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 theory of cultural hegemony

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 theory of cultural hegemony

A cultural war is a struggle between two diverse sets with conflicting cultural values. In the theory of cultural hegemony presented by the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci in 1920, he argued that in a culturally diverse society, one class that has a monopoly over mass media and popular culture could dominate the other. He further stated that a cultural war begins when elements of anti-capitalists seek to gain a dominant voice in the mass media. The cultural war originated in America in the 1920s when rural and urban American values collided. According to the American view, cultural war is the conflict between values and beliefs considered liberal and progressive against those that are conservative or traditional. American culture appears to be deeply divided. While one group believes in the existent of absolute moral truths, the other places moral authority in individual judgment.

In the 1980s, when President Ronald Reagan was in power, the cultural climate in America was considered conservative. However, artists and academics alongside their works were often criticized by members of religious groups as they were deemed to be profane, indecent, and subversive. They were often accused of undermining family values, traditions, and Western civilization. In a publication titled Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America by James Davison Hunter, he describes what was happening at the time as polarization and dramatic realignment that had changed the course of American culture and politics. He states that there existed two different polarities due to the increase of emerging hot issues such as gun politics, homosexuality, and abortion. Not only were these issues divisive, but the different existing classes of society had also divided inherently along with these issues defined by ideological word views rather than religion, ethnicity, and political affiliation.

Robert Mapplethorpe is an American artist best known for his powerful self-portraits and black-and-white portraits. During his short lifetime, he cultivated the dark-angel personae in the themes and subjects depicted in his icy graphical styled black and white photographs. However, these facets wittingly or unwittingly sparked various controversies during his lifetime. During three years in the ending years of the 1970s, Mapplethorpe both as a participant and a voyeur intensively pursued sex, which he termed as the most excellent metaphor for his conversion. What resulted from this foray has since then be treated as a unique subset within his most extensive body of work, which mostly consisted of celebrity portraits, classical nudes, and flower studies.

Mapplethorpe was obviously not vision innocent, and he indeed foresaw the political eruption; his artistic sensibilities sparkled. The first round of cultural battles occurred in Washington. The Meese anti-pornography commission was campaigning against various forms of arts funding. They were railing against specific artworks that they deemed morally unacceptable. Under pressure, the commission’s director was forced to cancel the Mapplethorpe exhibition three weeks before its opening, activating a cinematic protest outside the institution. Many lawsuits would ensue, although the exhibitors of this artwork would later be acquitted as the photographs were determined to be indeed an art, not obscene. Mapplethorpe arts thrived on both duality of artistic obscenity and merit, and luckily for the defendants, the US law separates the two. It was evident that his artwork was undoubtedly provocative, and that can be in some ways put as ways to capture some attention. This provocation polarized communities, but a continuity of some sort was ultimately found. The moral universe gaped on imperfectly refastened.

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