84    Theodor W. Adorno
life. Not even the most gullible individuals believe that eventually everyone will wi the sweepstakes. The actual function of sentimental music lies rather in the temporar release given to the awareness that one has missed fulfillment.
The emotional listener listens to everything in terms of late romanticism and of th musical commodities derived from it which are already fashioned to fit the needs o emotional listening. They consume music in order to be allowed to weep. They are take in by the musical expression of frustration rather than by that of happiness. The influ ence of the standard Slavic melancholy typified by Tchaikovsky and Dvořák is by fa greater than that of the most 'fulfilled' moments of Mozart or of the young Beethoven The so-called releasing element of music is simply the opportunity to feel somethin But the actual content of this emotion can only be frustration. Emotional musi has become the image of the mother who says, 'Come and weep, my child.' It i catharsis for the masses, but catharsis which keeps them all the more firmly in linei One who weeps does not resist any more than one who marches. Music that permit-its listeners the confession of their unhappiness reconciles them, by means of thi 'release', to their social dependence.
Note§
1.    The basic importance of standardization has not altogether escaped the attention of current literature on popular music. 'The chief difference between a popular song and a standard, or serious, song like "Mandalay", "Sylvia", or "Trees", is that the melody and the lyric o" a popular number are constructed within a definite pattern or structural form, whereas the poem, or lyric, of a standard number has no structural confinements, and the music is free to interpret the meaning and feeling of the words without following a set pattern or form. Putting it another way, the popular song is "custom built", while the standard song allows the composer freer play of imagination and interpretation.' Abner Silver and Robert Bruce, How to Write and Sell a Song Hit (New York, 1939), p. 2. The authors fail, however, to realize the external superimposed, commercial character of those patterns which aims at canalized reactions or, in the language of the regular announcement of one particular radio program, at 'easy listening'. They confuse the mechanical patterns with highly organized, strict art forms: 'Certainly there are few more stringent verse forms in poetry than the sonnet, and yet the greatest poets of all time have woven undying beauty within its small and limited frame. A composer has just as much opportunity for exhibiting his talent and genius in popular songs as in more serious music' (pp. 2-3). Thus the standard pattern of popular music appears to them virtually on the same level as the law of "a fugue. It is this contamination which makes the insight into the basic standardization of popular music sterile. It ought to be added that what Silver and Bruce call a 'standard song' is just the opposite of what we mean by a standardized popular song.
2.    See Max Horkheimer, Zeitschrift fúr Sozialforschung 8 (1939), p. 115.
3.    The attitude of distraction is not a completely universal one. Particularly youngsters who invest popular music with their own feelings are not yet completely blunted to all its effects. The whole problem of age levels with regard to popular music, however, is beyond the scope of the present study. Demographic problems, too, must remain out of consideration.
12
EGEMONY, INTELLECTUALS AND THE STATE
Antonio Gramsci
1 Hegemony
['he methodological criterion on which our own study must be based is the folding: that the supremacy of a social group manifests itself in two ways, as 'dammars and as 'intellectual and moral leadership'. A social group dominates antagonistic
ps, which it tends to 'liquidate', or to subjugate perhaps even by armed force; it kindred and allied groups. A social group can, and indeed must, already exercise
ěrship' before winning governmental power (this indeed is one of the principal Jiitions for the winning of such power); it subsequently becomes dominant when it rcises power, but even if it holds it firmly in its grasp, it must continue to 'lead' as
(pp. 57-8).
<[A] class is dominant in two ways, i.e. 'leading' and 'dominant'. It leads the classes ch are its allies, and dominates those which are its enemies. Therefore, even before íning power a class can (and must) 'lead'; when it is in power it becomes dominant, continues to 'lead' as well. . . there can and must be a 'political hegemony' even
fere the attainment of governmental power, and one should not count solely on power and material force which such a position gives in order to exercise political
äérship or hegemony (p. 57).
/The 'normal' exercise of hegemony on the now classical terrain of the parliament-
- regime is characterised by the combination of force and consent, which balance
h other reciprocally, without force predominating excessively over consent. Indeed,
attempt is always made to ensure that force will appear to be based on the consent
the majority, expressed by the so-called organs of public opinion - newspapers
ü associations - which, therefore, in certain situations, are artificially multiplied
•80).
om Gramsci, A., 1971, Selections from Prison Notebooks (trans. Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey bwell-Smith), London: Lawrence & Wishart.
