of the aforementioned ideological orders as standing
for a worldview and unique orientation toward the world, and as respectively representing variant
degrees of intellectual coherence and articulation with folklore being the most fragmentary and
inarticulate one on one end and philosophy (primarily in its bourgeois and socialist variants) the
most coherent and systematic on the other end. Gramsci similarly reveals these ideological orders
as active conceptions of the world i.e. fluid social formations with roots in the lived realities of
its collective (but also individual) possessors. They are by definition socio-historical conceptions
that mutually reinforce each other to varied degrees, in varied configurations, at different times in
history, and operate, more often than not, to give solidity to the dominant practices of society.
Folklore and religion stand for traditional authority, and as such they are the ideological orders of
reality most resistant to change. As implicit and traditional conceptions of how life and the world
operate, they do not stand for intellectual order. Folklore is the opposite of erudition and philosophy
(Gramsci, 1991:140). It is fossilized, anachronistic, and provincial knowledge (Gramsci, 1991: 167;
Gramsci, 1987: 35). It represents the most rigid phase of popular knowledge (Gramsci, 1991: 421).
Like religion (and common sense), it has always been tied to the culture of the dominant class, is
contradictory and fragmentary, and it comes in many forms (Gramsci, 1991:194, 189). Common
sense is also connected to tradition e.g. as in the conventional wisdom of the man-in-the-mass
that is inherited from the past and uncritically absorbed but it also contains a good sense nucleus
(which is driven by practical reason as opposed to traditional authority) that sets it apart from
folklore and religion (Gramsci, 1987: 333). Notwithstanding their contradictory, fragmentary, and
unsystematic features, the differences between them at the level of analytical and logical weak-
nesses, and their often uncritical, backward, and incoherent nature (in form and content), common
sense, folklore, and religion possess cultural properties (e.g. they are fluid, malleable, and elastic)
and social properties (e.g. they stand in opposition to official conceptions of the world) that leave
them open to re-signification and counter-hegemonic direction.5 For Gramsci, subaltern modes of
thought do not stand for false consciousness; rather they provide points of reference for counter-
hegemonic thought and action (Gramsci, 1987: 323343. On this point see also Allman, 2001,
2002; Coben, 2002; Green, 2011; and Green and Ives, 2009).
In contrast to subaltern thought (i.e. common sense, folklore, and religion), philosophy repre-
sents intellectual order (Gramsci, 1987: 325). Philosophy is both theoretical and substantive
rationality, and in the case of the philosophy praxis the most conducive form of thought to move
people beyond a capitalist mode of existence. Philosophy is critical, reflexive, and systematic. It
provides a more coherent, unitary, and conscious direction to thought. Philosophy is disciplined
thought. It represents critical awareness and originality. More to the point, Philosophy is criticism
and the superseding of religion and common sense (Gramsci, 1987: 326). The philosophy of
praxis is, moreover,
Reed 565

sufficient unto itself it contains in itself all the fundamental elements needed to construct a total and
integral conception of the world, a total philosophy and theory of natural science, and not only that but
everything that is needed to give life to an integral practical organization, that is, to become a total integral
civilization. (Gramsci, 1987: 462)

Gramsci privileges philosophy over the other ideological orders i.e. he prioritizes theoretical over
traditional and practical orientations (Nun, 1996)6 but he also theorizes a dialectical and referential
relationship between the philosophy of praxis and subaltern thought (including common sense) as a
necessary and strategic step for the development of counter-hegemony. I now elaborate on this latter
point below with a specific focus, first, on popular beliefs and common sense, their relationship to
(re-)articulation, ideological alignment, passion, and pedagogy. Second, by exploring the counter-
hegemonic potential of popular religion at the conceptual and historical levels.

Counter-Hegemony as Cultural Strategy: On the Ideological

(Re-)Articulation of Subaltern Beliefs
Counter-hegemony, Gramsci theorized, while necessarily guided by working class organic intel-
lectuals, needs to develop from below. This requires the latter social actors to consider existing
subaltern cultural practices as potential political resources. Counter-hegemony cannot be separated
from, nor can it unfold independent of popular beliefs, for these are essential constituents of, a
precondition for, a new type of politics and a future social formation to emerge.

[A] proposition of the philosophy of praxis is [often] forgotten: that popular beliefs and similar ideas are
themselves material forces. It is therefore necessary to combat economism [focusing on immediate
material / objective concerns as the driving force of social change] not only in the theory of historiography,
but also and especially in the theory and practice of politics. by developing the concept of hegemony
[intellectual and moral reform]. (Gramsci, 1987: 165)

Counter-hegemony, moreover, is possible: (1) to the extent that alta cultura (high culture or
traditional philosophy) and cultura populare (popular culture) are understood as dialectically
reinforcing (and by implication rendering as natural) the inequalities, exploitation, and alien-
ation of a capitalist power structure (Gramsci, 1995: 123) and (2) insofar as the aforementioned
modi di pensare (modes of thinking) in a self-conscious attempt to overcome prevailing forms
of bourgeois hegemony are articulated in a socialist direction by the philosophy of praxis,
which operates through a mass-based (as opposed to cadre) revolutionary party and is developed
by working class organic intellectuals, rank and file, and sympathizers struggling to unbind,
cultivate, and politically mobilize from the bottom up the socialist potential embryonically
present in the masses (Gramsci, 1987: 321377).7
For Gramsci, the philosophy of praxis does not substitute for a deficient consciousness in the
masses, instead it expresses a collective will, a historical orientation present in them (Larrain,
1995: 251; Larrain, 1979: 7983). The key to working class counter-hegemony therefore lies in the
socialist articulation of existent conceptions of the world, i.e. in the conversion of their respective
values, beliefs, symbols, and practices from bourgeois to socialist signification. Gramsci explains:

Utopias, or abstract rationalism [ideology], have the same importance as old conceptions of the world
which developed historically by the accumulation of successive experience. What matters is the criticism
to which such an ideological complex is subjected by the [] representatives of [a] new historical phase.
This criticism makes possible a process of differentiation and change in the relative weight that the
566 Critical Sociology 39(4)

elements of the old ideologies used to possess. What was previously secondary and subordinate, or even
incidental, is now taken to be primary becomes the nucleus of a new ideological and theoretical complex.
The old collective will dissolves into its contradictory elements since the subordinate ones develop
socially, etc. (1987: 195, my italics)

Since the philosophy of praxis teaches that reality does not exist on its own, in and for itself, but
only in an historical relationship with the men [sic] who modify it (Gramsci, 1987: 346, 367),
counter-hegemony may be embodied to the extent socially and historically given worldviews
associated with the status quo are critically disarticulated from within an existent ideological
complex, during the course of politically struggling to modify cultural and material conditions
(p. 195). What matters is the criticism leveled against the existent; the degree to which such
criticism is used to transform the content or change the relative weight of contemporary
ideological forms; the relationship that an effort at transformation has to dislocating historically
marginalized concerns/outlooks from their peripheral status; and the extent to which what has been
historically marginalized assumes center stage in political action designed to sustain an alternative
cultural direction (counter-hegemony) (Gramsci, 1987: 195).
The key to unbinding latent socialist aspirations and as such winning consent from subaltern
classes - is to fram[e] problems and offer[] solutions to existing conditions in a way that is suf-
ficiently in touch with popular sentiments (McGuigan, 1999: 205). This is to say that counter-
hegemony cannot be cultivated in a social and cultural vacuum, ex-nihilo, because (1) it arises out
of historically situated cultural and social relations contexts (What exists at any given time is a
variable combination of old and new, a momentary equilibrium of cultural relations corresponding
to the equilibrium of social relations) and (2) it is itself shaped in a process of collective collabora-
tion, one based on a dialectic between the intellectuals and the masses (Gramsci, 1987: 398, 334).
To illustrate the significance of ideological articulation for transformative politics, let us consider
Michael Omi and Howard Winants position on it. Inspired by a Gramscian analytical framework,
their definition and application of ideological re-articulation to US racial politics underscores the
position I am attempting to articulate here. Rearticulation, they note

is a practice of discursive reorganization or interpretation of ideological themes and interests already

present in the subjects consciousness, such that these elements obtain new meanings or coherence. This
practice is ordinarily the work of intellectuals [It is] a process of recombination of familiar ideas and
values in hitherto unrecognized ways. [During the civil-rights movement preachers rearticulated]
familiar [Christian] vocabulary and textual reference-point[s] for freedom struggle [making] the
movements political agenda possible, especially its challenge to the existing racial state. (Omi and Winant,
1994: 195n.11, 168n.8, 99101)

To date the racial order has yet to be overcome in the US, but the referenced historical example
demonstrates the power of re-articulation as a political tool in the dynamics of social change, a
counter-hegemonic moment in the long and difficult historical process of ideological persuasion
Gramscis war of position in the cultural and material transformation of the racial order.

