Popular masses accept new ideas only as heterogeneous combinations, not pure forms

Evidence

In reality these elements will vary according to social groups and the cultural level of the groups in question. But the enquiry has a particular interest in relation to the popular masses, who are slower to change their conceptions, or who never change them in the sense of accepting them in their “pure” form, but always and only as a more or less heterogeneous and bizarre combination. The rational and logically coherent form, the exhaustive reasoning which neglects no argument, positive or negative, of any significance, has a certain importance, but is far from being decisive. It can be decisive, but in a secondary way, when the person in question is already in a state of intellectual crisis, wavering between the old and the new, when he has lost his faith in the old and has not yet come down in favour of the new, etc. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1215

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes how hegemonic diffusion actually lands among subaltern masses — as hybrid mixtures, never pure doctrine — a core mechanism for ideological change.
• XREF: Connects forward to later Islamophobia readings on how hegemonic Islamophobic discourse is absorbed and recombined by ordinary publics, never in pure ideological form. — connects to: Unorthodox minority ideas depend on wealthy iconoclasts for funding — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1475; Ideas spread when they articulate a public’s preexisting unease, not by their novelty. — Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone The Collapse and Revival…, 2640
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1215