реферат по социологии (англ. яз.) - Мои файлы - Каталог файлов

Freedom has been a central concept in social sciences since the beginning of human social history. Philosophical, sociological, political, and religious meanings of this concept come to the same end – there is no consensus about what freedom is. There are many contradicting to each other theories, which seem to be equally plausible views on freedom: for example, freedom of brutal life in the state of nature outside of society in Hobbes and civil freedom of social life with guaranteed political participation in Rousseau.
Gramsci, discussing social organization, gives a primary role to the concept of hegemony, which incorporates both coercion and consent as a means of ruling and leading the people. Hegemony exists in every society because it is a basis for any rule. What is different from one form of social organization to another is the degree of coercion necessary to obtain consent of masses in a given society. One might ask, is there a need for hegemony in a society with a highly despotic rule? In other words, is there a need for consent? Yes, even in the society based on domination, the population has to be hegemonized – to give consent to the leader while being dominated. This kind of hegemony may seem to be crude (as making submissive classes so unable to be conscious of their position that they accept the rule as legitimized), but it is still hegemony, which incorporates both coercion and consent. The element of coercion in a society leads to the question: How is it possible for an individual to be free in a society where he is coerced (his actions lack a volunteer character)?
Considering society, the question (or problem, depending on how problematic one sees this issue) of freedom of an individual cannot be overlooked. Gramsci discusses freedom in the context of hegemonized society. Therefore, freedom is compatible with hegemony of ruling class; freedom is expressed in a high degree of internalization of hegemonic class` interests perceived as the interests of the entire population.
The concept of hegemony saturates every problem discussed by Gramsci. It would be fair to say that he examines hegemonic nature of society in each cell of the huge organism of human interactions and institutions. Hegemony is a very complex phenomenon, which should be put in simple terms only for the purpose of illustration. So, it can be seen as art of articulation – articulation of ideas. Hegemony with relation to political nature of society is a means by which a ruling class universalizes its ideas and makes them appearing as class-free ones. Originally, hegemony refers to a form of leadership or rule in ancient Italy. Gramsci uses the term in two ways: to mean domination of one class over others, “subaltern” classes, and to mean directedness of social and political ideas. Domination might be associated with coercion, because there is always resistance within subaltern classes to being dominated by the ruling class. However, there is a necessity of some degree of consent in society. Any rule has to have supporters, who would serve as a rationalization for it. So, political regimes differ in the ratio between coercion used by the ruling class and the consent given by subaltern classes.
Gramsci, for the purpose of theoretical discussion, distinguishes between political society (the state) and civil society, “the ensemble of organisms commonly called ‘private” (Hoare & Smith 1999, p. 12). These two “superstructural ‘levels” are interdependent: there cannot be civil society without the state, and there is no purpose in the state in absence of civil society. Hegemony serves as a means of communication between the two levels, providing civil society with the appearance of non-political interests of the state (the hegemonic class), while the state gets support from the hegemonized elements of the civil society. It is important to understand that both civil society and political society may exercise coercion and consent. Hegemony of the ruling class is maintained by organic intellectuals, who are linked to a particular class and able to articulate the interests of this class, providing the class members with a certain ideological basis for the actions. The organic intellectuals are formed by class-based education. The main purpose of hegemony is universalization of the dominant class’s interests; subaltern classes should not feel themselves as strangers in relation to the state interests. Gramsci argues that hegemony is a principle of democratic society; democracy is characterized by “government with the consent of the governed” (p. 40).
Where is the place for freedom in a democratic and hegemonized society? Gramsci understands freedom as a necessity, following the infamous German philosopher Hegel (p. 367). The understandings of this Hegelian idea by Karl Marx and Gramsci are different. There is an opinion that Gramsci sees freedom as internalization of necessity with thoughts not influenced by any ideology; necessity is viewed not as instrumental necessity (which is close to Marx’s view of freedom), but necessity as genuine recognition of it by the subject himself (p. 367). However, who decides what is necessary and what is trivial? The nature of relationships between political society and civil society determines what is to be perceived as necessary in a given society of a given epoch. It might be so because “necessity belongs to the realm of hegemony”, and since freedom is a product of hegemony, the equation can be put between the concepts of necessity and freedom (Vahabzadeh, personal communication, March 26, 2002). There are many means by which the ruling class can turn “necessity and coercion into ‘freedom” (Hoare & Smith 1999, p.242). Education, given a very important role by Gramsci, is the primary instrument of transforming compulsory into freely chosen. How can choices determined by education and maintained through law be free? Looking at the question without giving much thought the answer might be, “There cannot be freedom as such in any society”. However, putting on the glasses of sociological analysis, the phenomenon of freedom requires more attention. First, if one uses freedom as an object of discussion, he should realize that freedom cannot be outside of society since this phenomenon exists only in relation to humans, who are social beings. There is no freedom outside social interactions. Freedom is, in fact, a social phenomenon.
There are two ways of exercising freedom – in its negative and positive senses. Freedom in the negative sense is having no restrictions in one’s actions. Living in society, it is impossible to have unlimited freedom because there are rules and norms, which control the actions of each individual. Also, there are freedoms of others, which should be respected by an individual (ideally). Freedom in the positive sense is being free to exercise one’s rights and liberties. It seems that positive freedom is a pure social constructions since individual rights and liberties are determined by social interactions and the type of political rule in a society. The two kinds of freedom constitute the whole phenomenon and are separated only for the sake of conceptual illustration. However, members of society constantly striving for freedom (as an abstract thing that can be felt, but not understood) would fight for it if they feel or think that they do not have it. They have to be convinced that freedom is available for a price of some degree of consent. Does it sound hegemonic? Yes, it does. Now, it is time to turn the attention to freedom in relation to hegemony – freedom being a creation of hegemonic rule, an ideological illusion.
There is no contradiction between freedom and hegemony in Gramsci because he sees freedom as ...........