Intellectual struggle targets representative exponents, not every individual opinion holder

Evidence

The possibility of error must be asserted and justified, but without being untrue to one’s own conception, because what counts is not the opinion of Tom, Dick and Harry, but that ensemble of opinions which have become collective, a social element and a social force. These are the opinions that must be refuted, in the person of those of their theoretical exponents who are most representative and indeed worthy of respect for the high quality of their thought and for their “disinterestedness” in the immediate term. Nor should this be done with the idea that one has thereby destroyed the corresponding social element and social force (which would be pure enlightenment rationalism) but only with the idea of having contributed 1. to maintaining and strengthening among one’s own side the spirit of distinction and division; and 2. to preparing the ground for one’s own side to absorb and give life to an original doctrine of its own, corresponding to its own conditions of life. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1563

Categorization

Category: Definitional Content

• DEFINE: Key mechanism for how a social force is refuted through its theoretical exponents rather than destroyed outright - central to Gramscian hegemony/polemics vocabulary.
• XREF: Connects directly to Gramsci’s concept of common sense and the role of intellectuals in Islamophobia readings; also parallels the law merchant’s reputation-as-collective norms idea from the reader’s library.

Related

• Mass ideology must be distinguished from its great philosophical cornerstones (similarity 0.82)
• Everyone possesses intellectual activity; intellectuals are a trained social stratum, not a separate species (similarity 0.79)
• Intellectuals are class-bound, not an autonomous social category (similarity 0.79)
• Intellectuals act as functionaries of the superstructures mediating society and production (similarity 0.79)
• Redefining intellectuals by social function clashes with caste preconceptions (similarity 0.79)
• Philosophy becomes historically true by diffusing into the popular mentality. (similarity 0.79)
• Gramsci’s project centers on forging working-class organic intellectuals (similarity 0.79)
• Philosophy’s history must include mass worldviews and ruling groups, not just philosophers (similarity 0.79)
• Gramsci’s theory is fundamentally polemical rather than disinterested. (similarity 0.78)
• Intellectuals who remain detached from popular passions become a caste, not leaders (similarity 0.78)
• Intellectuals’ self-image as autonomous stems from their historical esprit de corps (similarity 0.78)
• Philosophy of praxis elevates the masses rather than preserves their common sense. (similarity 0.78)
• Ideology can be reconceived as a terrain of struggle, drawing on Gramsci and Laclau. (similarity 0.78)
• The intellectual category is a class myth; intellectuals divide into traditional and organic (similarity 0.78)