Counter-Hegemony as Ideological Alignment and Grounded

Social-Psychology
The unfolding of a counter-hegemonic challenge cannot supersed[e] the existing mode of thinking
and existing concrete thought (the existing cultural world), lest people are alienated in the process
Reed 567

(Gramsci, 1987: 330). Gramsci is very clear on this relational point between the subaltern masses
and its organic intellectuals. [T]he starting point, he notes, must always be that common sense
which is the spontaneous philosophy of the multitude (Gramsci, 1987: 421). Common sense (or
popular beliefs) is itself a material force through which counter-hegemonic activism may be
embodied. The extent to which it is historically necessary makes it psychologically valid, and as
such viable to organise human masses (Gramsci, 1987: 377). It constitutes the very terrain on
which men [sic] move, acquire consciousness of their position, [and] struggle for change (Gramsci,
1987: 377). A counter-hegemonic challenge, as such, cannot develop in opposition to the sponta-
neous feelings of the masses (Gramsci, 1987: 198). Instead it must remain in contact with and
find in the simple the source of the problems it sets out to study and to resolve (Gramsci, 1987:
330). This requires the philosophy of praxis to initially base itself on common sense in order to
renovate and make critical an already existing activity and in order to demonstrate that every-
one is a philosopher and that it is not a question of introducing from scratch a scientific form of
thought into everyones individual life (Gramsci, 1987: 330331). It is a matter, Gramsci notes,
of starting with a philosophy which already enjoys, or could enjoy, a certain diffusion, because it
is connected to and implicit in practical life, and elaborating it so that it becomes a renewed
common sense possessing the coherence and the sinew of individual philosophies (1987: 330).
The synthesis between the simple and intellectual, between common sense (traditional) and the
philosophy of praxis (theoretical-modern) is a necessary component for counter-hegemony to
emerge as an authentic political force. A process of reciprocal accommodation rather than impo-
sition on the side of theory and passive absorption on the side of common sense takes place
between them as these two modes of perceiving reality come together and unfold in the politics of
counter-hegemony (Urbinati, 1998: 388). To be sure A philosophy of praxis cannot but present
itself at the outset in a polemical and critical guise, as superseding the existing mode of thinking
and existing concrete thought, as a criticism of common sense, and ultimately a form of
thought superior to it (Gramsci, 1987: 330). As the traditional conception of the world, primitive
philosophy, a neophob[ic] and conservative force, a primitive historical acquisition, and the
opposite of intellectual order, common sense although it contains a certain truth which mirrors
the rationality of history more often than not stands as dogmatic or arbitrary thought,
embodies an incoherent consciousness, and reinforces acritical and reactionary postures that
delimit and stifle the political potential of the subaltern (Gramsci, 1987: 197, 332, 423, 199, 366,
423, 435, 345, 324, 420, 442). Common sense, Gramsci affirms, is a chaotic aggregate of
disparate conceptions, and one can find there anything that one likes (1987: 422).
Yet, counter-hegemony clearly calls for the philosophy of praxis to educate the popular masses,
whose culture [i]s outdated (Gramsci, 1987: 392). Such education while brought about via par-
ticipation in working class institutions such as their unions and parties, and factory councils
(Gramsci, 1987: 15, 133, 147154); in critical dialogue with organic intellectuals (Gramsci, 1987:
10, 340, 349351); through actions and reactions (Gramsci, 1987: 391); by criticizing, suggesting,
mocking, correcting, modernizing (Gramsci, 1991: 420); and through a process of democratic
centralism (Gramsci, 1987: 186190) is not to be achieved against their spontaneous philosophy
or common sense (Gramsci, 1987: 199). Rather, The traditional popular conception of the world
and the coherent and systematic order of modern theory must dialectically come together to
guide the very unfolding of subaltern political action (Gramsci, 1987: 199, 198).
Gramsci does emphasize the need to critically engage common sense in his work out of concern
for romantic, uncritical, and nave tendencies that blindly embrace it. This is most apparent in his
critical, if at times harsh, treatment of popular psychology found in Henri De Mans Au-del du
Marxisme (Beyond Marxism, 1929; see Gramsci, 1987: 197198, 287, 376, 418419, and
568 Critical Sociology 39(4)

430431) and Nikolai Bukharins The Theory of Historical Materialism: A Popular Manual of
Marxist Sociology (1922) (see Gramsci, 1987: 419472). But this cannot be taken to mean that
common sense (or popular psychology) ought to be excluded outright from playing a role in counter-
hegemony; a position most recently adopted by Hill (2007) and Robinson (2005, 2008), who
respectively draw on Gramscis criticism of Bukharins Popular Manual to advance the stance that
subaltern (or common sense) alignment undermines the potential of counter-hegemony its intel-
lectual and moral reform mission and in effect is tantamount to the pande[ring of] existing
beliefs with the inevitable result of reinforcing the very status quo counter-hegemony seeks to
overcome (Robinson, 2008: 470). Such a misguided theoretical position blatantly (and conveniently)
disregards Gramscis position on ideological articulation and some significant caveats he makes
about the dialectical relationship common sense has to the philosophy of praxis, and the bottom-up,
emotional, and pedagogical relationship the subaltern has to organic intellectuals (who presum-
ably, according to this misguided interpretation, would have a monopoly on the truth that is to be
imposed on the ignorant). Gramsci is a voluntarist and vanguardist, but his emphasis on the need
for synthesis, education, and dialectical contact between the simple and intellectual clearly does
not mean rejection of subaltern thought or common sense. Instead it refers to renovation, interior
transformation, and making critical the subaltern as part of a process of reconstituting it and
generating a revolutionary (counter-hegemonic) politics that is truly representational of a national-
popular collective will (Gramsci, 1987: 420). Gramsci ultimately reveals himself an open van-
guardist with progressive populist sympathies, and as such, a proponent of the potential of subaltern
subjectivity (their common sense and cultural beliefs) in counter-hegemony.
Implicit in his criticism of common sense as acritical and reactionary is the assertion of the
necessity for new popular beliefs, that is to say a new common sense and with it a new culture and
a new philosophy which will be rooted in the popular consciousness with the same solidity and
imperative quality as traditional beliefs (Gramsci, 1987: 422, 425). Noted Gramsci scholar Andr
Tosel notes that The function of the philosophy of praxis is not to liquidate common sense as
deteriorated ideology, but to transform and amend it by politically redirecting its content (quoted
in Ives 2004: 130), a position most recently confirmed by Allman (2010), Aronowitz (2009),
Crehan (2011), Fontana (2011), and Liguori (2006, 2009a, 2009b).
Gramsci himself notes that A reciprocal reduction so to speak, a passage from common
sense to theory and vice versa, must be assured lest the potential of subaltern subjectivity be
co-opted by regressive political forces, is hijacked by ill-founded academic historico-political
outlook[s], or falls prey to Cardonism (1987: 199200).8 The philosophy of praxis presupposes
a cultural past, and, above all, is made dialectical in the contrast between popular culture and
high culture. It corresponds to the nexus Protestant Reformation [intellectual moral reform] plus
French Revolution [politics from below]: it is a philosophy which is also politics, and a politics
which is also philosophy (Gramsci, 1987: 395). The difference between the intellectual and the
subaltern, between common sense and the philosophy of praxis (theory), as such, is based on
quantity not quality, where quantity refers to greater or lesser degrees of homogeneity,
coherence, logicality, i.e. quantity of qualitative elements (Gramsci, 1987: 347).

Counter-Hegemony as the Unity of Theory and Practice, and

the Unity of Reason and Emotion
But why is the ideological unity between the bottom and the top, between the simple and the
intellectuals necessary? (Gramsci, 1987: 329). Such unity, for one, makes possible the philosophy
of praxis (Gramsci, 1987: 395). It similarly corresponds to the unity between theory and practice,
Reed 569

and it is an indispensable component to establishing a progressive class alliance, an intellectual-moral

bloc which can make politically possible the intellectual progress of the mass and not only of small
intellectual groups (Gramsci, 1987: 330, 332333). The dynamic contact between theory and
popular common sense two seemingly antagonistic modes of conceiving reality is necessary to
modify, develop, and transform the socialist potential that is embryonically present in peoples
conceptions of the world (Gramsci, 1987: 397, 391, 327). Common sense makes counter-hegemonic
leadership concrete and historical, and modern theory provides discipline of thought and cultural
direction to the simple (Gramsci, 1987: 198, 330): It gives the masses a theoretical consciousness
of being creators of historical and institutional values (Gramsci, 1987: 198, italics in original).
Counter-hegemonic leadership (and by implication the process of revolution) needs to be rooted in
the life circumstances and subjective reality of the masses. Gramsci explains:

[L]eadership cannot [be] abstract; it [cannot]consist[of] mechanically repeating scientific or theoretical

formulae, nor can it confuse politics, real action, with theoretical disquisition. It must apply itself to real
men, formed in specific historical relations, with specific feelings, outlooks, fragmentary conceptions of
the world Th[e] element of spontaneity cannot be neglected and even less despised. It [can be]
educated, directed brought into line with modern theory but in a living and historically effective
manner. (1987: 198, original in past tense)

The union between counter-hegemonic intellectuals and subalterns, Gramsci similarly notes, is
necessary because [t]he popular element feels but does not always know or understand; [while]
the intellectual element knows but does not always understand and in particular does not always
feel (1987: 418). Leaders of counter-hegemony must be able to feel, understand, and appreciate
the popular mindset as an authentic source for revolution:

Without feeling the elementary passions of the people, understanding them and therefore explaining and
justifying them in the particular historical situation and connecting them dialectically to the laws of history
and to a superior conception of the world, scientifically and coherently elaborated knowledge
[philosophy of praxis] [o]ne cannot make politics-history If the relationship between intellectuals
and people-nation is provided by an organic cohesion in which feeling-passion becomes understanding
and thence knowledge (not mechanical but in a way that is alive), then and only then is the relationship one
of representation [and an active one] within the movement of history. (Gramsci, 1987: 418419, italics
added)

Anticipating developments in social movement theorizing on the emotionality of politics, Gramsci

reveals in the preceding two quotes effective counter-hegemony as necessarily containing feeling
rules (Hochschild, 1979) emotional guidelines for appropriate and effective social interaction
between the movement leadership and membership as a precondition for framing rules
(Hochschild, 1989, 1990), emotional guidelines for appropriate and effective interpretation of
ideological conditions. Popular passion is a necessary component of counter-hegemony; without
it counter-hegemony fails to gain a hold in the masses. Theory, as the cultural domain of organic
intellectuals, does provide clarity to a counter-hegemonic struggle, but theoretical clarity in and
of itself does not guarantee a favorable outcome for counter-hegemony. A theory employed in the
service of changing the world requires feeling the elementary passions of the people. Noted
Gramscian scholar Benedetto Fontana explains it as follows: The abstract knowledge of the
intellectual may be turned into life and politics as it becomes linked to the experience and passion
felt by the people. At the same time, the feelings and passion of the people by means of the
intellectuals acting as filters or mediators are infused with conscious direction and coherence
570 Critical Sociology 39(4)

