Mafia-ology: The Terroni-ization of Southern-Italian Americans … A Gramsci Hegemony/Culture War Analysis

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Prefatory Note on Gramsci

I find Gramsci’s writing enigmatic. Accordingly, I turn to “scholars” for explication. However, for the most part, I find they “wrap the enigma in a mystery and present it as a riddle” (paraphrase Churchill about Soviet Union). I’m not alone. No less an intellectual than Rutgers History Professor T.J. Jackson Lears, writes:

“I will explore the implications of Gramsci’s concept of cultural hegemony for historians but do not pretend to give a comprehensive account of Gramsci’s voluminous, chaotic, and mostly untranslated writings. Many scholars are far more qualified than I am…To me Gramsci’s work suggest the starting points for rethinking some fundamental issues in recent interpretations of American history.” (“The American Historical Review” 6/93 p. 567)

Similarly, this present ‘note’ uses Gramsci’s concept of “cultural hegemony” as a starting point for an interpretation of southern Italian and southern-Italian American history.

Hegemony

Prof. Lear makes the cogent point that while the concept of cultural hegemony is fundamental to Gramsci’s philosophy and socio-historical analysis, he does not precisely define the concept. Lear writes:

“Gramsci’s translated writings contain no precise definition of cultural hegemony. What comes closest is his often-quoted characterization of hegemony as:

‘…the spontaneous’ consent given by the great masses of the population to the general direction imposed on social life by the dominant fundamental group; this consent is ‘historically’ caused by the prestige (and consequent confidence ) which the dominant group enjoys because of its position and function in the world of production.’ (“Prison Notebooks”)

[Accordingly] the concept can only be understood within a variety of historical and intellectual contexts.” (p. 568 emp.+)

In short, to my mind, the lack of precise definition should not be construed as a shortcoming or weakness in Gramsci’s thinking. Precise definitions are a luxury enjoyed only in the mathematical natural sciences such as chemistry and physics.

Social phenomena do not lend themselves to precise definitions, for there are far too many variations (diversity) from individual to individual, group to group and society to society. Accordingly, social scientist and social scientific minded historians must seek common and reoccurring patterns of behavior in the diversity.

Gramsci ‘saw’ just such a common pattern in the juxtaposition of “consent and force” in social history. Prof. Lear writes:

“For Gramsci, consent and force nearly always coexist, though one or the other predominates.

Thus, what Gramsci seems to be saying is that throughout history, in virtually (literally) all societies, one may observe the dynamic interplay between groups characterized by one group forcing consent upon another group.

For example, in the nineteenth century it was said: "The sun never sets on the British Empire.” Think of the incredible masses of people (India alone) that those very few Victorian English “Lords” held sway over. Those few aristocrats could only dominate those worldwide masses by forced consent. In the twentieth century many of those masses withdrew their consent and revolted against British rule (e.g. India). Similarly, France and Algeria.

Two Forms of Force

Force, it is very important to understand, by which the few (i.e. dominant group) gain the consent of and dominate the many (i.e. subordinant groups) is exerted in two forms: coercion force and hegemony force. And, the proportion of one or the other varies from place to place and time to time. Sometimes a great deal of coercion is needed; other time less coercion and more hegemony.

In some societies a dominant group uses a great deal of coercive military force in order to control subordinant groups. In other societies, a dominate group may control subordinant groups by hegemonically garnering the consent of the subordinant groups.

For example, Prof. Lears writes:

“The tsarist regime ruled primarily through domination – that is by monopolizing the instruments of coercion.

Among parliamentary regimes only the weakest are forced to rely on domination; normally they rule through hegemony …the aura of moral authority [and] consent of subordinate groups to the existing social order”(p.569)

Hegemony / Culture War

More recently, some scholars have introduced the phrase Culture War in discussions about Gramsci and Hegemony.

For example, University of Chicago Ph.D. and a Senior Fellow and Director of the Center for American Common Culture at the Hudson Institute, John Fonte’s article “Why There is a Culture War - Gramsci and Tocqueville in America” is an explication and application of Gramsci’s hegemony to contemporary American politics. (see:http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/7809 [4]).

To my mind, the word Hegemony denotes the completed process of domination, as in: the minority group super-rich (aka 1% ers) dominates (present tense) the majority group (aka 99% ers). The cultural domination is complete; it is not in a state of process. Just as victory, in a military war, denotes the completed process military domination.

Alternatively, Culture War implies that the domination is not yet complete. One group is actively in the process of seeking (present progressive tense) to dominate another group culturally, but has not fully succeeded. The objective of a culture war is to get to the point of complete hegemonic cultural domination.

The phase ‘culture war’ is a translation of the German word Kulturkampf, i.e. ‘a struggle to control the culture’ (note: ‘struggle’ implies ongoing process)

For example, in late nineteenth-century Germany, chancellor Otto von Bismarck is said to have launched a Kulturkampf against the Catholic Church, expelling Jesuits from the country and passing laws that restricted the church’s influence in education and politics.

