Gramsci reads Machiavelli as legitimizing political leaders who defy reigning ideology

Evidence

It seems clear that Machiavelli wished to persuade these forces of the necessity of having a leader who knew what he wanted and how to obtain it, and of accepting him with enthusiasm even if his actions might conflict or appear to conflict with the generalised ideology of the time—religion. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 622

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• XREF: The friction between political necessity and generalized ideology anticipates Gramsci’s account of how revolutionary doctrine must break hegemonic common sense.

Related

• Machiavelli wrote as an agitator urging action, not as a systematic theorist (similarity 0.83)
• Machiavelli’s politics demanded drawing rulers closer to the people (similarity 0.83)
• Machiavelli’s political theory centers on securing permanent consent through the art of governing. (similarity 0.82)
• Machiavelli must be read as historically situated, not as a timeless political scientist (similarity 0.82)
• Machiavelli’s logical argument functions as the people’s own inner reasoning (similarity 0.80)
• Machiavelli’s political priorities distort his military theory (similarity 0.80)
• Communists feared accepting reformist leadership would liquidate revolutionary perspective. (similarity 0.80)
• Effective reality is a shifting equilibrium of forces, not a static ground (similarity 0.80)
• Machiavelli’s work is political action, not utopian blueprint or abstract science. (similarity 0.80)
• Machiavelli’s science of state mirrors the era’s drive toward absolute monarchies (similarity 0.79)
• The scope of political analysis determines whether change seems possible (similarity 0.79)
• Gramsci believed bourgeois state forces would migrate to the democratic opposition (similarity 0.79)
• Gramsci’s leadership combined anti-sectarian party norms with mass responsiveness (similarity 0.79)
• Gramsci proposes virtues that sustain a party’s hegemonic culture against older ones (similarity 0.79)
• Machiavelli’s realism derives rules from objective conditions rather than ethics (similarity 0.78)