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Legitimating Inequality
Longhurst and his colleagues (2017:102–109) employ Louis Althusser’s ideology theory, Stuart Hall’s theory on encoding and decoding texts and Antonio Gramsci’s hegemonic theory to provide the theoretic framework in what is generally understood as domination by ‘consent’ which legitimizes inequality. Hegemony being the power of the ruling or elite class to convict or coerce other classes that the interests of the minority elite, capital maximisation, inter alia, are in fact the interest of all people.
This domination is thus exerted not by any (physical) sensible force, per se, nor even necessarily by active persuasion but rather by a more implicit and subtle and incisive power over the means of production (the economies) and over state apparatuses such as the education systems and the media. It is a consent to the values suggested by those in power. This consent is not always peaceful — may combine physical force with intellectual coercion when necessary. This makes ideology- the linkage of doctrine to particular activities, actions and mundane practices with a wider set of meanings and by so doing, lends a more honourable and dignified complexion to social conduct and can be applied to general ideas potent in specific situations of conduct — an observable reality with a material existence as it becomes a medium through which people experience the world, and this dynamic process is constantly in a…