Bismarck’s group engaged in a culture war with the Catholic group. The objective of Bismarck’s culture war was to achieve cultural hegemony over the Catholics; i.e. substituting the cultural values of the Bismarck group for the Catholic culture values.

Post-Risorgimento Southern Italy

After the Piedmontese, defeated and destroyed the armies of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies (1861), the military war came to an end. The Piedmontese had achieved victory by defeating the military of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

After the military victory, the Culture War began. This is say; the Piedmontese set about to ‘defeat’ and ‘destroy’ the culture of the Patria Meridionale. The so-called Risorgimento marks the beginning of the Piedmontese cultural war against the culture of the people South of Rome.

The culture war continued until well into the twentieth century before Southern Culture succumbed (Terroni-ized: defeated and destroyed), i.e. the Piedmontese achieved Cultural Hegemony!

Intellectuals as the Instruments of Domination

Gramsci points out the role of intellectuals in education institutions (e.g. universities) in Culture War and Hegemony.

The dominant group (i.e. class) controls the institutions that employ the ‘intellectuals’ (professors, journalist, writers, artist, etc.). The dominant group (i.e. class) hires these subordinate working class ‘intellectuals’. The job of the ‘intellectuals’ is to inculcate / indoctrinate the subordinate groups (i.e. classes) with the culture values of the dominant group – that’s what the intellectuals are paid for. If they don’t do that job effectively, they are fired!

Prof. Fonte refers to:

“Gramsci’s understanding of the role of intellectuals [and] the world views of the predominant groups as instruments of domination.

In short, in Culture War, the intellectuals are the ‘front line soldiers’ (so to speak). They are the ones who engage the subordinate groups in ‘cultural combat’ (so to speak) foisting the cultural values of the dominant group upon the subordinate group.

Terroni-ism as Culture War

As stated: by the twentieth century the people of the Two Sicilies came to be physically dominated. The Piedmont military war ended and the Piedmont Culture War began.

As per Gramsci, philo-Piedmont Intellectuals in universities and mass media replaced the Piedmont soldiers in the field.

The success of the philo-Piedmont Intellectuals in transforming and subordinating the culture of southern Italy and Sicily is truly remarkable.

To my mind an absolutely paradigmatic characterization of the role of intellectuals as culture warriors, acting as the dominant group’s instruments of domination, is eloquently expressed in Pino Aprile’s Terroni”:

“Through a cultural lobotomy, the South was deprived of its self-awareness; its memory” (p.8)

Essentially, the philo-Piedmontese intellectual culture warriors lobotomized (destroyed) the history and culture of Patria Meridionale.

This Gramsci-esque cultural hegemonic lobotomizing process may be characterized as a Culture War against the Patria Meridionle population.

The dominate [Piedmontese] group, using intellectuals as instruments of [cultural] domination, lobotomized the people of southern Italy and Sicily causing them to ‘forget’ their unique political, economic and cultural history, and accept as their own the the foreign Piedmontese world view.

Terroni Culture War in America

In America, this blog has documented repeatedly and extensively the culture war waged against the Patria Meridionale cultural heritage of the near seventeen million southern-Italian Americans.

As in southern Italy, the soldiers in the southern-Italian American Culture War, the cultural lobotomist and instruments of domination are, as per Gramsci, the intellectuals in the Italian Studies programs of American universities, which foist northern Italian history and culture on the southern Italian diaspora. (see “Related Articles” box: “Blog Index” - sections “Terroni” & "Education")

However, the cultural domination is not achieved solely by simply substituting one culture for another (i.e. northern culture for southerner). Before the new dominate culture can be planted, the cultural field must be prepared for cultivation. That takes the form of denigrating and obliterating the conquered culture. The southern Italian culture had to be denigrated, made to look inferior, and made to disappear before the northern culture can take hold and flourish.

Mafia-ology as Terroni Culture War

The most obvious manifestation of Patria Meridionale culture war denigration is the relentless inundation of mafia material coming forth from the intellectuals working for the dominate class opinion making institutions (e.g. universities, journalism amd entertainment). The combined effect of this inundation is the creation of mindset of a criminal culture inherent in the history and culture of southern Italy, Sicily and the American diaspora.

In sum, the many (i.e. near seventeen million southern-Italian Americans) are culturally dominated by the few (i.e. dominate class intellectual opinion makers in academia, journalism and entertainment).

Gramsci Class Character of Mafia-ology

The fountainhead of the mafia cultural view comes from academic intellectuals who put forth ostensively objective, even social scientific, representations of Mafia history (e.g. Lupo, Dickie, Paoli, Schneider, etc).

Such academic intellectuals are acting the role of instruments of the dominating class, by ignoring the vastly greater crimes of the dominating class that support the universities, and immunize the dominate class for their responsibility and culpability in mafia crime.

