Hypocrisy

The Pillar of Bourgeoise Hegemony

Morning Comrades.

On Monday I raised the point that hypocrisy, as witnessed daily since before any of us can remember, is the one of the most obvious and most vital pillars of bourgeoise hegemony. This raised some questions and we are going to elaborate on those. For today, let’s keep it confined to the hypocrisy we witnessed since Trump got shot, just for the sake of brevity here.

Hypocrisy, in the context of modern democracies, refers to the discrepancy between the professed ideals of freedom, equality, and democracy and the reality of systemic inequality, exploitation, and oppression. This contradiction is not incidental but rather a fundamental feature of bourgeois ideology. Antonio Gramsci introduced the concept of cultural hegemony, which explains how the ruling class maintains power not only through coercion but also through the consent of the governed. This consent is manufactured by propagating values and beliefs that mask the true nature of capitalist exploitation. As Gramsci wrote, the ruling class "wields its power through the successful inculcation of a hegemonic culture" that legitimizes their dominance.

Hypocrisy manifests in various forms, such as the rhetoric of equal opportunity and meritocracy, which suggests that anyone can succeed through hard work. This narrative obscures the structural barriers that prevent the working class from achieving true upward mobility. By promoting the illusion of a fair system, the bourgeoisie ensures that the proletariat remains invested in the very structures that oppress them. Marx himself noted this phenomenon in his analysis of commodity fetishism, where the social relations of production are obscured by the market dynamics, making exploitation appear as a natural and inevitable part of economic life.

If we then look at the hypocrisy at play in regards to Trump’s shooting this then all becomes even clearer and reitirates the conclusion I posited on Monday, see this theatre for what it is. One cannot condemn political violence if ones entire existence is violent. We will examine this through the eyes of reality, with excursions into Gramsci and Althusser.