Media and Society
Raymond Williams culture and society
William terms hegemony as being beyond the focus on culture; he states that it is more focused on the complete social procedure of certain distributions of power and influence. He does not agree that people model their own lives (Vanderbilt University, 2007). To acquire the social procedure that he states, the society has to be composed of certain variables and capacity. In terms of class, the society is distributed into classes which are not equal. Ti is Gramsci who brought about the aspect of dominance and subordination which is not yet being recognized as a complete process. Hegemony is a term that is applied in Marxist theory and arises from Gramsci, who contrasts hegemony from a rule that acquires power from direct political as well as coercive physical manner (Williams, Culture and Society, 1950, pg 5). In our daily lives, our daily happenings is composed of a technical combination of the three aspects of life; political, social and cultural ability. Hegemony in reference to varied forms of interpretations can be this or an active social and cultural ability which are mandatory aspects (Williams, “Marxism and Literature”, AUGUST 28, 2011, pg.108).
According to Williams, hegemony is far from the aspects of culture and ideology. It is composed of the complete social process to precise variable elements of creativity and dominance and subordination in the society so that culture is re-evaluated so to compose elements of disparity that impacts on the procedure of creativity. Similarly, hegemony insists on completeness of the procedure of cultural formation, declining to relate awareness with a world of already set beliefs and ideology. In this dominant form of culture it in addition to the mainstream culture is composed of a ruling definition (Williams, “Marxism and Literature”, AUGUST 28, 2011, p.125). The formations within a culture are an explanation of the experiences and which dominates over all other forms of culture which is reduced to being personal. Though hegemonic, it involves a certain aspect of reality and involves other practices and processes so as to interpret them as dominance forms. Williams states that the aspect of emergence is quite necessary so as to result to pre-emergence, dynamic and persistent but completely applied (Williams, “Marxism and Literature”, AUGUST 28, 2011, pg.126).
Hegemony is presented not as a set of beliefs, attributed to as the ruling class ideology, besides which the proletariat has to contend with, but as a fulfilment of the complete living process. It is not just the political and economic aspect or the social orientation, it composes the complete element of ideology and correlation to an extend that the pressures and restrictions of what is majorly understood to be precise in economic, political and cultural modes as taken by us to be as the pressures and restrictions of minor experiences and normal senses.
Hegemony is hence not a high level of ideology or an instance of control, though it is at times taken as being a form of manipulation. It is huge composition of practices and desires over the complete living: our senses and allocation of energy, our modelled perceptions of personal self as well as the whole world. It is a complete system composing meanings and values which when experienced it confirms what is believed. It is hence attributed to reality to several people in the society. This form of experienced reality is confirmed as it is hard for most people in the society in every aspect of their lives. It is hence a form of culture; however a culture which similarly acquires the experienced dominance and subordination classes (Williams, “Marxism and Literature”, AUGUST 28, 2011, pg.110).
According to Williams, the understanding of hegemony is beneficial in that first of all, it correlates very narrowly to the real instances of social association in the present society when compared to classical Marxist notion of projections from the dominating class. Secondly, since it gives a lee way for cultural practices to be acquired, not just as a form of tradition but similarly as a practice. Culture is hence not restricted to the superstructure; it is actually a mode through which people become aware of the social and economic undertakings in the societies which they stay in. Moreover, hegemony is not limited to a static framework but is a procedure of complicated experiences, correlations and processes with precise and varying pressures and restrictions. Practically, hegemony is not singular, its internal framework are quite complicated. Additionally, it is not just a passive act of domination. It is engaged constantly through a process of renewal, recreation, upheld and changed. It is similarly gradually hindered, restricted, changed, and dared by certain pressures that are not its (Williams 112-113).
In any given time in the society, there are certain varied instances of political and cultural stages which make varied instances of experiences and acts hegemonic in several groups. The process is aware of the two aspect of hegemony and be in a position to counterbalance them. Revolutions as a hegemonic process may similarly happen as brought out by Williams in his arts. William’s attribute of being open to interpretation gives him the ability becomes an integral part of the varied hegemonic practices or to defy them.
Hegemony involves the organization and composition of dissimilar meanings, values and acts into a superior culture and social order which are related to the economic realities. Williams looks into the hegemony process of composition starting with the three aspects of traditions, institutions and formations.
Tradition was ignored by Marxism as it was part of the super culture and also as it was a residual aspect in the present life from the past (Williams 115). It was formed from the past and still applied in the cultural procedure not as a part of the past but of the present. It is hence some experiences, meanings and values which may not be applied in the dominance cultures (Williams 112). Williams attributed tradition to be the strongest means of composition when seen in the as an aspect of selection, a process that models the past and pre-model the present for a certain culture, some meanings and acts are chosen for importance and other meanings are ignored, while in other instances of hegemony, it is effectively applied as the major past (Williams 115-116). Tradition chooses the past so as to have a gradual connection with the present, it is necessary so as to make it possible to know counter-hegemonies which may be acquired and bring about a varied view of tradition so that it composes power and vulnerability.
Tradition takes place in an institution; education centres are places where knowledge is acquired as well as skills so as to know the social reality and how to cope with it as well as other institutions like the religious and state centres. These are places where tradition is basically contested. While getting to know the objective of the institutions is genuine, the other non-institutions are formations which are neglected and similarly significant. Formations are movements which are known and acts which can be voluntarily distinguished after being formed. When one has a keen focus, we tend to see a much wider working formations which may not be known with the formal institutions or their formal significances and principles and which may similarly be differentiated with them (Wiliams 119). Formations are specialized acts that happen in the externally from the institutions but may get into the institutions as a result of their meanings and values in the wider and quite diffused society.
References
Vanderbilt University. (2007). On Hegemony. Retrieved April 3, 2012, from
http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AnS/Anthro/Anth206/mikhail_bakhtin.htm
Williams, R. (1950). Culture and Society. New York, NY: Colombia University Press.
Williams, R. (AUGUST 28, 2011). “Marxism and Literature”.Strenght, Text, Rape.
