Gramsci quote
Is it preferable to “think” without having critical awareness, in a disjointed and irregular way, in other words to “participate” in a conception of the world “imposed” mechanically,…that is, by one of the many social groups in which everyone is automatically involved from the time he enters the conscious world…or is it preferable to work out one’s own conception of the world consciously and critically, and so out of this world of one’s own brain to choose one’s own sphere of activity, to participate actively in making the history of the world, and not simply to accept passively and without care the imprint of one’s own personality from the outside?
For his own conception of the world a man always belongs to a certain grouping…He is a conformist to some conformity, he is always man-mass or man-collective. The question is this: of what historical type is the conformity, the man-mass, of which he is a part? …Criticising one’s own conception of the world, means, therefore, to make it coherent and unified… The beginning of the critical elaboration is the consciousness of what one really is, this, a ‘know thyself’ as the product of the historical process which has left you an infinity of traces gathered together without the advantage of an inventory. First of all it is necessary to compile such an inventory. (Antonio Gramsci The Modern Prince and Other Writings 1987)
January 18, 2007 @ 9:58 am
Gramsci makes some critical points about culture in this little excerpt. No on really thinks about how we ultimately confrom to a society upon birth. In some way being born into a culture makes us responsible for its progression, so even by questioning it we are conforming because our critisim will some how inhance the culture. However, Gramsci does warn that it would be useless to critisize with out any knowledge of the past, or what are the frameworks of a particular culture. Granted, even though you are born a conformist to your culture, and your critisim inhances it, then when are you not a conformist? What is the difference between active conformity and passive?