(2002: 2627). Adding: To know something politically and socially, as opposed to abstractly or
purely intellectually, is to understand it with feeling and with passion The knowledge of
the intellectual, in short, becomes life and politics only when linked to the feeling/passion of the
people. The synthesis intellectual/people and knowledge/passion is what provides the motive
force for political and historical activity (Fontana, 2005: 101).
Theoretical clarity, Gramsci notes elsewhere, must become disseminated passion, a passion
that is collectively shared (Gramsci, 1987: 113). Without disseminated passion theoretical clar-
ity is nothing more than an anomalous reflection from which a counter-hegemonic collective
will (a general and operative national-popular consciousness geared toward intellectual and
moral reform) inevitably fails to emerge (Gramsci, 1987: 113). More to the point, strong pas-
sion, as the active centre of human life, is necessary to sharpen the intellect, help make
intuition more penetrating, and inform deliberate reflection itself (Gramsci, 1987: 349, 171,
139). Counter-hegemony, as such, is reflexively embodied political passion (Gramsci, 1987:
140). The understanding of subaltern feelings, passions, and ways of perceiving reality is central
to the very unfolding of counter-hegemony.
Implicit in the original quotes above is also an acknowledgement that passion sustains counter-
hegemony over time. This position is in fact corroborated in Gramscis historical observations on
the Risorgimento in Italy where he notes that any political actor, including the active politician
(and by extension the counter-hegemonic organic intellectual) seeking to transform society is by
definition consumed by the what ought to be imperative (Gramsci, 1987: 172). And as such, she
is a person driven by passion, that is, emotion, fever, [the] fanatical desire for action (Gramsci,
1987: 127). Counter-hegemony as passion, therefore, gets at the reality that emotions are the
link between personal problems and broader public issues (Williams and Bendelow, 1998: 13)
and, correlatively, that they operate as a source of energy through which counter-hegemony itself
is embodied.
In the aforementioned quotes Gramsci may also be understood as making the point that the
emotional link between the simple and the intellectual is a necessary one for strengthening the
collective identity and commitment that comes with a counter-hegemonic project. Without such
emotional unity, or affective connection, counter-hegemony, he notes, would come to naught as a
politically transcendent historical project.
Gramsci recognizes that passion can potentially annihilate[] the critical sense and the corro-
sive irony needed to undermine the taken-for-granted and subjective appeal of bourgeois hege-
mony (cultural domination) (Gramsci, 1987: 129). The hope of making it harbored by the urban
and rural petit bourgeois, more often than not, reinforces capitalist hegemony. Passion can lent
itself to operational incapacity when it functions as a condition of orgasm and of spasm
(Gramsci, 1987: 138). Strategies of action, political courses of action, and the very functions of
political agencies, whatever their political bent, he notes, can be overwhelmed by the power of
subjective forces. The impassioned crowd acts precipitously (Gramsci, 1995: 275). Misguided
leaders inflame the passion of the masses (Gramsci, 1995: 391). Torrents of passionate feelings,
scorn, hatred, anger, and envy stemming from cultural marginality or social differences, while
necessary because they provide and affix blame on social targets (e.g. company bosses, tradi-
tional intellectuals, civil servants, landlords, and small and medium entrepreneurs) and often
work as a driving force of subversiveness, are not by themselves sufficient for sustained struggle,
can cause disunity and, as such, ultimately undermine counter-hegemonic efforts (Gramsci, 1987:
99, 14, 91, 272). For passion to play an effective role in a national popular struggle, it requires
ideological and political preparation and it must emerge organically, free from demagogical
manipulation (Gramsci, 1987: 110). But just as theory (the philosophy of praxis) must temper and
Reed 571

give direction to passion; passion (in its popular form) must temper theory to make it historically
compelling, relevant, and effective. Between reason (theory) and emotion (popular consciousness)
there exists a dialectical relationship, which can ultimately produce effective counter-hegemony.
Counter-hegemonic leaders, therefore, must be mindful to align themselves with the subaltern in
a way that resonates with their passions (emotional lives and understanding) as well as with their
lived experiences. This unity between theory and passion creates the hope for the hegemony of
tomorrow the counter-hegemonic politics of the present seek to establish.
With these analytical caveats Gramsci moves beyond the emotion-reason dichotomy to reveal
these human components of knowing and understanding as mutually compatible and constitu-
tive of each other as opposed to being mutually exclusionary of each other as it was assumed in
the political theorizing of the time. Passion, like reason, is here acknowledged as a purposeful
and meaningful component of being-in-the world, and as a significant constituent of counter-
hegemonic politics. Or, the politics of counter-hegemony, to be more precise, is recognized as a
self-reflexive moment rooted in and necessarily defined by passion, the emotionally lived reali-
ties of the subaltern. Counter-hegemony, as such, contains an emotional logic that fuels its
efficacy to challenge the order of things. Leaders of counter-hegemony must incorporate lived
historicity i.e. contemporaneous feelings, outlooks, and worldviews in their understanding
of social reality as a precondition for aligning their abstract attributional orientations to historico-
popular ones. Such an alignment with lived subjectivity not only makes for active and concrete
knowledge, but it similarly ensures the emergence and channeling of socio-affective ties within
a counter-hegemonic movement, both necessary components for its stability, as well as its genu-
ine, forward, and progressive trajectory. Gramscis position on the relationship between passion
and theory (or the philosophy of praxis) as an essential component for the development of
counter-hegemony, is lucidly summarized by Anne Showstack Sassoon:

Intellectuals and forms of intellectualism that are practical and go beyond the abstract, rationalistic
schemes which Gramsci so often attacked as cut off from real life could only be developed through a new
organisation of knowledge rooted in the practical activities of the people. The aim was a new balance
between intellectual and manual work in which the intellectual capacities of the population are developed
and practical activity becomes the basis of the new conceptions of the world The only way to know
reality involves understanding popular feelings. The educators [those who possess the knowledge of the
philosophy of praxis, i.e. theory] need to be educated. (2000: 40, italics in original)

Counter-Hegemony as Learning and the Disciplining of

Intellectuals9
Gramscis position on education, to start with, requires one to recognize that he does not see the
relationship between education and knowledge as politically neutral. Schools for him are sites of
ideological struggle. Much of his writing on education focuses on the critical evaluation of
school systems in Italian society, specifically focusing on the role of varied forms of schooling
for the working masses, the degree to which their schooling (and the type of knowledge learned)
reinforced their subordinate social position in society and in a division of labor that is increas-
ingly specialized. Their technical and vocational training, Gramsci argued, denied their full
development as critical thinkers and as such compromised their formation into active political
subjects capable of leading society into a new moral and political direction (1987: 10). To coun-
ter the hegemonic effect of schooling among the subaltern Gramsci calls for the reform of school
systems, insisting that genuine reform can only be measured to the extent that society sets out to
572 Critical Sociology 39(4)

create a single type of formative school (primary-secondary) which would take the child up to
the threshold of his choice of job, forming him during this time as a person capable of thinking,
studying, and ruling or controlling those who rule (1987: 40). Gramsci also proposes for the
working class party and other subaltern political organizations to operate as alternative sites for
the critical education of adults in society. While he draws attention to the problem of conscious-
ness at the level of educational reform, Gramsci also evaluates this problem in terms of the type
of pedagogical relationship the subaltern shares with counter-hegemonic leaders. Successful
counter-hegemony, he clearly demonstrates, is dependent on subaltern-centered pedagogy.
Counter-hegemony, as a political and cultural act with transformative ramifications, presup-
poses for Gramsci an educational relationship between the simple and the intellectual; an active
and reciprocal relationship between them whereby every teacher [the organic intellectual] is
always a pupil and every pupil [the simple] a teacher (Gramsci, 1995: 157, 156). Let us situate
these latter insights in their larger context:

Every historical act cannot but be performed by the collective man. In other words this presupposes the
attainment of a socio-cultural unity through which a multiplicity of dispersed individual wills,
heterogeneous in their aims, are welded together for the same goal on the basis of an (equal) and common
conception of the world This problem can and must be seen alongside the modern way of considering
educational doctrine and practice, according to which the relationship between teacher and pupil is active
and reciprocal, so every teacher is always a pupil and every pupil a teacher. But the educational relationship
cannot be limited to strictly scholastic relationships, by means of which the younger generations come
into contact with the older ones, absorbing the historically necessary values and experiences of the latter
in the process of maturing and developing their own historically and culturally superior personality. This
relationship exists throughout all society considered as a whole as well as for each individual relative to
other individuals, between intellectual and nonintellectual sections of the population, between governors
and the governed, between elites and their followers, between leaders and led, between vanguards and the
body of the army. Every relationship of hegemony is necessarily an educational relationship. (Gramsci,
1995: 156157)

Gramsci also notes that

The intellectuals error consists in believing that one can know without understanding and even more
without feeling and being impassioned (not only for knowledge in itself but also for the object of
knowledge): in other words that the intellectual can be an intellectual (and not a pure pedant) if distinct and
separate from the people-nation. (1987: 418)

Counter-hegemony, these basic propositions suggest, is to exercise moral and intellectual leader-
ship and in doing so persuading and educating the simple (or nonintellectual) in the process. But
counter-hegemony, Gramsci here similarly suggests, is also predicated on the learning dynamic
that exists between the student (who is both student and teacher) and her teacher (who is both
teacher and student). Moral and intellectual leadership, counter-hegemony, is also a process that
requires educating the intellectual (or teacher), moving the educational process itself beyond the
abstract realm of the intellectual, i.e. beyond a strictly scholastic relationship. Knowledge must be
made historically meaningful by incorporating the raw experience of lived capitalist historicity.
Intellectuals are, therefore, educated by interacting with the subaltern, whose feeling-passion
informs their abstract understanding of reality. Gramsci, of course, is not suggesting that the
teacher-student and student-teacher are on equal footing, nor does he discount the reality that
popular consciousness may be ideologically compromised. But he does call for, anticipating Freire
Reed 573

