ANTONIO GRAMSCI, NORBERTO BOBBIO & POLITICAL VIOLENCE By Mr. João

217 Pages·2004·1.41 MB·English

MA Dissertation

THE UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES OF GOOD WILL:
ANTONIO GRAMSCI, NORBERTO BOBBIO & POLITICAL VIOLENCE

By

Mr. João Florêncio da COSTA Jr.

A Dissertation
submitted in partial fulfilment
of the requirements for the degree of
MA in International Relations & Management

The London Collge
University College Kensington

July 2004
I would like to dedicate the present work to
my parents, João Florêncio and Maria
José, my wife Priscila and my son João
Lucca. They are the meaning of
everything.
Initium et consummationem et medietatem
temporum et meditationem omnium
morum mutationes et divisiones temporum
anni cursus et stellarum dispositions
naturas animalium et iras bestiarum vim
ventorum et cogitationes hominum
differentias arborum et virtutes radicum et
quaecumque sunt absconsa et inprovisa
didici omnium enim artifex docuit me
sapientia*

The Book of Wisdom, 7:18-21

* “The beginning, and ending, and midst of the times, the alterations of their courses, and the changes of seasons,
the revolutions of the year, and the dispositions of the stars, the natures of living creatures, and rage of wild beasts,
the force of winds, and reasoning of men, the diversities of plants, and the virtues of roots, and all such things as are
hid, and not foreseen, I have learned: for wisdom, which is the worker of all things, taught me”.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank all those who have contributed to the consecution of the present work in
their very singular and exquisite way. I shall not attempt to draw a comprehensive list of names,
for I could possibly incur into an unpardonable lapse of memory. However, there were some
exceptional individuals, whose contributions were so seminal and indispensable, that I may not
refrain from the honour of naming them:
I am deeply thankful to my Supervisor, Professor Frands Pedersen – with whom I had the
further privilege of attending several subjects at the Master Degree Programme – for all his
patience, support and undeniable commitment towards the quest for an unbiased and
comprehensive research.
I would like to express my limitless debt of gratitude to Professor Olavo de Carvalho, whose
humbleness, erudition and competence were a constant source of inspiration – as a quick glance
at the bibliographical references I have used, will promptly suggest.
I am also thankful to Professor Paulo Roberto de Almeida, for his initial considerations regarding
the methodological and conceptual challenges I would have to overcome.
Finally, amongst a few friends, three were of outstanding significance due to their moral support
and exceptional friendship: Guilherme Vieira, Ranyere Rodrigues and Fabiano Holanda. To
them I convey my wholeheartedly thankfulness.
I shall be adamant on the certainty that any merits found in this work are inseparable from the
support I have received from those individuals and many others; whereas, any eventual error or
imprecision, may more likely be of my sole responsibility.
ABSTRACT

Since the French Revolution and throughout the XIX and XX Centuries the so called Leftist
ideas have in theory upheld some of the noblest ideals of Man in History: liberty, equality,
fraternity was the motto of the French Revolution; a world without classes was, according to its
followers, the final purpose of the Marxist philosophy; during the sixties, the peace activists
widely represented by the New American Left campaigned for a World without violence and
celebrated the leaders whose ideals seemed to be in synchrony with their own. Notwithstanding
their noble and apparently lucid nature, those ideas were, in practical terms, consistently
accompanied by tyranny, oppression and genocide. The present work endeavours to critically
analyse some tendencies of the leftist intelligentizia, concentrating specifically on the main
aspects and ideas of the works of Antonio Gramsci and Norberto Bobbio as to demonstrate that
behind the curtain of a more moderate leftist discourse may be hidden old pretexts for political
violence and terrorist activities. The work comprises three inter-related hypothesis: a. the current
leftist tendencies, ideas and values contain strong traces of the same essential distortion that has
generated political violence of all kinds in the last two centuries; b. political violence is, to a
certain extent, inseparable from the epistemological roots of the leftist ideologies; and c. the
evolution of leftist ideology was generally accompanied by a similar evolution in the
mechanisms of political violence. It was further considered in the present research three very
important phenomena: the subjectivization of the mechanisms of political violence; the rise of
terrorism all over the world; and the increase of anti-American and, ultimately, anti-western
ideologies. The methodology employed in the research was mainly dialectical analysis based on
an organic Aristotelian approach accompanied by a Voegelian perspective of political research.
The results demonstrated a strong correlation between traditional leftist thought and violence,
leading to the belief that modern leftist ideologies must be analysed specifically from their
epistemological influences as to detect the possibilities of tendencies to encourage, justify or
simply disguise political violence in society. Furthermore, it was demonstrated the existence of a
strong link between terrorism and anti-Americanism supported by the ideological frame of the
Leftist principles and ideas, putting in jeopardy the very integrity of this current of thought.

