Popular psychological study must actively transform common sense into modern mentality

Evidence

However, De Man does have one incidental merit: he demonstrates the need to study and develop the elements of popular psychology, historically and sociologically, actively (i.e. in order to transform them, by educating them, into a modern mentality) and descriptively as he does. But this need was at least implicit (perhaps even explicitly stated) in the doctrine of Ilitch [Lenin]—something of which De Man is entirely ignorant. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 805

Categorization

• DEFINE: The purpose of studying popular psychology is transformative education, not appreciation — culture must be actively directed toward a modern mentality.