86    Antonio Gramsci
(d) Undoubtedly the fact of hegemony presupposes that account be taken of the interests and the tendencies of the groups over which hegemony is to be exercised, and that a certain compromise equilibrium should be formed - in other words, that the leading group should make sacrifices of an economic corporate kind. But there is also no doubt that such sacrifices and such a compromise cannot touch the essential; for though hegemony is ethical-political, it must also be economic, must necessarily be based on the decisive nucleus of economic activity (p. 161).
(e) A subsequent moment is the relation of political forces; in other words, an evaluation of the degree of homogeneity, self-awareness, and organisation attained by the various social classes. This moment can in its turn be analysed and differentiated into various levels, corresponding to the various moments of collective political consciousness, as they have manifested themselves in history up till now. The first and most elementary of these is the economic-corporate level: a tradesman feels obliged to stand by another tradesman, a manufacturer by another manufacturer, etc., but the tradesman does not yet feel solidarity with the manufacturer; in other words, the members of the professional group are conscious of its unity and homogeneity, and of the need to organise it, but in the case of the wider social group this is not yet so. A second moment is that in which consciousness is reached of the solidarity of interests among all the members of a social class — but still in the purely economic field. Already at this juncture the problem of the State is posed - but only in terms of winning politico-juridical equality with the ruling groups: the right is claimed to participate in legislation and administration, even to reform these - but within the existing fundamental structures. A third moment is that in which one becomes aware that one's own corporate interests, in their present and future development, transcend the corporate limits of the purely economic class, and can and must become the interests of other subordinate groups too. This is the most purely political phase, and marks the decisive passage from the structure to the sphere of the complex superstructures; it is the phase in which previously germinated ideologies become 'party', come into confrontation and conflict, until only one of them, or at least a single combination of them, tends to prevail, to gain the upper hand, to propagate itself throughout society - bringing about not only unison of economic and political aims, but also intellectual and moral unity, posing all the questions around which the struggle rages not on a corporate but on a 'universal' plane, and thus creating the hegemony of a fundamental social group over a series of subordinate groups, It is true that the State is seen as the organ of one particular group, destined to create favourable conditions for the latter's maximum expansion. But the development and expansion of the particular group are conceived of, and presented, as being the motor force of a universal expansion, of a development of all the 'national' energies. In other words, the dominant group is coordinated concretely with the general interests of th subordinate groups, and the life of the State is conceived of as a continuous process o formation and superseding of unstable equilibria (on the juridical plane) between th interests of the fundamental group and those of the subordinate grqups - equilibria in which the interests of the dominant group prevail, but only up to a certain point, i.~ stopping short of narrowly corporate economic interest (pp. 181—2).
Hegemony, Intellectuals and the State    87
ijiEvery relationship of 'hegemony' is necessarily an educational relationship and urs not only within a nation, between the various forces of which the nation is com-sed  but in the international and worldwide field, between complexes of national £ continental civilisations (p. 350).
2 Intellectuals
JEvery social group, coming into existence on the original terrain of an essential func-! in the world of economic production, creates together with itself, organically, one
lore strata of intellectuals which give it homogeneity and an awareness of its own ction not only in the economic but also in the social and political fields. The cap-ist entrepreneur creates alongside himself the industrial technician, the specialist in ilitical economy, the organisers of a new culture, of a new legal system, etc. [. . . ] f not all entrepreneurs, at least an elite amongst them must have the capacity to be organiser of society in general, including all its complex organism of services, right • to the state organism, because of the need to create the conditions most favourable he expansion of their own class; or at the least they must possess the capacity to bse the deputies (specialised employees) to whom to entrust this activity of organ-g the general system of relationships external to the business itself. It can be erved that the 'organic' intellectuals which every new class creates alongside itself
elaborates in the course of its development are for the most part 'specialisations' > partial aspects of the primitive activity of the new social type which the new class i brought into prominence (p. 5).