(1970, 1972, 1973), reciprocal learning rooted in the students life experiences, including her
cultural life, as a precondition for the development of a critical orientation towards her own
cultural and social reality.10 Such critical orientation is effectively accomplished, first, by over-
coming the dialectical contradiction between epistemological opposites, between theory (teacher)
and practice (student). Theory and practice to begin with must be recognized as dialectically
constitutive of transformative knowledge. Second, by accommodating the cultural perspective of
the student as a necessary step in the transformation of her knowledge of social reality. These latter
two points are pedagogical insights that Gramsci urges the counter-hegemonic leader to adopt,
respectively, in his notes on the Problems of Marxism and the Study of Philosophy:

In the teaching of philosophy which is aimed not at giving the student historical information about the
development of past philosophy, but at giving him a cultural formation and helping him to elaborate his
own thought critically so as to be able to participate in an ideological and cultural community, it is
necessary to take as ones starting point what the student already knows and his philosophical experience
(having first demonstrated to him precisely that he has such an experience, that he is a philosopher
without knowing it). And since one presupposes a certain average cultural and intellectual level among the
students, who in all probability have hitherto only acquired scattered and fragmentary bits of information
and have no methodological and critical preparation, one cannot but start in the first place from common
sense, then secondly from religion, and only at a third stage move on to the philosophical systems
elaborated by traditional intellectual groups. (1987: 424425)

Elsewhere stating:

The starting-point of critical elaboration is the consciousness of what one really is, and is knowing thyself
as a product of the historical process to date When an individual from the masses succeeds in criticising
and going beyond common sense, he by this very fact accepts a new philosophy. Hence the necessity, in
an exposition of the philosophy of praxis, of a polemic with traditional philosophies. Indeed, because by
its nature it tends towards being a mass philosophy, the philosophy of praxis can only be conceived in a
polemical form and in the form of a perpetual struggle. None the less the starting point must always be that
common sense which is the spontaneous philosophy of the multitude and which has to be made ideologically
coherent. (Gramsci, 1987: 324, 421)

Counter-hegemony as reciprocal learning, it follows, presupposes orienting the lesson towards the
culture of the student i.e. her common sense, religion, or traditional philosophy as starting point
from which to cultivate a critical awareness of social reality, and, ultimately, develop a new type of
knowledge, one informed by the philosophy of praxis (see also Gramsci, 1987: 330331, 377).
Counter-hegemony as reciprocal learning aims to prepare people for the total transformation of
society. It does this in the first place by pedagogically persuading them in their own cultural terms,
and, secondly, by politicizing their culture in dialectical terms (Allman, 2002, 2007, 2010).
Teaching for Gramsci is not about imposing a predetermined programme or deposit-
ing knowledge but engaging the students living creativity, guiding the students critical
predispositions, helping the student cultivate the art of questioning, and allowing the student to
find her own place in the world, i.e. facilitating a process of student self-discovery and critical
understanding about her social locations and how these condition her life-chances in variant
ways (Gramsci, 1987: 33, 42, 40, 324325). This dynamic contact between the teacher-student
and student-teacher ultimately facilitates, to use Freirean terminology, the emergence of a ped-
agogy of resistance,11 whose ultimate goals are to persuade the subaltern, constitute collective
self-understandings that challenge and transform conventional understandings of culture,
574 Critical Sociology 39(4)

power, and politics; and to operate as a basis for political organization and the transformation
of society (Giroux, 2002: 54). This is in part possible because the subaltern subject as student is
not a mechanical receiver of knowledge, Gramsci reminds us, but most significantly because
her critical predispositions can be transform in a pedagogical relation that engages her at the
level of her living experience (Gramsci, 1987: 35). This type of pedagogical relation ensures the
making of counter-hegemony out of inner conviction and rational spontaneity rather than idolatry
(Gramsci in Morrow and Torres, 2002: 184). Counter-hegemony as educational relationship
between the simple (subaltern) and the intellectual (philosophy of praxis), provided it is based
on the principle of reciprocal learning and critical pedagogy (i.e. a pedagogy of resistance), is a
source of agency and possibility within the context of capitalist domination; a collective means
by which to critically reflect and move beyond the cultural and social relations that marginalize
the subaltern.
The importance of the subaltern for counter-hegemony is similarly found in Gramscis admoni-
tion against the potential arrogance of organic intellectuals and in his recognition of the importance
for the relatively autonomous self-conscious intellectual development of the subaltern masses.
Drawing a significant lesson from the hegemonic history of the Catholic Church, Gramsci notes
that the gulf between the simple and intellectual cannot be healed by raising the simple to the level
of the intellectuals but only by imposing an iron discipline on the intellectuals so that they do not
exceed certain limits of differentiation and so render [the difference] catastrophic and irreparable
(Gramsci, 1987: 331). The philosophy of praxis, he notes,

does not tend to leave the simple in their primitive philosophy of common sense, but rather to lead them
to a higher conception of life. If it affirms the need for contact between intellectuals and simple it is not in
order to restrict scientific activity and preserve unity at the low level of the masses, but precisely in order
to construct an intellectual-moral bloc [an alliance made of multiple social forces, rooted in popular-
cultural and theoretical understanding] which can make politically possible the intellectual progress of the
mass and not only of small intellectual groups. (Gramsci, 1987: 332333)

Further noting that every leap forward towards a new breath and complexity of the intellectual
stratum is tied to an analogous movement on the part of the mass of the simple, who raise
themselves to higher levels of culture and at the same time extend their circle of influence towards
the stratum of specialized intellectuals, producing outstanding individuals and groups of greater or
less importance (Gramsci, 1987: 333334, italics added). The counter-hegemonic instruction is
clear: New ways of conceiving / perceiving reality are not imposed on the subaltern; these develop
organically from within their ranks during the course of acquiring the capacity to think for
themselves. The task of the teacher-student is to encourage, not to mold, human agency.
These points are instructive insofar as they set Gramsci apart from Lenin when it comes to the
role a revolutionary vanguard plays in the unfolding of counter-hegemony. Whereas Gramscis
position is more open in that he trusts in the relative sense the independent self-conscious
development of subaltern consciousness into critical consciousness, a Leninist position outright
rejects the spontaneous consciousness of the subaltern as inherently problematic and as bound to
automatically assume a reformist character (Lenin, 1963: 5981).12 The progress of counter-
hegemony is similarly contingent on alliances between heterogeneous groups, with multiple
aims, but who are welded together on the basis of an equal and common conception of the
world, both general and particular, operating in transitory bursts (in emotional ways) or perma-
nently (where the intellectual base is so rooted, assimilated, and experienced that it becomes
passion ) (Gramsci, 1987: 349).
Reed 575

It follows that a counter-hegemonic unfolding, if it is to achieve political legitimation in the

minds of would-be history-making agents, necessarily requires the incorporation (not denial) of
subaltern subjectivity. The process of counter-hegemony requires dialectically integrating common
sense feelings and understandings with the coherent (theoretical) substantive knowledge of a
philosophy of praxis. Counter-hegemony cannot be accomplished in opposition to the feelings and
understandings inherent in common sense but instead through these and in conjunction with a
philosophy of praxis. A philosophy of praxis requires common sense feelings and understandings
for it to be an authentic popular force. Common sense feelings and understandings require a
philosophy of praxis for their transfiguration into counter-hegemony. Counter-hegemonic leaders
must be able to base their critique of society on subaltern lived experience, what is practical, plain,
and universally common to people. Common sense, in particular its fragmentary character, is
ultimately dialectically transformed as counter-hegemonic processes unfold. Another key way
counter-hegemony gains traction is through subaltern-centered pedagogy, a process of education
whereby the student-teacher learns about her history-making capacities in light of a critical under-
standing of her lived experience. Ultimately, for a counter-hegemonic conception of the world to
take root it is necessary, in dialectical fashion, to take into account common sense (the needs it
expresses, the level of consciousness of the masses that it reflects, etc.) while at the same time
enabling the subaltern classes to acquire a new awareness and, thus, a new critical orientation to
their social conditions (Liguori, 2009a: 133).
Counter-hegemonic leaders, as such, need to become constructors, organizers, and permanent
persuaders of alternative cultural practices / worldviews i.e. a new hegemony out of existent
and emergent cultural practices in contemporaneous practical life (Gramsci, 1987: 10). In the
absence of an active learning and passion nexus seeking to transform the existent from within, the
relations between the intellectual and people-nation are, or are reduced to, relationships of a purely
bureaucratic and formal order, they become empty and unreal connections beset by collaborative
adynamia, inevitably undermining attempts at counter-hegemony (Gramsci, 1987: 418).
As a way to illustrate the potential of the subaltern I now turn to analyzing the significance of
popular religion for revolution / counter-hegemony. First, I evaluate this relationship conceptually.
I then briefly consider the role of popular religion in the Nicaraguan revolution as an empirical and
historical example.

