espouses at a systematic (rational) level and one's conduct as determined by 'common sense'. Hence we arrive at Gramsci's notion of 'contradictory consciousness' and of a distinction between intellectual choice and 'real activity'. ³ Gramsci himself, as is now increasingly appreciated in Britain from the new translations of his cultural writings, ⁴ devoted considerable attention to popular culture and ideology, ranging over topics as diverse as architecture, popular songs, serial fiction, detective fiction, opera, journalism, and so on.

Yet it remains somewhat unclear how far Gramsci is thinking of these various phenomena as ideology. Gramsci discusses these forms under the heading of philosophy, but most people have tended to assume that they are ideological forms. A rather impressionistic use of the concept of ideology can occur with impunity in Gramsci's approach, largely because he has taken the explanatory weight from the shoulders of ideology. This he can do as in turn he deploys another concept to carry the theoretical burden that in other writers is taken by the concept of ideology. Thus in order to see how Gramsci's treatment of ideology meshes in with the tradition, we have to take it in conjunction with its companion term -- hegemony. Although the Italian word egemonia was often seen as synonymous with Gramsci's contribution, its roots, as Perry Anderson and others have emphasized, lay in debates over the proletariat's need for 'hegemony' (persuasive influence) over the peasantry in the pre-revolutionary period in Russia. ⁵

The concept of 'hegemony' is the organizing focus of Gramsci's thought on politics and ideology, and his distinctive usage has rendered it the hallmark of the Gramscian approach in general. Hegemony is best understood as the organization of consent -- the processes through which subordinated forms of consciousness are constructed without recourse to violence or coercion. The ruling bloc, according to Gramsci, operates not only in the political sphere but throughout the whole of society. Gramsci emphasized the 'lower' -- less systematic -- levels of consciousness and apprehension of the world, and in particular he was interested in the ways in which 'popular' knowledge and culture developed in such a way as to secure the participation of the masses in the project of the ruling bloc.

At this point it is worth remarking a significant difference of interpretation about hegemony. It is not clear whether Gramsci uses hegemony strictly to refer to the non-coercive (ideological?) aspects of the organization of consent, or whether he uses it to explore the relationship between coercive and non-coercive forms of securing consent. Stuart Hall et al. suggest that Gramsci's fundamental question -- how can the state rule without coercion? -- is one that causes him to

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