'•What are the 'maximum' limits of acceptance of the term 'intellectual'? Can one
d a unitary criterion to characterise equally all the diverse and disparate activities of
éllectuals and to distinguish these at the same time and in an essential way from the
Vities of other social groupings? The most widespread error of method seems to me
ř of having looked for this criterion of distinction in the intrinsic nature of intel-
tual activities, rather than in the ensemble of the system of relations in which these
ivities (and therefore the intellectual groups who personify them) have their place
hin the general complex of social relations. Indeed, the worker or proletarian, for
pie, is not specifically characterised by his manual or instrumental work, but by
orming this work in specific conditions and in specific social relations (apart from
consideration that purely physical labour does not exist [...]: in any physical work,
8 the most degraded and mechanical, there exists a minimum of technical
Ijrication, that is, a minimum of creative intellectual activity). And we have already
rved that the entrepreneur, by virtue of his very function, must have to some degree
rtain number of qualifications of an intellectual nature although his part in society
etermined not by these, but by the general social relations which specifically char-
erise the position of the entrepreneur within industry.
U men are intellectuals, one could therefore say: but not all men have in society
unction of intellectuals.
88    Antonio Gramsci
When one distinguishes between intellectuals and non-intellectuals, one is referring in reality only to the immediate social function of the professional category of the intellectuals, that is, one has in mind the direction in which their specific professional activity is weighted, whether towards intellectual elaboration or towards muscular-nervous effort. This means that, although one can speak of intellectuals, one cannot speak of non-intellectuals, because non-intellectuals do not exist. But even the relationship between efforts of intellectual-cerebral elaboration and muscular-nervous effort is not always the same, so that there are varying degrees of specific intellectual activity. There is no human activity from which every form of intellectual participation can be excluded: Homo faber cannot be separated from Homo sapiens. Each man, finally, outside his professional activity, carries on some form of intellectual activity, that is, he is a 'philosopher', an artist, a man of taste, he participates in a particular conception of the world, has a conscious line of moral conduct, and therefore contributes to sustain a conception of the world or to modify it, that is, to bring into being new modes of thought (pp. 8-9).
(c) Thus there are historically formed specialised categories for the exercise of the intellectual function. They are formed in connection with all social groups, but especially in connection with the more important, and they undergo more extensive and complex elaboration in connection with the dominant social group. One of the most important characteristics of any group that is developing towards dominance is its struggle to assimilate and to conquer 'ideologically' the traditional intellectuals, but this assimilation and conquest is made quicker and more efficacious the more the group in question succeeds in simultaneously elaborating its own organic intellectuals.
The enormous development of activity and organisation of education in the broad sense in the societies that emerged from the medieval world is an index of the importance assumed in the modern world by intellectual functions and categories. Parallel with the attempt to deepen and to broaden the 'intellectuality' of each individual, there has also been an attempt to multiply and narrow the various specialisations. This can be seen from educational institutions at all levels, up to and including the organisms that exist to promote so-called 'high culture' in all fields of science and technology (p. 10).
(d)  What we can do, for the moment, is to fix two major superstructural 'levels': the one that can be called 'civil society', that is the ensemble of organisms commonly called 'private', and that of'political society' or 'the State'. These two levels correspond on the one hand to the functions of 'hegemony' which the dominant group exercises throughout society and on the other hand to that of 'direct domination' or command exercised through the State and 'juridical' government. The functions in question are precisely organisational and connective. The intellectuals are the dominant group's 'deputies' exercising the subaltern functions of social hegemony and political government. These comprise:
1. 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
Hegemony, Intellectuals and the State    89
Vjonsent 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.
he apparatus of state coercive power which 'legally' enforces discipline on those groups who do not 'consent' either actively or passively. This apparatus is, however, constituted for the whole of society in anticipation of moments of crisis of command and direction when spontaneous consent has failed (p. 12).
