A class can be practically advanced while its strata remain ideologically backward.

Evidence

It must however be borne in mind that no new historical situation, however radical the change that has brought it about, completely transforms language, at least in its external formal aspect. But the content of language must be changed, even if it is difficult to have an exact consciousness of the change in immediate terms. The phenomenon is, moreover, historically complex and complicated by the existence of characteristic cultures among the various strata of the new social group, some of whom, in the ideological field, are still immersed in the culture of preceding historical situations, including sometimes the one that has most recently been superseded. A class some of whose strata still have a Ptolemaic conception of the world can none the less be the representative of a very advanced historical situation. Ideologically backward (or at least in certain aspects of their conception of the world, which remains disconnected and ingenuous), these strata are nevertheless very advanced on a practical level, in terms, that is, of economic and political function. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1608

It must however be borne in mind that no new historical situation, however radical the change that has brought it about, completely transforms language, at least in its external formal aspect. But the content of language must be changed, even if it is difficult to have an exact consciousness of the change in immediate terms. The phenomenon is, moreover, historically complex and complicated by the existence of characteristic cultures among the various strata of the new social group, some of whom, in the ideological field, are still immersed in the culture of preceding historical situations, including sometimes the one that has most recently been superseded. A class some of whose strata still have a Ptolemaic conception of the world can none the less be the representative of a very advanced historical situation. Ideologically backward (or at least in certain aspects of their conception of the world, which remains disconnected and ingenuous), these strata are nevertheless very advanced on a practical level, in terms, that is, of economic and political function. If the task of the intellectuals is to determine and to organise the reform of moral and intellectual life, in words to fit culture to the sphere of practice, it is clear that “crystallised” intellectuals are conservative and reactionary. For while the new social group at least feels itself split off and distinct from its predecessor, these intellectuals are not even conscious of this distinction, but think that they can reconnect themselves with the past. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1608

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the lag between material/practical change and ideological-conceptual change in a culture — useful for later Islamophobia readings on how ‘commonsense’ categories persist even as structures shift.
• DEFINE: Defines what it means for strata to be ideologically backward yet practically advanced, and introduces the ‘crystallised intellectual’ as one who fails to feel the break with the past.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1608