I had not encountered theories of posthegemony, and was
enthusiastic (delighted?) to read other (contemporary) articulations of the
political and of the way power functions. It was also interesting to continue
the theme of difference and sameness which came up in Los Planetas, but from an
entirely different theoretical framework. The readings this week actually spoke
to a number of themes which have run through the class this semester: the
limits of social intelligibility and the disruption to the social order
(hegemony) that these representable forces create (even if hegemony excludes
them- through the act of excluding that which does not fit is reaffirmed; also Williams
on the unifying image today being the exhaustion of unifying images; as well as
the idea of inheritance which we have circled around in class (as he states-
our inheritance is the exhaustion of modernity it is also what creates
subjectivity if I am reading him correctly), as well as memory. According to
Williams, hegemony is active forgetting it is the repression and exclusion of heterogeneity. He uses the language of the specter
and haunting to address that which does not fit the hegemonic model. He also
spoke to Gabrielle Basterra’s lecture on the ethics of the radical other, addressing
the exposure of hegemonic to radical alterity- an outside which signals a
different way to think, and the other thought within thought- the heterogeneous,
disruptive, interruptive remainder to and within hegemonic reflection (149).
In response to your question, perhaps post-hegemony show symptoms of an awakening, herein social order can no longer be completely homogeneous. Hegemony is less likely due to the transparency of its exertion over society and the human fact that through habit new habits emerge and supersede them. The question lies whether the "specter" of hegemony lives within our awareness of hegemonic control. Its invisible grip remains through its opposite.
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