Volunteer vanguard action masks rather than replaces mass political passivity

Evidence

The assertion that modern Italy was characterised by volunteer action is correct (commandos in the war could be added to the list), but it must be stressed that this volunteer action, despite its undeniable historical merit, has been a surrogate for popular intervention, and in this sense is a solution of compromise with the passivity of the masses of the nation. Volunteer action and passivity go together more than is thought. The solution involving volunteer action is a solution of authority, from the top down, formally legitimised by the consent, it is claimed, of the ‘best’ elements. But to construct a lasting history the ‘best elements’ are not enough; the vaster and more numerous national-popular energies are needed. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 2234

Categorization

• DEFINE: Distinguishes ‘voluntarism’ (top-down vanguard action by an elite) from genuine mass national-popular action — a key Gramscian conceptual distinction.
• XREF: Connects to Gramsci’s hegemony project and to the later Islamophobia field’s concern with how elites secure consent without genuinely mobilizing the masses. — connects to: Well-funded national advocacy organizations signal grassroots engagement’s absence — Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone The Collapse and Revival…, 504; Volunteers suppress political talk because it would sink their feeling of empowerment; Volunteers and activists invert whether a problem must be political to merit care. — Nina Eliasoph, “Close to home”: The work of avoiding…, 108