France offers the example of an accomplished form of harmonious development the energies of the nation and of the intellectual categories in particular. When in $9 a new social grouping makes its political appearance on the historical stage, it is eady completely equipped for all its social functions and can therefore struggle for tal domination of the nation. It does not have to make any essential compromises with é'old classes but instead can subordinate them to its own ends. The first intellectual fs of the new type are born along with their first economic counterparts. [. . . ] This assive intellectual construction explains the function of culture in France in the hteenth and nineteenth centuries. [. . . ] 'in England the development is very different from France. The new social group-that grew up on the basis of modern industrialism shows a remarkable economic-rporate development but advances only gropingly in the intellectual-political field, jiere is a very extensive category of organic intellectuals — those, that is, who come t!o existence on the same industrial terrain as the economic group - but in the higher here we find that the old landowning class preserves its position of virtual monopoly, loses its economic supremacy but maintains for a long time a political-intellectual 'upremacy and is assimilated as 'traditional intellectuals' and as a directive group by he new group in power. The old landowning aristocracy is joined to the industrialists a kind of suture which is precisely that which in other countries unites the tradi-,,6'nal intellectuals with the new dominant classes (p. 18).
5 The State
In my opinion, the most reasonable and concrete thing that can be said about Ěťe ethical State, the cultural State, is this: every State is ethical inasmuch as one of its most important functions is to raise the great mass of the population to a par-cular cultural and moral level, a level (or type) which corresponds to the needs of he productive forces for development, and hence to the interests of the ruling classes. he school as a positive educative function, and the courts as a repressive and negative educative function, are the most important State activities in this sense: but, in jieality, a multitude of other so-called private initiatives and activities tend to the same end - initiatives and activities which form the apparatus of the political and cultural hegemony of the ruling classes (p. 258).
(.b) Government with the consent of the governed - but with this consent organised, jänd not generic and vague as it is expressed in the instant of elections. The State does
90    Antonio Gramsci
have and request consent, but it also 'educates' this consent, by means of the political and syndical associations; these, however, are private organisms, left to the privat-initiative of the ruling class (p. 259).
(c) The previous ruling classes were essentially conservative in the sense that they did not tend to construct an organic passage from the other classes into their own, i.e. to enlarge their class sphere 'technically' and ideologically: their conception was that of a closed caste. The bourgeois class poses itself as an organism in continuous movement, capable of absorbing the entire society, assimilating it to its own cultural and economic level. The entire function of the State has been transformed; the State has become an 'educator', etc. (p. 260).
(d)  We are still on the terrain of the identification of State and government -an identification which is precisely a representation of the economic—corporate form, in other words, of the confusion between civil society and political society, For it should be remarked that the general notion of State includes elements which need to be referred back to the notion of civil society (in the sense that one might say that State = political society + civil society, in other words, hegemony protected by the armour of coercion). In a doctrine of the State which conceives the latter as tendentially capable of withering away and of being subsumed into regulated society, the argument is a fundamental one. It is possible to imagine the coercive element of the State withering away by degrees, as ever more conspicuous elements of regulated society (or ethical State or civil society) make their appearance (pp. 262-3).
(e) Educative and formative role of the State. Its aim is always that of creating new and higher types of civilisation; of adapting the 'civilisation' and the morality of the broadest popular masses to the necessities of the continuous development of the economic apparatus of production; hence of evolving even physically new types of humanity (p. 242).
(f)  In reality, the State must be conceived of as an 'educator', inasmuch as it tends precisely to create a new type or level of civilisation. Because one is acting essentially on economic forces, reorganising and developing the apparatus of economic production, creating a new structure, the conclusion must not be drawn that superstructural factors should be left to themselves, to develop spontaneously, to a haphazard and sporadic germination. The State, in this field, too, is an instrument of 'rationalisation', of acceleration [...]. It operates according to a plan, urges, incites, solicits, and 'punishes'; for, once the conditions are created in which a certain way of life is 'possible', then 'criminal action or omission' must have a punitive sanction, with moral implications, and not merely be judged generically as 'dangerous'. The Law is the repressive and negative aspect of the entire positive, civilising activity undertaken by the State. The 'prize-giving' activities of individuals and groups, etc., must alsobe incorporated in the conception of the Law; praiseworthy and meritorious activity is rewarded, just
Hegemony, Intellectuals and the State    91
riminal actions are punished (and punished in original ways, bringing in 'public jon' as a form of sanction) (p. 247).
[T]he State is the entire complex of practical and theoretical activities with which ruling class not only justifies and maintains its dominance, but manages to win the ive consent of those over whom it rules [.] (p. 244).