Hegemonic projects can refashion backward national-popular culture into reactionary formations

Evidence

Gramsci perfectly well understood how popular Catholicism had constituted, under specific Italian conditions, a formidable alternative to the development of a secular and progressive “national-popular” culture, how in Italy it would have to be engaged, not simply wished aside. He likewise understood, as many others did not, the role which fascism played in Italy in “hegemonizing” the backward character of the national-popular culture in Italy and refashioning it into a reactionary national formation, with a genuine popular basis and support. Transferred to other comparable situations, where race and ethnicity have always carried powerful cultural, national-popular connotations, Gramsci’s emphasis should prove immensely enlightening. — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 141

Categorization

• XREF: Model of how reactionary forces ‘hegemonize’ popular culture directly transfers to analyzing racist nationalism in Islamophobia frameworks. — connects to: US military destabilization aimed to transform regional culture into neoliberal values
• DEFINE: Illustrates concretely what ‘hegemonizing’ the national-popular looks like: engaging and reshaping existing popular culture rather than dismissing it.