Hegemony.

I have heard the term ‘hegemony’ tossed around a couple of times, but I could never really grasp the concept completely. I mean it is essentially a form of coercive brainwash, which is pretty heavy stuff. So, after sitting in this cold library for half an hour I have realized that the concept of hegemony helps me understand the capitalistic nature of the United States by learning about the power structures in society.

Hegemony has many forms and is present in all societies across the world. The conceptual idea is that the ruling class within a society or country homogenizes certain ideas that benefit their interests so they can maintain their dominance within that society or country. There are variations within the general concept of hegemony.  American Imperialism is a good example of specific types of hegemony – hard power and soft power. Hard power involves spreading a country’s ideals through the use of coercive military force. Soft power, on the other hand, involves spreading a country’s ideals through non-violent diplomacy. Hegemony in military dominance differs a bit from hegemony in mass media and the economy, but I hope you are able to follow my thought process for understanding the concept.

Although American Imperialism is on a larger scale, the theory behind it helps me understand this interesting political cartoon I found. 

I have always thought about political cartoons as fancy ink blots. Probably because it always takes me a while to really understand what’s going on with either of them… I digress. The cartoon depicts a tall Uncle Same who’s whipping small faceless people and bulls that are dragging along major U.S. corporations.

The first thing I would like to focus on is Uncle Same himself. The cartoonist depicts him as tall and White to portray his superiority over the smaller workers below him. Typically, the ruling class within our society that sets the ideals we conform to, have been powerful White men within our government. This is a visual example of hegemony because he is depicted with a bloody whip, which symbolizes his control over the minorities within the society through forceful means.

Next is the group supporting our economy, the small faceless people and the bulls. The small people are the minorities within our society who are grouped together with the animals because our capitalist system portrays them as merely laborers. This is a depiction of a certain ideology that hegemony enforces in society: minorities will never be able to reach the high social status of White businessmen because they are merely slaves to our economic system.

- E. Camacho

Image Source: http://www.11th-hour.info/images/US_hegemony.JPG