Gramsci, Fonte writes:

Unlike Marx, who divided society dichotomously into two categories e.g. oppressor and oppressed, Gramsci saw the ‘oppressed’ not as a single homogenous class; rather, an aggregation of different categories of oppression e.g. women, racial minorities, and many criminals …”

Thus, for example, in Sicily circa 1900 (midpoint of the great diasporic emigration period) there were various types of oppressed people, to include many criminals. “Criminals” being understood as dominated class people who resorted to crime in an effort to mitigate the pain of poverty conditions created by the insatiably greedy dominant-class.

Consider for example, the sulfur mining industry as a Mafia “breeding ground”.

“…organization of the mine crews that worked the sulphur deposits that seems to foreshadow some of the structures later found in the Sicilian Mafia .

“..the nature of work in the mines, brutal, toxic, and violent, that made the setting such a breeding ground for the characteristics of the Mafia (“History of the Mafia”, S. Lupo, p. x)

While there is extensive discussion of the Mafiosi associated with the mines by Lupo and other mafia-ologists, little consideration is given to those responsible for creating those, "breeding grounds"; such as the aristocracy, bourgeois and finance capital (e.g. "Excellent Cadaver" Notarbartolo's Bank of Sicily).

All the academic ink spilt on the Mafia and virtually nothing on the 'breeding ground" i.e. the sociological/political/economic conditions that give rise to the mafia - the mafia does not create its own breeding ground; it did not create the sulfur mine conditions.

Historian Dennis Mack Smith reports:

"Seventy-five families, the latifondisti of the area, owned most of the sulphur industry, such was their political pressure that the Piedmontese mining law, quite exceptionally, was not extended to Sicily in 1861.

The mines were mostly let to gabelloti ...

According to official figures the landlords continued to take between 20-40 per cent of the profits in return for no work and no monetary investment, and one instance was mention in parliament of 67 percent...

Quite apart from the additional percentage due to the gabelloto, ground rent for a mine could be more than the wages of all the miners put together. ( Modern Sicily After 1713, p. 476)

Now consider the working conditions in those mines owned by seventy-five latifonisti families. Booker T. Washington’s report of what he saw in the Sicilian sulfur mine “mafia breeding grounds”, in his 1910 book “The Man Furthest Down”.

Keeping in mind that Washington himself was a former American slave and coal miner!!!

READ AND WEEP- Life of the Sicilian boy-slaves:

“Strange and terrible stories are told about the way in which these boy slaves have been treated by their masters…one sees processions of half-naked boys, their bodies bowed under the heavy weight of the loads they carried, groaning and cursing as they made their way up out of the hot and sulphurous holes in the earth, carrying the ore from the mine to the smelter…

“The cruelties to which the child slaves have been subjected, as related by those who have studied them, are as bad as anything that was ever reported of the cruelties of Negro slavery. These boy slaves were frequently beaten and pinched, in order to wring from their overburdened bodies the last drop of strength they had in them. When beatings did not suffice, it was the custom to singe the calves of their legs with lanterns to put them again on their feet. If they sought to escape from this slavery in flight, they were captured and beaten, sometimes even killed.

“As they climbed out of the hot and poisonous atmosphere of the mines their bodies, naked to the waist and dripping with sweat, were chilled by the cold draughts in the corridors leading out of the mines, and this sudden transition was the frequent cause of pneumonia and tuberculosis.

“Children of six and seven years of age were employed at these crushing and terrible tasks. Under the heavy burdens (averaging about forty pounds) they were compelled to carry, they often became deformed, and the number of cases of curvature of the spine and deformations of the bones of the chest reported was very large. More than that, these children were frequently made the victims of the lust and unnatural vices of their masters. It is not surprising, therefore, that they early gained the appearance of gray old men, and that it has become a common saying that a caruso rarely reaches the age of twenty five.”

“It seemed incredible to me [a former American slave and miner] that any one could live and work in such heat… in a burrow, twisting and winding its way, but going constantly deeper and deeper into the dark depths of the earth where the miners loosen the ore from the walls of the seams in which it is found, and then it is carried up out of these holes in sacks by the carusi.”

“All the ore is carried on the backs of boys. In cases where the mine descended to the depth of two, three, or four hundred feet, the task of carrying these loads of ore to the surface is simply heartbreaking. I can well understand that persons who have seen conditions at the worst should speak of the children who have been condemned to this slavery as the most unhappy creatures on earth.

Mr. Washington sums up:

“I am not prepared just now to say to what extent I believe in a physical hell in the next world, but a sulphur mine in Sicily is about the nearest thing to hell that I expect to see in this life.”

Note: "ALL of the ore is carried on the backs of boys", implies that ever single dime that went into the bank accouts of the seventy-five familes literally came of the backs of those Sicilian Slave Children. Tell me again professor about the "Excellent Cadavers"!!!

Is the mafia responsible for creating and perpetuating that Hell?!

We have volumes written about ever concieable facet and minutia of Mafia Families (see Lupo's gossipy 921 footnoted "History of the Mafia")

Why are there not similar volumes about the Sulfur Families? And, all the other upper class Families in Rome and the Piedmont that allowed indeed cultivated the nearest thing to hell in this life - the Mafia breeding grounds?

Ask the dominant class's intellectuals!