The Capitalist Meaning of Culture: Deceptive Enlightenment (3): Hegemony

by Mojtaba Salem

In previous piece, the role of the Mass Media in construction of reality such that the State desires was discussed. This piece discusses the role of entertainment industry in construction of a superficial reality. The entertainment industry appears to complement what news agencies have not been able to accomplish; namely, the passive subordination of people’s consciousness. Simplifying ethics, expected behavior, and social attitudes of citizens is the objective of a market driven entertainment industry, for such general themes can appeal to the lives of the mass of people regardless of their social class. The result is the establishment of a total hegemony, which the state needs to extend its social control over society.

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Hegemony: The Role of Entertainment Industry in Construction of Reality

Constructing what shall be perceived as the truth has nothing to do with coercive power of the state in capitalist societies. While the market-driven power of the mass media adversely affects the ability of the people to reason, it also appeals to the people’s emotions. They must keep a vague perception of certain issues in the back of their minds. This vagueness disappears when news agencies come up with a bunch of proven facts. In other words, no citizen shall stay neutral. Non-neutrality must not be consciously promoted because it may convey an impression of coercion among the people. That is why, a substantial emphasis is directed toward the passivity of promotion strategies. The passive incorporation of a particular mindset into society is possible only via the entertainment industry. No one can even think of such a subtle proselytizing. This is a key element in forming an informational hegemony over a given society and, ultimately, over the entire globe.

Antonio Gramsci describes hegemony as “a complex interlocking of active political, social, and cultural forces” (qtd. in Williams 1277). The weapon that has been developed to establish this hegemony finds its origin in the film industry, the most important of which is the Hollywood. To overwhelm the structure of the people’s feeling, the Hollywood exploits the values it has found within the civic religion. The themes of different movies, with a high degree of certainty, convey the inevitable triumph of the Western civilization over the Other, with whom the people are already familiar via news agencies. “The Matrix” serves as a model to demonstrate how the clash of civilizations is necessary to balance the distribution of power in favor of the good.

In The Matrix, the consequence of when it gets late to defend the civilized world is portrayed. Humanity lives in the virtual world of the Matrix without being even aware of such a miserable life. A number of pure humans, however, bear the burden of the struggle against the Other. In fact, the Matrix itself is the world that the Other has created for the humankind. The essence of the relation on which hostility between the two civilizations has grown is dialectical. That is, no compromise can mediate between the two; peace is reachable only by means of a constant patriotic war. The individuality of each human, further, is constructed against the collective identity of the Other.

An unchallengeable hegemony is established if the audience of The Matrix becomes convinced of the victory of Neo, who is the “promised Savior.” The super-illusionary demonstration of the Savior is to defy any possible question that may arise in the mind of the viewer regarding the materialist essence of the Savior. Neo is a technician rather that a theoretician, which implies the supremacy of materialism and the triviality of supranational thinking. The land of Zion, the only place where humanity could be saved, indicates a practical starting-point for the clash of civilizations: the Middle-East. In 2001, two years after the production of The Matrix, a preventive war on terror was triggered when the mass of the people signaled the green light to their sovereigns to respond to the aggression of the Other.