Law functions to make the ruling group homogeneous and create social conformism

Evidence

An aspect of the question alluded to elsewhere of “Dilettantism and Discipline”, 250 from the point of view of the organising centre of a grouping is that of the “continuity” which tends to create a “tradition”—understood of course in an active and not a passive sense: as continuity in continuous development, but “organic development”. This problem contains in a nutshell the entire “juridical problem”, i.e. the problem of assimilating the entire grouping to its most advanced fraction; it is a problem of education of the masses, of their “adaptation” in accordance with the requirements of the goal to be achieved. This is precisely the function of law in the State and in society; through “law” the State renders the ruling group “homogeneous”, and tends to create a social conformism which is useful to the ruling group’s line of development. The general activity of law (which is wider than purely State and governmental activity and also includes the activity involved in directing civil society, in those zones which the technicians of law call legally neutral—i.e. in morality and in custom generally) serves to understand the ethical problem better, in a concrete sense. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 800

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the juridical problem: law as the instrument rendering a ruling group homogeneous and producing useful social conformism.
• XREF: Core Gramscian machinery — connects directly to hegemony and the education of the masses, which later Islamophobia-critical readings build on. — connects to: A civil norm requires both widespread conformity and public approval of conformity; Ascribed-status societies codified lifestyle privileges and justice by class tier through law. — W. David Marx, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for…, 147
• ADDENDUM: The ‘social conformism’ produced by law parallels the moral regulation of dress and custom in the immodesty article.