Popular Religion and Counter-Hegemony: A Conceptual

Exploration13
Gramsci is mindful of the heterogeneous nature of religion and its oppositional features in his
work (1987: 420421). Every religion, he notes is in reality a multiplicity of distinct and often
contradictory religions driven and defined by the interests of social location, e.g. class, gender,
and intellectual status (Gramsci, 1987: 420). Religion by definition can function as a political
culture. The history of the Church, in fact provided Gramsci with examples of both traditional
and organic intellectuals, the exercise of hegemony, as well as an archetype for the intellec-
tual and moral reform that he himself strived for in his political activism (McLellan, 1987: 114).
Gramsci found in the Protestant Reformation, German Protestantism, 18th-century French
Catholicism, and Anglo-Saxon Christianities as opposed to the Italian, Iberian, and Latin
American Catholicisms of his time historical examples of the perfect suture between intel-
lectuals and the people and necessary dynamic contact between these social agents in the cre-
ation of new cultural outlooks i.e. hegemony and social structures (Gramsci, 1987: 23, 397).
576 Critical Sociology 39(4)

Although Gramsci recognizes popular religion as a principal element of common sense, and
as such considers it fragmentary, incoherent, and inconsequential, in conformity with conven-
tional ideas and the status quo (1987: 420, 419), and therefore an obstacle to progressive change,
he is also keenly aware of its affective power and its function as a source of emotional energy (pp.
337338), as well as its cognitive role as a worldview and life orientation (p. 420). In the masses
as such, he notes, philosophy can only be experienced as faith (Gramsci, 1987: 339). The religion-
of-the-people necessarily functions as a bridge between itself and philosophy (Gramsci, 1987:
420). As a cultural scheme through which people interpret their reality a way[] of seeing things
and of acting it can potentially sensitize the exploited and oppressed of their moral and political
plight (Gramsci, 1987: 321). This is to say that it may work as an oppositional force in political
mobilization. Other than through the use of historical examples, Gramsci himself does not make
this point on religion directly. In fact, much of his theoretical energy is directed at determining its
hegemonic role for capitalist society (Gramsci, 1995: 1137). One may arrive at a more nuanced
understanding of his religion-as-counter-hegemonic position, however, by considering his theoreti-
cal insights on common sense, ideological (re-)articulation and culture.
In a Gramscian sense the oppositional potential of popular religion for counter-hegemonic
mobilization is possible for several reasons. For one, as common sense, popular religion is not a
static or unchangeable thing. Instead it is open to re-redirection. Common sense, Gramsci notes,
is not a unique conception, identical in time and space, nor is it something rigid and immobile
(1987: 419, 326). Common sense is continually transforming itself, enriching itself with scientific
ideas and with philosophical opinions which have entered ordinary life (Gramsci, 1987: 326).
Elsewhere Gramsci states

Common sense has been treated in various ways. Sometimes it has even been taken as the base of
philosophy itself. Alternatively it has been criticised from the point of view of another philosophy. In
reality, in either case, the result was to transcend a particular form of common sense and to create another
which was closer to the conception of the world of the leading group. (1987: 421)

Common sense is, thus, malleable and subject to modification depending on the historically situ-
ated discursive contexts in which it is located and appropriated. This adaptive quality leaves it
open to incorporating coherent thought e.g. scientific ideas and philosophical thoughts and
to potentially developing as critical disposition. Common sense as good sense (as practical
reason as opposed to incoherent or fragmentary assumption), in fact, potentially identifies the
exact cause, simple and to hand, and does not let itself be distracted by fancy quibbles and
pseudo-profound, pseudo-scientific metaphysical mumbo-jumbo (Gramsci, 1987: 323, 348). It
contains a certain measure of experimentalism and observation that makes it realistic and
tangible, and, as such, the practical ground upon which a cultural battle to transform the popular
mentality may be waged and from which the critical assessment of variant social conditions
may emerge with far-reaching political consequences (Gramsci, 1987: 348). Common sense can
similarly be subject to interior transformation so it may be consistent with counter-hegemonic
orientation the conception of the world of the leading [counter-hegemonic] group (Gramsci,
1987: 420, 421).
Two, popular religion contains an oppositional potential because as a practical dimension (or
in some cases the principal constituent) of common sense it already exists in opposition to both
officially sanctioned religious doctrine and to given conceptions of the world from the strata of
traditional intellectuals (Gramsci, 1987: 420422).14 Gramsci specifically notes the following on
this point on its potential as opposition:
Reed 577

Certainly, there is a religion of the people which is very different from that of the intellectuals (the
religious ones) and particularly from that organically set up by the ecclesiastical hierarchy. [which]
present special problems [to the] morality of the people, understood as a determinate (in space and
time) set of principles for practical conduct and of customs that derive from them or have produced
them. Imperatives exist that are much stronger, more tenacious and more effective than those of official
morality. In this sphere, too, one must distinguish various strata: the fossilized ones which reflect
conditions of past life and are therefore conservative and reactionary, and those which consist of a series
of innovations, often creative and progressive, determined spontaneously by forms and conditions of life
which are in the process of developing and which are in contradiction to or simply different from the
morality of the governing strata. (1991: 190)

In a most basic sense the relationship between religious innovation and the conditions of existence
is possible because of a structured class antagonism. This means that when masses appropriate, as
they often, if not invariably do, the religion of intellectuals, they do so in light of their lived experi-
ence, their emotional and material realities. And while this appropriation may take a reactionary or
conservative route, it may also take a creative and progressive direction. Religious innovation, in
the end, takes place because of the thinking individual, i.e. the individual philosopher who is a
product of the active relationship which exists between him and the cultural environment which
conditions and imposes on him a continual process of self-criticism by which he can draw the
necessary problems for formulation and resolution to the developing and contradictory situations
he encounters in his practical life or as social imperatives (Gramsci, 1987: 350).
Three, popular religion as organized culture can function as a heuristic mechanism for the
exercise of thought, acquisition of general ideas, [and the] habit of connecting causes and effects
(Gramsci, 1991: 25). To Gramsci people are inherently capable of critically utilizing existent
frameworks of interpretation to engage in political action. It is through culture i.e. the culturally
given that ones awareness of social reality assumes a historically significant orientation and that
meaningful change may be accomplished. Anticipating symbolic anthropologists, who conceive of
culture as a resource of praxis, Gramsci insists on the need to

free ourselves from the habit of seeing culture as encyclopaedic knowledge, and men as mere receptacles
to be stuffed full of empirical data and a mass of unconnected raw facts, which have to be filed in the brain
as in the columns of a dictionary, enabling their owner to respond to the various stimuli from the outside
world. Culture is something quite different. It is organization, discipline of ones inner self, a coming to
terms with ones own personality; it is the attainment of a higher awareness, with the aid of which one
succeeds in understanding ones own historical value, ones own function in life, ones own rights and
obligations. (1990: 1011)

Organized culture, or culture oriented toward historical self-awareness, can potentially work as
a foundation for thinking well, whatever one thinks, and therefore acting well, whatever one
does (Gramsci, 1991: 25). Gramscis point here, again, is that the introduction of a critical
orientation from the outside is not necessarily a precondition for praxis, but rather, invoking the
Socratic (dialogical) concept of culture, that what ultimately matters is how the culturally given
is given a new direction during the course of historical and social self-discovery (politically
oriented action). Organized culture, as such, but especially as a concept of socialism, makes the
vague concept of freedom of thought real that is, it gives a critical direction to it (Gramsci,
1991: 25). Popular religion as organized culture, therefore, has a direct relationship to the
socialist revolution and to revolutionary forms, as noted Gramscian scholar John Fulton has
reminded us (1987:198).
578 Critical Sociology 39(4)

Four, as ideological complex, popular religion can acquire an oppositional character. Gramsci
reminds us that counter-hegemony to a large extent consists of our ability to re-articulate an existent
ideological system into a different direction: What matters is the criticism to which an ideologi-
cal complex is subjected by the [] representatives of [a] new historical phase. This criticism makes
possible a process of differentiation and change in the relative weight that the elements of the old
ideologies used to possess. What was previously secondary and subordinate, or even incidental, is
now taken to be primary becomes the nucleus of a new ideological and theoretical complex
(Gramsci, 1987: 195). This position on ideological (re-)articulation opens the door to appreciating
religion as oppositional. An ideological complex, Gramsci is here suggesting, is open to alternative
readings depending on the interests of actors who have historical reason(s) to appropriate it in order
to take society onto a different direction. Ideological meaning, moreover, is contingent on the
arrangement or accentuation (of some) of its particular content-components. Counter-hegemony
here consists of creating and deriving new meaning from the reconfiguration (or re-articulation)
of ideological content-components. It also consists of building a new common sense (or new
ideology) by replacing the embedded assumptions (content) in an existent ideology with new ones
(Gramsci, 1987: 453). Religion as ideological complex can thus work as a counter-hegemonic (or
transformational) force because of how people creatively reconfigure (or articulate) its content-
components and, as such, its meaning to mediate their interests, values, and intentions onto the
political arena. This revolutionary or counter-hegemonic capacity, Gramsci noted, was exempli-
fied by the anti-establishment heretical movements in the Middle Ages, by the Reformation
and even by the Protestant ethic and its entrepreneurial spirit (Fulton 1987: 204).
Popular religion it follows possesses adaptive, adoptive, practical, and heuristic qualities that
can allow it to function critically and potentially serve as a basis for the critique of society. As com-
mon sense it may fold unto itself seemingly incompatible cultural elements that potentially inno-
vate or transform it. As familiar conviction and ideological complex it can be subject to alternative
signification, respectively, by individual and collective actors facing new practical situations or
historical circumstances. As culture it contains problem-solving mechanisms that allow its users to
think and act well and give it critical direction in light of the circumstances facing them. Depending
on the role it plays for members of society, popular religion may be an important part of the raw
material out of which a counter-hegemonic narrative may be created. One can argue that Gramsci
would embrace it as an affective and cognitive cultural practice in counter-hegemonic mobiliza-
tion precisely because of its functional flexibility and heuristic potential (Williams, 1996: 54). This
latter possibility, of course, is more for the simple than for organic intellectuals. Yet, Gramsci notes
the following: While Marxist socialists are not religious, neither are they anti-religious for the
religious tie ought not to constitute an obstacle to working class unity. All workers over and
above any belief or faith can and must be united in the struggle against the bourgeoisie (Gramsci
quoted in Boothman, 1995: xxi).

