Italian intellectual and political activist, founder of the Communist Party (Ales, Sardinia, 1891 - Rome, 1937). Thanks to the support of his brother and his intellectual capacity he overcame the difficulties produced by his physical deformity (he was hunchbacked) and by the poverty of his family (since his father was imprisoned, accused of embezzlement). He studied at the University of Turin, where he was influenced intellectually by Benedetto Croce and the socialists.
In 1913 he joined the Italian Socialist Party, immediately becoming a leader of its left wing. After working on various party periodicals, he founded, together with Palmiro Togliatti and Umberto Elia Terracini, the magazine Ordine nuovo (1919). Faced with the dilemma posed to socialists around the world by the course taken by the Russian Revolution, Antonio Gramsci chose to adhere to the communist line and, at the Livorno Congress (1921), split with the group that founded the Italian Communist Party.
Gramsci belonged from the beginning to the Central Committee of the new party, which he also represented in Moscow within the Third International (1922); he endowed the formation with an official press organ (L'Unità, 1924) and represented it as a deputy (1924). He was a member of the Executive of the Communist International, whose Bolshevik orthodoxy he defended in Italy by expelling from the party the ultra-left group of Amadeo Bordiga, which he accused of following Trotsky's line (1926).
He soon had to go underground, since since 1922 Italy was under the power of Mussolini, who would exercise from 1925 an iron fascist dictatorship. Gramsci was arrested in 1926 and spent the rest of his life in prison, subjected to humiliation and ill-treatment, which added to his tuberculosis to make prison life extremely difficult, until he died of cerebral congestion.
In these conditions, however, Gramsci was able to produce a great written work (the voluminous Prison Notebooks), containing an original revision of Marx's thought, in a historicist sense and tending to modernize the legacy of Marxism to adapt it to the conditions of Italy and twentieth-century Europe. Already at the Lyon Congress (1926) he had advocated the broadening of the social bases of communism by opening it to all classes of workers, including intellectuals. His theoretical contributions would powerfully influence the adaptation of Western communism that took place in the sixties and seventies, the so-called Eurocommunism. 🤮
Gramsci’s concept of hegemony. Gramsci saw the ruling class maintaining its power over society in two ways –
Coercion – it uses the army, police, prison and courts to force other classes to accept its rule
Consent (hegemony) – it uses ideas and values to persuade the subordinate classes that its rule is legitimate
Hegemony and Revolution
In advanced Capitalist societies, the ruling class rely heavily on consent to maintain their rule. Gramsci agrees with Marx that they are able to maintain consent because they control institutions such as religion, the media and the education system. However, according to Gramsci, the hegemony of the ruling class is never complete, for two reasons:
The ruling class are a minority – and as such they need to make ideological compromises with the middle classes in order to maintain power The proletariat have dual consciousness. Their ideas are influenced not only by bourgeois ideology but also by the material conditions of their life – in short, they are aware of their exploitation and are capable or seeing through the dominant ideology.
Antonio Gramsci Marxists.org :gramsci-heh:
Antonio Gramsci and the Italian Revolution :anti-italian-action:
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I think the intersection of less than lethal, effective incapacitation, and ease of carrying around comes back to pepper gel/pepper spray. You also get some distance. Knife fights are brutal, awful affairs. And God forbid you lose your nerve if the deterrence doesn't work (i.e. they call your bluff). Pepper gel might not get that menacing flash like curved steel will, but it's a step up in terms of effectiveness and ease of deployment.
In between pepper gel and knife I'd urge you to consider a toothed taser flashlight. Through this one is more of a force multiplier than a tool for incapacitation. If you're in a fight, a flashlight taking their vision and giving it to you is really really useful (an advantage debatably as critical as superior effective distance aka having a knife in a gun fight). Not only that, but swiping at them with something sharp is something you've expressed yourself as desirable. Finally, the crackling electricity is loud which gets attention an attacker probably doesn't want and is menacing in a way that would get them to fuck off as well. It's another one that is easy to carry around. A katana is pretty useful, but if it's not with you when you're attacked then a lot of good it would do you.
My partner already has some pepper spray, I'm just thinking about some extra 'stay the fuck away' energy. Trying to keep things from getting to that point at all.
Couldn't recommend the taser flashlight more then. If it's dark then being blinded and hearing the electricity is a more obvious "do not engage" signal than a knife. Intellectually, you know a knife can fuck you up. Practically, if you can't see the people you mean to harm and then you hear a big noise you don't have many good offensive options - doubly so if being quiet was part of the plan like if you're trying to mug somebody. You would literally have to shunpo past the flashlight (into the pepper spray)
And frankly if you pissed off Byakuya your best bet is apologizing anyway. Also you should practice and be careful. Self defense is weird and gross; it's unpredictable and nothing is full proof. You have my condolences for even feeling the need to arm yourself.
After looking into it, these are probably illegal without a permit
Really? That SUCKS and is annoying