Gramsci questions whether intellectuals are an autonomous group, that is to say: are they separated from class structure or does every social group have its own specialized category of intellectuals. For Gramsci this is a complex problem because the historical formation of different categories of intellectuals has assumed a variety of forms.
According to Gramsci, intellectuals are not independent but rather they are the products of the class to which they are born in. Within the genre of class or organic intellectuals there are social and political fields of intellectuals.
Intellectuals which are part of groups seen to be continuously in existence, despite social and political changes, such as the clergy who are involved in not only religious ideology, but schools, education, morality, justice, charity, good works, ECT think of themselves as autonomous and independent of the dominant social group, but, that is all an allusion.
This is not to say that all men are not intellectuals rather that not all men have in society the function of intellectuals. Every man in his own right is conscious of moral conduct, is a philosopher, an artist, a man of taste, who participates in his/her particular conception of the world. Thus every man contributes to and sustains a conception of the world or an effort to modify it.
Gramsci wants to nourish a new intellectualism that works against eloquence and focuses on an active participation in practical life, as constructor, organizer, permanent persuader, and is not just a simple orator.
Intellectuals are formed in connection with social groups and these intellectuals are made complex and are elaborated by the dominant social group. For one class of intellectuals to become the dominant force they must struggle against assimilation while attempting to conquer the ideology of the present “traditional” intellectuals. Intellectuals are elaborated by way of schools. The more extensive the ‘area’ covered by education, the more numerous the vertical levels of schooling and subsequently the more complex the cultural/civilized world. Different classes are more given to becoming intellectuals while different categories within these classes gravitate towards particular specializations.
Superstructure levels: civilized society and political society. The ruling class works through political society and intellectuals are the deputies of the ruling class (function of the world of production). However, in the position of deputies some intellectuals are agents while others are visionaries
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