Popular Religion and Christian Praxis in the Nicaraguan Revolution

A historical example that speaks to the power of religion as opposition and similarly underscores
the significance of ideological (re-)articulation as a mechanism of oppositional transformation is
liberation theology. A religious movement with origins in Latin America and roots in Vatican II
(196265), inspired by Episcopal developments in Medelln, Columbia, in 1968 and in Puebla,
Mexico, in 1979 and influenced by the structural language of dependency theory, liberation the-
ology called upon progressive Catholics to opt for the poor and fight underdevelopment, political
repression, and economic exploitation in the region (Girardi, 1968, 1989; Miranda, 1974, 1980,
Reed 579

1982; Gutirrez, 1973; Segundo, 1984). Opting for the poor, to start with, meant recognizing that
the Christian community had been divided by social and economic differences that made for
inhuman wretchedness (Gremillion, 1976: 471). But it also meant understanding how these con-
ditions hindered existential and spiritual fulfillment, betrayed religious virtue, and ultimately
estranged human beings from each other, undermining the Christian community itself (CELAM,
1986). This divisive development in the human condition required reconstructing the community
of believers in both the existential and social sense and changing the mission of the Church from
an emphasis on proselytization and its focus on an afterlife towards one that effectively called for
dealing with actually-existing social conditions affecting the poor masses (Lancaster, 1988: 78).
In the words of Gustavo Gutirrez, one of the key founders of liberation theology, theology now
meant A process of understanding the faith from the vantage point of action aimed at changing
the conditions of the poor majority (Gutirrez, 1979: 22); and it meant recognizing the work
and importance of concrete behavior, of deed, of action, of praxis in the Christian life (Gutirrez,
1973: 11). The new theology, as such, called on Christians to engage in consciousness-raising, to
eliminate anything which might destroy social peace, to defend human rights and the rights of the
poor, to sponsor grass-roots organizing, and to denounce, whenever necessary, the unjust action[s]
of world powers that work[] against the self-determination of weaker nations who must suffer the
consequences of war and invasion (CELAM, 1986: 1718).
Liberation theology inspired a wave of political movements including revolutionary ones
during the 1960s and 1970s and prompted many religious, primarily Catholics, to engage in
Christian praxis. In a variety of politicized settings these Christians often peasants, the urban
poor, and progressive agents in society, including radicalized priests and laity leaders, who
operated as organic intellectuals worked to reformulate the meaning of religious discourse from
one that emphasized accepting the world to one that aimed at transforming it. Common Christian
idioms such as liberation, the place of the poor, salvation, exploitation, and sin, as such,
took on oppositional significance. In a general sense This meant that familiar [Christian] beliefs
such as God made us poor and we dont need to change and Christ came to teach us how to
suffer increasingly fell to the background and new ones such as God has seen our suffering and
He is on our side and Christ fought for the freedom of the poor; therefore we must follow His
example assumed center stage in interpretations of political-economy circumstances (Reed,
2008: 292).15 On the ground, in a more concrete sense, in the minds of progressive Christians, their
new Christianity was predicated on the idea that the scriptures and the message of Christ contained
the seeds for both a program and strategy for political liberation. To them, this meant that the gos-
pels started with people, in particular the marginalized and the poor, and their historical conditions
of oppression, i.e. the Bible contained a this-worldly orientation that called for change. It also
meant their historical reality exemplified by struggles against inequalities and injustice in their
varied forms mirrored Jesus reality (i.e. like him, they were liberation oriented); that the church
was meant to orient itself toward the fulfillment of social justice; and that the true measure of a
Christian was found in the correspondence between her inner life and outer life insofar as such a
life reinforced the formation of a liberated and just Christian community. Such ideological re-
articulations of religion emergent during biblical discussions at Christian Based Communities
(CBCs) and other unofficial religious settings allowed many to recognize Christianity as a legiti-
mate source of political critique. They facilitated the emergence of a radical language of social
justice, which motivated many in Latin American societies (e.g. Brazil, Columbia, Nicaragua, and
El Salvador) to engage in political action against existent economic and political conditions in the
name of true Christianity. In the case of revolution, Argentine theologian Jos Mguez Bonino
noted that this meant that
580 Critical Sociology 39(4)

Revolutionary action aimed at changing the basic economic, political, and social cultural structures and
conditions of life [wa]s imperative Ours [wa]s not a time of mere development, rearranging or
correction, but for basic revolutionary change. (1976: 7)

The Nicaraguan revolutionary struggle against the Somoza dictatorship was inspired by these
changes in the meaning of religion. During the 1960s and 1970s the political language of liberation
theology provided a means for Nicaraguan Christians to resist and strategically challenge, and for
many to participate in the overthrow of the Somoza dynasty in July 1979. While the radical lan-
guage of liberation theology came from the radical priesthood, who were inspired by Vatican II and
the Medelln conference, it is important to note that this language was also cultivated from below
in a variety of group settings that operated as counter-hegemonic sites. These included CBCs,
popular churches, popular seminaries, and cursillos (laity classes). According to Norma Lopz, a
lay leader during the period in question, CBCs set out to display a new face of Christ to the poor
and oppressed, independent of official or formal guidance. She recalls:

We, the lay workers, began holding regular meetings to reexamine the Bible ourselves, and see what its
message was for the Nicaraguan. We realized that the old church was failing to carry out the true mission
of Christianity. And we discovered then that the priests must use their robes to keep the community off its
knees. With the youth of the barrio, we reread and rethought the Bible, from start to finish. Exodus was
a choice to move forward, out of slavery and oppression. The major and minor prophets embodied a
radical stance against the sin of exploitation. The mission of Christ and the message of the Bible is that of
God stooping down to help the poor, of God drawing the poor closer to him, of God intervening in history
to save the poor from sin. We had found the fire of Christianity that the hierarchy had hidden from us,
and it was the beginning to illuminate the barrios like the rising of the sun or the coming of Christ. The
youth were coming around, more and more, drawn by this message of the Christ of the Poor. (Lancaster,
1988: 6163)

Our Lady of Solentiname, a popular seminary located on an island in Lake Nicaragua near the
Costa Rican border, was one of these sites of struggle. Father Ernesto Cardenal, a Jesuit priest,
founded it in 1966. Community members gathered at the seminary on a weekly basis to discuss the
economic, political, and social impact of the Somoza dictatorship on their lives. Father Cardenal
led these discussions, engaging its participants namely fishermen, artisans, and their families
based on the Freirian principles of reciprocal learning and problem-posing education (Bradstock,
1987; Cardenal, 1987; Foroohar, 1989; Girardi, 1989; Molina, 1987). Phillip Berryman specifi-
cally notes the following about it:

The pastoral agent (Cardenal) brings [] knowledge of the scripture, and the people bring their experience
of life and both learn from each other. However, it is not simply a Scriptures-and-life division of labor,
since [Cardenal] ha[s] to encourage ... [participants] by showing appreciation for their culture and indeed
for their ability to think and express themselves. Thus [participants] themselves often find new pearls
in the Scripture texts, despite the fact that they have hitherto usually lead to believe that those above
(authorities, authority, politicians, priests, teachers, doctors) have the word. (1984: 22)

During the course of weekly discussions discussants gave meaning to the realities associated
with the dictatorship based on their interpretation of biblical passages from Matthew, John, and
Luke. Readings based on these gospels opened the door to reflections on agrarian reform, capitalism,
development, and imperialism, as well as the meaning of Christian praxis and revolution (Cardenal,
2010). Their bible-centered weekly discussions, ultimately, made it possible for many of the par-
ticipants to assume identities as Christian revolutionaries. To illustrate the power of ideological
Reed 581

re-articulation for the transformation of religious common sense, I now turn to one of these histori-
cal dialogues. The discussion under consideration below is centered on The Temptation of Christ,
a familiar Biblical theme. It comes from The Gospel in Solentiname, a four volume historical
anthology that captures the dialogic experiences of the Solentiname community from 1971 to
1976, a crucial period of revolutionary politicization. While I have edited it substantially, the dia-
logue, among hundred others, provides the reader with an opportunity to appreciate religion as a
counter-hegemonic force.

The Temptations in the Wilderness

nd afterward he felt hunger. Then the devil said to him: If you really are the Son of God, command
A
this stone to turn into bread. Jesus answered him: The Scripture says, Man does not live by bread
alone, but also by every word that God speaks (Luke 4: 35)

Francisco: The devil wanted him to perform a senseless, useless miracle that wouldnt do anybody any
good.
Olivia: Here we are dealing with a selfish miracle.
Gustavo: And I see more than anything else the temptation consisted in reducing his messianism to a
purely materialist a developmental messianism. Of course, bread is important, but we cant
stop there. Revolution doesnt mean just giving food and clothing and comforts to people. It
goes beyond that. And this was a temptation that Jesus had as the Messiah, and rejected it.
Manuel: Christ says that food isnt enough for human life. people cant be truly human without the
word of God. Without it a person isnt human like other people.
Marcelino: The word of God give us bread too. Because in a community some might have bread and
others might not. And if theres love we share it and we all eat. If there isnt any love, even
though theres a lot of food people will be hungry because a few will hoard the food.
Oscar: The word that God speaks is love, because thats the message God has given us and Christ
brought to earth.

And the devil said to him: I will give you all this power and the greatness of these kingdoms. For I
have received all of this and I give it to anybody I choose. If you will kneel down and worship me,
it will all be yours (Luke 4: 67).

