Philosophical innovation matters when it becomes a mass, popular phenomenon

Evidence

It is not important that this movement had its origins in mediocre philosophical works, or at best, in works that were not philosophical masterpieces. What matters is that a new way of conceiving the world and man is born and that this conception is no longer reserved to the great intellectuals, to professional philosophers, but tends rather to become a popular, mass phenomenon, with a concretely world-wide character, capable of modifying (even if the result includes hybrid combinations) popular thought and mummified popular culture. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1492

Categorization

• XREF: This is the germ of hegemony theory: ideas take effect only when they permeate and modify popular ‘common sense’ thought rather than staying among professional intellectuals.