On the articulation of the temporalities of society and of the State: Politics and Pedagogy in the Prison Notebooks

Abstract

The article questions the intrinsic link between pedagogy and hegemony as set out by Gramsci in his Prison Notebooks. To explain the complexity of this relationship and its implications, the article provides a brief analysis of the concept of 'personality', demonstrating the plurality of temporal layers that constitute it. This also involves examining the Gramscian concept of pedagogy and demonstrating how it involves translating spontaneity into conscious direction. This process can shape both individual personalities and popular will as part of building hegemony. The question is whether Gramsci believed that coercion was the only way in which the nation-state could order the plural personality of the individual and the temporal plurality of society, or whether the state could not be reduced to this task.