Laureano: He is like a politician, that devil. Because thats what the political campaigns are like. A man
comes into a town and makes all kinds of promises and people will vote for him. And people
do vote for him and afterwards he doesnt give them shit.
Too: There is one thing here: The devil is making him a false proposal. He tells Jesus that he is
going to give him all the power and the riches of the world, and Jesus, by refusing, is stating
that the true master is himself, that is, all of humanity. And he doesnt have to adore the devil
to get him to give Jesus what is rightly his. And thats our situation, too.
William: He grabbed it all. Its a dictatorship. He has the power, but power thats not legitimate. Its
stolen. Imperialism and capitalism and all oppression belong to him. It is up to us to take from
the devil what he has grabbed for himself the riches of the earth. This temptation of Jesus
is also a picture of whats happening now: Those in power offer things to the people so that
theyll serve them ...
Felipe: The devil declares that he is the owner of the kingdoms of earth. And he wants it all for
himself, like a dictator, like an exploiter. And everybody who wants to take over the earth is
like the devil. But they dont own the earth, because the only way to own the earth, it seems
to me, is in little lots and little lots all equal.
582 Critical Sociology 39(4)

Father

Cardenal: The devil is the master of pride, of haughtiness, of the power of people over people. This is his
nature, and this is what he gives his people. Thats what he offers to Jesus and Jesus rejects it.

Afterwards the devil took him to the city of Jerusalem and he took him up to the highest point of the
temple and he said to him: If you are truly the Son of God cast yourself down from here; because
in the Scripture it says: God will order his angels to take care of you. (Luke 4: 910)

Pedro Rafael

Gutirrez: I see a picture here too: The devil took Jesus up, just as he seizes many of us and lifts
us into certain positions. It says: He seized him and he took him up. So to some he
gives riches, he gives power, he gives greatness. And once these people are powerful
then comes the temptation to screw the weak, to oppress them. And he said: No dont
tempt me! As I see it, there is a temptation of the devil, which is to raise people up,
to lift us to the heights and then let us fall.
Felipe Pea: I see that the devil tempts him by saying because the Scriptures say. It is just like a
lot of Catholics and Protestants use the Bible to defend their interests. They say: The
Scriptures say such and such a thing And it is all to exploit us.
And another: It is like when they say to the poor: Youve got to respect the property of the rich
because it comes to them from God.
And still another: And theres another temptation too: not doing anything, thinking all you have to do
is pray, like a lot of Catholics believe; or read the Bible and be very religious.
(Cardenal, 1976: 118126)

What is significant about this dialogue is the re-articulation process by which ordinary people
transformed the meaning of Christianity. Rather than stress themes that would reinforce the exis-
tent order of things, dialogue participants, in keeping with liberation theology, kept equality,
justice, and liberation at the center of their interpretations, making it possible for them to question
the order of things. One also finds their real life conditions political corruption, economic
exploitation, and imperialism, among others at the basis of this re-articulation process. Their
life experience compelled them to question reality. But their interpretation of this reality is based
on a religious vocabulary designed to move them beyond it having found a discrepancy between
their way of living and biblical meaning. To be more precise, they used the biblical verse to make
sense of potential obstacles standing in the way of liberation. The dialogue effectively under-
scores the liberation theology position that the transformation of society requires Christian praxis.
It does this by focusing on the problems revolutionary Christian virtue faces during the course of
Christian Praxis itself.
A true Christian, the interchanges clearly reveal, must live up to the Gospels message of
liberation. She must, as such, not give in to the temptations of false seductions (e.g. the promise
of development under imperial capitalism and the promise of material success and personal
power under unequal conditions); false practices (e.g. ritualistic prayer and ceremony, the use of
scripture to defend the status quo, economic exploitation, and politics-as-usual); and false beliefs
(e.g. the beliefs that people are powerless, that the scriptures condemn the poor, and that reli-
gious contemplation without action oriented to change is enough for a Christian). Salvation in
this context is not going along with the status quo but rather questioning it, liberating it from its
oppressive and exploitative class character. This requires the Christian of liberation to resist the
temptation of political, economic, and ideological falsehoods and to work towards changing
Reed 583

the order of things. Accepting these falsehoods, however, would defer liberation and, as such,
prevent the salvation of the Christian community. Christian liberation in this discursive context
is also the word of God, cultivating a culture of love that makes possible the sharing of bread,
material goods, and feeding the hungry: If there isnt any love, even though theres a lot of food
people will be hungry because a few people will hoard the food. The dialogue therefore also
reinforces the emergent religious appreciation that social transformation requires cultural
transformation; that is, that the construction of a new reality based on a more equitable distribu-
tion of resources must ultimately be predicated on a culture of brotherly love, a conception of
reality, unlike the present dominant conception, that prevents the hoarding of resources.
Following Gramscis insights, one may conclude the following about religion in light of the
preceding points. In the context of the Nicaraguan revolution some Christians assumed identities as
revolutionaries by re-articulating their religious common sense into a counter-hegemonic direction.
Their religious common sense proved ideologically fluid on several points. First, Christianity was
itself enriched by the structural language of dependency theory. Theologians used it during encycli-
cals conferences to develop liberation theology itself and radical priests and laity leaders in Nicaragua
cultivated and developed it in light of the lived realities of poor Christians. Two, Christianitys status
quo orientation was subjected to modification during the course of discussions, demonstrating that
even members of a fishing and artisan community are not passive or mechanical receivers, but
instead representatives of a new historical trajectory capable of assigning a new meaning to
Christianity to meet their interests. Three, its oppositional features, i.e. its themes of liberation,
social justice, egalitarianism, and communitarianism, assumed center stage in interpretations of
political-economy conditions, showcasing both the cause and effect impact of religion as an
organized culture as well as ideological re-articulation for political (and revolutionary) resistance.
Four, the very process of ideological re-articulation at the hands of discussants reveals religions
heuristic potential to question and to re-direct understanding of the socially given into a critical
direction. At a basic level this religious re-direction was possible because lay organizations operated
on the ground across the nation. These lay organizations, including Our Lady of Solentiname,
provided an organizational and leadership structure, and, as such, a spatial opportunity to cultivate a
new Christian conception of how the world operated, a significant step toward challenging the order
of things. Father Cardenal, operating as an organic intellectual, played a role in the transformation
of religious perspective. He provided theological direction during the course of biblical discussions,
but he also engaged discussants with a pedagogical style centered on their religious common sense
and their lived reality (i.e. one consistent with Freirian and Gramscian pedagogy, see note 10). By
accommodating the cultural perspective of discussants (he used familiar Christian stories), connect-
ing this perspective to their lived reality (using it to make sense of the experiences of dictatorship
and economic exploitation), focusing discussions on the principles of liberation theology (infusing
Christian stories with social justice meaning), and allowing them to come to terms with their own
reality in light of the latter pedagogical orientations, Cardenal in effect encouraged like other
liberation priests and laity leaders operating in similar sites of struggle the interior transformation
of their religious common sense from one that accepted to one that challenged conditions in their
world. Ultimately, this made it possible for Solentinameos (and thousands of others) to resist, if not
participate in the struggle, against the dictatorship as Christian revolutionaries.

Conclusion
Gramscis work challenged Marxism from within. It confronted the economic determinist and
ideological reductionist tendencies within it. In his historical materialist version of working class
584 Critical Sociology 39(4)

history class struggle is the result of political (cultural) will, not natural (economic) laws. Working
class political culture plays a significant historical role in the potential overcoming of capitalist
formations. With these emphases, he theoretically rescued working class politics from its epiphe-
nomenal status in the Marxism of his time. His emphasis on counter-hegemony is unique. While he
recognized that it required intellectual direction, he also understood that it could only be developed
and realized through andare al popolo (by going to the people), the active participation of the
masses. As such, Gramsci ascribes a role for them and their cultural forms as conduits for counter-
hegemonic mobilization. Such a theoretical position stands for recognizing what is politically
intelligible in the familiar and practical sense. This underscoring of the immanent potential of the
subaltern, its common sense and religious features, in the dynamics of counter-hegemony is not a
call to abandon the role of critical theory as his expositions clearly reveal but a call for ideologi-
cal alignment (or dialectical synthesis) between these seemingly incompatible ways of perceiving
and acting upon reality.
Because Gramsci emphasized both domination and agency in his cultural theorizing, he effec-
tively revealed how cultural practices that maintain a status quo order can paradoxically function
to undermine or resist it, a position that subsequent thinkers Marxists and non-Marxists alike
have similarly adopted, most recently Black Feminist scholars whose scholarship draws attention
to the power of marginalized subjectivity in particular its emotional, ethical, and lived experience
qualities in its capacity to sustain activism (hooks, 2009; Collins, 2008; Lorde, 2007).16 Gramscis
focus on domination reveals the strength of Marxism as a critical framework of social structures
and the superstructure. But his focus on subaltern mentalities i.e. their emotional and cultural
potential as the medium through which political struggles are embodied has proven significant
for the agency from below perspective in Marxist analysis. In adopting an approach of interpreta-
tion centered on subaltern subjectivity and its historical potential for counter-hegemonic resistance
from below he takes Marxism beyond the orthodox notion of false consciousness, and in effect
transforms our understanding of the politics of social transformation.
The subjective dimension of counter-hegemonic / political action is a significant one for
Gramsci. He chooses to emphasize time and again that the development of a new mentalit is
contingent upon critically reflecting on essere (what is) and dover essere (what ought to be),
ideological alignments between disparate worldviews, and taking action rooted on popular
beliefs and similar ideas because these are themselves material forces (Gramsci, 1987: 165).
A successful challenge to hegemonic conditions, therefore, strategically calls for a counter-hegemonic
movement (primarily through its organic intellectuals) to consider subaltern popular beliefs (or
common sense), passion, and lived experience as political resources. It also calls for counter-
hegemonic education to be rooted in subaltern lived reality. These are necessary steps out of
consideration for the role of subjectivity and popular psychology in counter-hegemony. This
embracing of subaltern subjectivity is plainly revealed in the way he theorizes a role for subaltern
passion, subaltern-centered pedagogy, and common sense, including religious common sense, in
counter-hegemony. The problematic of action organic intellectuals face, as such, is not to discard
the subaltern, but rather to transfigure it, channel its passion, and pedagogically engage it to
effectively challenge the capitalist social order from the bottom-up.