Key Words: Political Violence, Bobbio, Gramsci, Terrorism and Anti-Americanism.
INDEX

1. INTRODUCTION.........................................................................................................11
1.1 Justification.....................................................................................................16
1.1.2 The French Revolution.......................................................................20
1.1.3 Marxism..............................................................................................26
1.1.4 Leftism and state expansionism..........................................................33
2. METHODOLOGY OF RESEARCH..........................................................................44
2.1 In search of a political episteme......................................................................44
2.2 The use of an Aristotelian method...................................................................49
2.3 In search of the meaning of violence...............................................................53
2.4 The structure of the project.............................................................................59
2.4.1 Definition of the problem....................................................................60
2.4.2 Gathering of relevant data.................................................................61
2.4.3 Hypotheses to be tested......................................................................61
3. GRAMSCI AND THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION...............................................63
3.1 A brief introduction.........................................................................................63
3.2 The conception of Cultural Revolution............................................................66
3.2.1 The relation between structure and superstructure and the civil
society..............................................................................................70
3.2.2 The concepts of power and hegemony...............................................74
3.2.3 The ‘long march’ towards the State and the new strategy of war.....78
3.2.4 The intellectuals – The Gramscian subjective army..........................81
3.2.5 The ethical state.................................................................................84
3.3 Gramsci’s Cultural Revolution and the generation of political violence........87
3.3.1 The Marxist influence........................................................................87
3.3.2 The relativization of truth and moral................................................90
3.3.3 The destruction of the democratic system from within......................93
3.3.4 The degradation of culture and the promethean cult of the
intellectual.......................................................................................96
3.3.5 The politically correct movements.....................................................98
3.3.6 From Gramsci to Bobbio...................................................................103
4. BOBBIO AND THE EGALITARIAN DEMOCRACY.............................................106
4.1 A brief note on Bobbio’s work and life............................................................106
4.1.2 Bobbio’s distinctive bias.....................................................................111
4.2 Is there a new democracy?..............................................................................112
4.3 Bobbio’s paradoxes.........................................................................................122
4.3.1 Egalitarianism versus state expansionism..........................................122
4.3.2 Liberty versus equality.......................................................................124
4.3.3 Democracy expansionism and direct participation versus political
apathy.................................................................................................130
4.4 The leftist central argument.............................................................................134
4.4.1 Right versus Left – a biased distinction?............................................136
4.5 The destructivity of good will..........................................................................141
4.5.1 The inevitable ‘statelatria’.................................................................141
4.5.2 Social justice – moral and economic degradation.............................145
4.5.3 The road to serfdom............................................................................149
5. THE TWIN EVILS........................................................................................................150
5.1 Terrorism – conceptualization and History....................................................152
5.1.2 Terror and Islam.................................................................................159
5.1.3 Ideological shields and moral support...............................................163
5.1.4 Modern weapons................................................................................167
5.1.5 Intellectual terrorism..........................................................................173
5.1.6 The essential link 09/11......................................................................177
5.2 Anti-Americanism – causes and inconsequences............................................182
5.2.1 The truly extension of the hatred........................................................185
5.2.2 The odium feeds the terror.................................................................189
6. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS ........................................................190
BIBLIOGRAPHY..............................................................................................................200
LIST OF TABLES

TABLE 1.1 WARS, MASSACRES AND ATROCITIES OF THE TWENTIETH
CENTURY. YEAR BY YEAR DEATH TOLL............................................36
TABLE 1.2 20TH CENTURY DEMOCIDE.................................................................37
TABLE 1.3 THE PERCENTAGE OF THE WORLD’S POPULATION UNDER
VARIOUS POLITICAL SYSTEMS............................................................41
TABLE 2.1 DELIMITATIONS OF THE PRESENT RESEARCH...............................53
TABLE 2.2 THE CONCEPT OF VIOLENCE AND ITS STRANDS OF MEANING...57
TABLE 2.3 VIOLENCE – CONCEPTS AND SEMANTICS........................................58
TABLE 3.1 THE STRUGGLE FOR HEGEMONY......................................................77
TABLE 3.2 DEMOCRATIC X NON-DEMOCRATIC WARS – 1816-1991.................95
TABLE 3.3 THE MORE DEMOCRATIC TWO REGIMES THE LESS INTENSELY
THEY FIGHT EACH OTHER – 1900-1980...............................................95
TABLE 3.4 THE LESS DEMOCRATIC A REGIME, THE MORE SEVERE ITS
INTERNAL POLITICAL VIOLENCE. SELECTED SAMPLE –
1900-1987.................................................................................................95
TABLE 5.1 FREQUENCIES OF THE DEFINITIONAL ELEMENTS IN 109
DEFINITIONS OF TERRORISM...........................................................158
TABLE 5.2 AMERICA’S WAR ON TERRORISM PREVIOUS SEPTEMBER 11..160
1. Introduction
“Basically, National Socialism and
Marxism are the same”.
Adolph Hitler

Hobsbawn (1996) has denominated the XX Century as an age of extremes; a period in history
wherein democracy and totalitarianism, hope and despair, prosperity and poverty reached
unimaginable heights, when humanity have proved itself capable of sowing its own destruction
only to rise from its very ashes as to build a new social foundation. Berlin in Watson (2000, p. 1)
assessed the incoherence of the epoch, declaring: “The world was exposed to the worst century
there has even been from the point of view of crude humanity, of savage destruction of mankind,
for no good reason, (…) and yet, here I am, untouched by all this, (…) That seems to me quite
astonishing”.
In Johnson (1993) it is possible to find a concise reason for such extremities; the XX Century
was the Collectivist Century, the age when the struggle for homogenization of human thought
was met by the rediscovery of individual consciousness, exposing contradictions, extremities and
inadequacies of many secular credos, designed to reformulate the very meaning of existence.
The present work is an attempt to study one of the most characteristic aspects of last Century, the
phenomenon of political violence. Such phenomenon is so extensive and yet so disperse, so
meaningful and yet so poorly analysed that a study of its characteristics faces considerable
limitations:
Firstly comes the necessity to delimitate the scope of the analysis; otherwise the work would be
on the verge of an overflow of information that would render sterile all its results. Thereupon,
the focus of the present work will concentrate on political violence generated by or related with
specific types of ideologies, specifically from the political current known as the Left.