Territorial dispersal leaves landed strata ideologically volatile and slow to organize

Evidence

This social stratum finds its limits, and the reasons for its ultimate weakness, in its territorial dispersal and in the “non-homogeneity” which is intimately connected to this dispersal. This explains some of its other characteristics too: its volubility, the multiplicity of ideological systems it follows, even the bizarre nature of the ideologies it sometimes follows. Its will is directed towards a specific end—but it is retarded, and usually requires a lengthy process before it can become politically and organisationally centralised. This process accelerates when the specific “will” of this stratum coincides with the will and the immediate interests of the ruling class; not only that, but its “military strength” then at once reveals itself, so that sometimes, when organised, it lays down the law to the ruling class, at least as far as the “form” of solution is concerned, if not the content. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 839

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains Gramsci’s mechanism linking class structure (dispersal) to ideological bizarreness and political backwardness.