Acknowledgements
I am indebted to the Reviewers (especially Reviewers 1 and 2) and the Editor of Critical Sociology, David
Fasenfest, for their critical contributions to this project. Their on-target input made a significant difference.
Any shortcomings on this piece are not theirs, but rather my own. My friend and colleague from the University
Salento, Italy, Fabio de Nardis, pointed me in the right direction regarding the Italian sources. I am grateful to
Reed 585

him for this. My assistant at SIU, Sarah Pitcher, was most diligent with her research-related duties. Her tireless
assistance made it possible for me to get through this project more quickly than would otherwise have been
the case. I am thankful to ACR for her support. Lastly, this manuscript is dedicated to a great Marxist/Critical
scholar, Paula Allman, who recently passed away.

Notes
1. It should be noted that I use the term counter-hegemony as a heuristic devise to get at the idea that sub-
altern groups are capable of challenging capitalism contesting capitalist hegemony by elaborating an
alternative conception of the world. Ives (1998) uses the terms progressive and regressive perhaps
more appropriately to make the distinction I aim to employ in this article. But I use counter-hegemony
because it is a term commonly used by Gramscians or those sympathetic to the Gramscian perspective,
although Gramsci did not employ it himself. Hegemony, properly understood, is moral and intellec-
tual leadership designed to gain the consent of the masses so that they may be oriented into particular
politico-economic ways of life. It underscores the reality that a particular way of life is in place because
people have been persuaded to consent to it. From a Gramscian perspective capitalism is in place because
people have been persuaded, by way of institutional and cultural means, and moral and intellectual lead-
ership, to believe that a capitalist way of life is normative. Counter-hegemony refers to a process that
challenges this normative view of capitalism as the only viable politico-economic arrangement available
to humanity. As is the case with hegemony, counter-hegemony unfolds through moral and intellectual
leadership, with the latter being an alternative to the moral and intellectual leadership that reinforces
capitalism. As a dialectical term, it further underscores the point that a new conception of the world
does not develop ex nihilo; rather it necessarily develops in a dialectical relationship with various ideo-
logical orders, including common sense, as I articulate in this manuscript. Allman (2002, 2007, 2010),
Aronowitz (2002, 2009), Fontana (2002, 2005, 2006, 2011), and Schugurensky (2006), among many
others, use the terms counter-hegemonic and counter-hegemony the same way I use them here. Although
Gramsci does not use the term counter-hegemony as a dichotomous concept either, as I am obviously
using it, Fontana (2011) notes that Gramscis theoretical work is predicated on conceptual polarities,
which he uses as heuristic devices to explore the dialectical relationship between them.
2. Gramsci often uses popular culture, the philosophy of the people, spontaneous philosophy, and
common sense interchangeably to refer to the varied forms the mentality of the masses manifests itself
in social reality. This latter observation is consistent with the works of Colucci (1999), Crehan (2002),
Green and Ives (2009), and Green (2011).
3. In many of his critical expositions during this period, Gramsci shows in particular how popular literature
and other cultural media preclude the formation of political catharsis, a necessary (but not sufficient)
subjective step into rational self- and social-understanding that facilitates the intersubjective constitution
of revolutionary consciousness at a multi-class level. Gramsci refers to catharsis as the passage from
the purely economic (or egoistic-passional) to ethico-political moment the passage from objective
to subjective and from necessity to freedom whereby people are transformed into a means of
freedom, an instrument to create a new ethico-political form and a source of new initiatives (1987:
366367). On this point see also Gramsci (1991: 104, 362).
4. Martin Jay notes that Gramscis essays and commentaries as a journalist were too short, too journalis-
tic, and relatively unrefined to allow him to develop any ideas systematically (1986: 151). Gramsci
himself recognized that while they were insightful, they were written for the day, under the pressure
from the overweight of political commitments (Gramsci in Buttigieg, 1991: 6). An attempt at theoretical
systemization came with Prison Notebooks. It is in this collection despite the difficult language inherit
in it (Ives, 2011) that we are made fully aware of his cultural strategy whereby the construction of new
moral and intellectual structures out of existent and emerging conceptions of the world is recognized as
an essential step to establishing a new socio-political order (see Boothman, 2008, 2011; Thomas, 2009).
5. On common sense being open to re-signification and counter-hegemonic re-direction see Gramsci
(1987: 324, 333), Coben (2002), and Liguori (2009a). On folklore being open to re-signification and
counter-hegemonic re-direction see Gramsci (in Green and Ives, 2009: 13). On religion being open
586 Critical Sociology 39(4)

to re-signification and counter-hegemonic re-direction see analysis below and Baratta (2007), Frosini
(2010), and Liguori (2006).
6. Unlike Marxists of his time and many others that followed, Gramsci does accommodate practical reason
in his theoretical articulations. But he also reinforces a rationalist reduction of it, obscuring its
creative potential (Nun, 1996: 216). Practical reason assumes a more central role in Marxist theorizing
four decades later in Pierre Bourdieus theoretical and empirical studies on habitus, which emphasize
both the structural and constructivist features of human action, and take theorizing beyond the rational-
actor model, ultimately revealing the potential of practical reason or logic-of-being (Bourdieu, 1972). It
should be noted, however, that steps have been taken to address the gap between these Marxist positions.
In a recent, perhaps controversial, theoretical exposition, Kate Crehan (2011) bridges the gap between
Gramsci and Bourdieu, revealing common sense and habitus as taken-for-granted but fluid, intelligent,
and constitutive understandings / perceptions of reality through which people maintain and potentially
transform their world.
7. On the relationship between counter-hegemony and the cultural demystification of capitalist reality see
Adamson (1985), Allman (2002, 2010), Coben (1998, 2002), Fontana (1993, 2006), and Hill (2007).
On the relationship between counter-hegemony and the socialist articulation (or translation) of existent
ideological systems see Crehan (2002, 2011), Eyerman (1981), Green (2011), Holub (1992), Ives (2004),
Mouffe (1981), and Turner (1996).
8. By Cardonism Gramsci means an authoritarian leader who makes no attempt to win the consent of
those who he is leading (1987: 145).
9. My purpose in this section is not to provide a comprehensive treatment of Gramscis position on critical
education. Much has been published in this area by scholars who are much more intimately familiar with
this aspect of Grasmcis theorizing than I am. Consider, for example, the work of Allman (2001, 2002,
2010), Borg and Mayo (2006, 2002), Borg et al. (2002), Coben (1998, 2002), Giroux (1999, 2002), and
Mayo (2010) for more exhaustive accounts. In this section I only aim to underscore the significance of
subaltern-centered pedagogy for the unfolding of counter-hegemony, a position that is consistent with
their work and effectively challenges Hill (2007) and Robinson (2005, 2008).
10. This observation is especially in tune with the works of Allman (2002, 2010) and Mayo (1999,
2008). Mayo (2008) observes that the Freirean and Gramscian approaches to pedagogy, despite their
differences, have in common the overcoming of ideology, praxis, and agency as their basic traits.
Gramsci and Freire, Mayo (1999, 2008) demonstrates, centrally focus on the teacherstudent relationship,
theoretically defining it as a necessary and creative component to the transformation of contradictory
consciousness and to the dynamics of political liberation.
11. This is a term from Freire found and also adequately explored in Mayo (2004: 53).
12. Recent Marxist scholarship identifies Lenin as a progenitor of hegemony theorizing (Boothman, 2008,
2011; Lih, 2006, 2011). This historical assertion is not inaccurate. As a voluntarist and vanguardist, like
Gramsci, Lenin addresses the issues of political leadership and class alliance in his writings on revolu-
tion, even though he does this without employing the term hegemony itself and without using any of the
commonly accepted terminology associated with this particular mode of theorizing. Lih (2006, 2011) in
fact argues that Lenin even explored the issue of persuasion as a mechanism for resolving the challenges
of class alliances and spontaneity, all three being social features that come with hegemony theorizing
and that have historically been credited to Gramscis theorizing and not Lenins. Lih insists, however,
Lenin cannot be understood by reading Lenin (2006: 21). To properly understand Lenin one must con-
sider him beyond the text, i.e. in light of his political practice. His writings as an activist often portray a
more optimist take on the consciousness of the proletariat. This calls into question the degree to which
his portrayed paternalism in some of his writings is a true measure of his position on the consciousness
of workers. These aforementioned caveats are significant nuances, but it is important to remember that
a significant difference exists between Lenin and Gramsci. While Gramsci theorizes a dialectical
relationship between the subaltern in its varied forms and Marxist theory, revealing the formers counter-
hegemonic potential at the cultural (not just political) level, Lenin does not. This makes Lenins position
more tenuous, and, as such, his less than optimistic portrayal more representative of his position on the
subaltern, certainly as compared to Gramscis.
Reed 587

13. My purpose in this section is not to provide a comprehensive treatment of Gramscis position on
popular religion. However, I aim to underscore the potential it has for the unfolding of counter-hegemony.
As is the case with folklore, common sense, and traditional philosophy religion as a conception of
the world embryonically possesses a socialist potential that requires re-articulation. I focus on this
latter process. For a thorough account of Gramscis position on religion see Frosini (2010).
14. See also Frosini (2009, 2010); Baratta (2003, 2007); Ives (2004); Williams (1996); Fulton (1987); and
Billings (1990), on this Gramscian point on structurally derived opposition at the level of worldviews.
15. On the re-articulation of Christianity from conformity to liberation, see also Berryman (1984), Bradstock
(1987), and Foroohar (1989).
16. On other positions that underscore this dual character of culture, see Gamson (1992); Jasper (1997);
Scott (1990, 1985, 1976); and Steinberg (1999, 2002).

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