Hegemony: concepts, history, and contemporary applications

Hegemony

Humankind has always had its basic ethics and an important characteristic of humans is that there always were leaders and subordinates. One's place within society has to be clearly defined, as it is not possible for one to live without being aware of the attributes that he or she possesses. All humans generally aspire to a greater position in the social order from where they would be superior to others.

The term "leader" can be far more complex and it can even refer to a country or a certain race. There are examples world wide of nations which clearly distinguish themselves from the others because of several reasons and while some are seen as favorable for being leaders, others often attempt to force their way into leadership. For a leader it is most important for those that are subjects to accept and to enjoy the ruling so that a safe connection is made between the two parts.

Hegemony is the term that refers to "the exercise of intellectual leadership by a particular class" (Leland, 1997) and "a crucial part of this definition is that the ruling class's view on the world, especially on the social world and how it works, is accepted by most members of a society as correct." (Leland, 1997) Hence, if the bond between a master and his subjects would be consented by both parts involved, the hegemonic system would be present.

The term originally comes from Antonio Gramsci, which formulated it as a method of understanding how a social class can rule over another whereas the latter considers the matter to be perfectly natural. (Chandler) Despite the fact that Gramsci was a devoted communist, he presented the concept of hegemony clearly and without any intervention concerning his communist affinities. (Browning)

Today, the opinions concerning a certain country adopting a hegemonic system are controversial as despite the fact that most people would consider the U.S. To have all that makes a good leader, there are several beliefs that the country's qualities have faded in time. Some opinions even go as far as considering it to be naive for one to believe that the U.S. is economically and politically capable of holding the responsibilities of the world. What is more interesting is that while the U.S. has lost some of its glory, other nations have attracted the attention of the rest of the world because of their flourishing economies and political systems. (Schmidt) However, the U.S. is not going to drop that easily, as it has been, and still is, the center of the world's economy. Most of the credit that is owed to the U.S. is because of the fact that it has assisted several other economies into working effectively. During recent years, the U.S. economical system has been going through difficulties, some even considering it is going through a recession. That is partially due to the disapproval of some countries that do not approve of the U.S. having gone to war several times, despite the fact that the war that it was getting involved in did not concern them directly.