The national-popular is a cultural historic bloc between mass and national aspirations, not populism
Evidence
The notion of the “popular-national” (or, more frequently “national-popular”) is one of the most interesting and also most widely criticised ideas in Gramsci’s thought. Supposedly at the origin of the cultural policy of the PCI since the war, it is perhaps best taken as describing a sort of “historic bloc” between national and popular aspirations in the formation of which the intellectuals, in the wide, Gramscian use of the term play an essential mediating role. It is important to stress, however, that it is a cultural concept, relating to the position of the masses within the culture of the nation, and radically alien to any form of populism or “national socialism”. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 2703
Categorization
Category: Definitional Content
- DEFINE: Defines the national-popular concept as a cultural historic bloc mediated by intellectuals.
- XREF: Connects to Gramsci’s theory of hegemony and intellectuals as mediators; the ‘wide Gramscian use of intellectuals’ echoes the organic-traditional distinction appearing elsewhere in the Notebooks.
Related
- The national-popular is a cultural historic bloc mediated by intellectuals, not populism (similarity 0.98)
- A national-popular bloc requires religious and intellectual cohesion between elite and masses (similarity 0.83)
- Gramsci treats culture as the terrain where hegemony is won and contested (similarity 0.81)
- Culture and common sense are a contested terrain for building popular hegemony (similarity 0.80)
- Religion can bind intellectuals and masses only when it originates from the people (similarity 0.79)
- Cultural unity among an elite cannot substitute for political unity of the masses. (similarity 0.78)
- Mass ideology must be distinguished from its great philosophical cornerstones (similarity 0.78)
- Italian ‘internationalism’ was actually medieval Catholic cosmopolitanism without national consciousness (similarity 0.78)