Popularity emerges through struggle, so common sense always trails what people could become.
Evidence
For something to become popular entails a struggle; it is never a simple process, as Gramsci reminded us. It doesn’t just happen. And that means there must be always some distance between the immediate practical consciousness or common sense of ordinary people, and what it is possible for them to become. — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 734
Categorization
- DEFINE: Defines the Gramscian gap between ‘common sense’ and potential political consciousness that grounds Hall’s critique of postmodernism.
- XREF: connects to: Popular common sense is sedimented class struggle that can be actively reworked — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 628; Common sense can be worked upon to transform it into conscious class struggle; Culture and common sense are a contested terrain for building popular hegemony (+1 more)
- yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Popular common sense is sedimented class struggle that can be actively reworked — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 628; Common sense can be worked upon to transform it into conscious class struggle; Culture and common sense are a contested terrain for building popular hegemony (+1 more)
Broader Connections
- People’s existing common sense makes them default to views supporting power.
#complicates(0.78) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 1051