Thought
Gramsci is seen by many as one of the most important Marxist thinkers of the twentieth century, in particular as a key thinker in the development of Western Marxism. He wrote more than 30 notebooks and 3000 pages of history and analysis during his imprisonment. These writings, known as the Prison Notebooks, contain Gramsci's tracing of Italian history and nationalism, as well as some ideas in Marxist theory, critical theory and educational theory associated with his name, such as:
- Cultural hegemony as a means of maintaining and legitimising the capitalist state.
- The need for popular workers' education to encourage development of intellectuals from the working class.
- An analysis of the modern capitalist state that distinguishes between political society, which dominates directly and coercively, and civil society, where leadership is constituted by means of consent.
- "Absolute historicism".
- A critique of economic determinism that opposes fatalistic interpretations of Marxism.
- A critique of philosophical materialism.
Read more about this topic: Antonio Gramsci
Famous quotes containing the word thought:
“The bad thing is that thinking about thought doesn’t help at all; one has to have it from nature so that the good ideas appear before us like free children of God calling to us: Here we are.”
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“Have you ever had a single moment’s thought about my responsibilities?”
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“The essence of spirit, he thought to himself, was to choose the thing which did not better one’s position but made it more perilous. That was why the world he knew was poor, for it insisted morality and caution were identical.”
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