How to Use Professor’s Use of the Phrase “Cultural/Political Hegemony” To Win the Argument

First, if you are in college, my sympathies – truly.

You are paying more for a degree that is worth less than at any time in our country’s history.

If male, you are maneuvering in a minefield of feminist threats:

• If drinking, your actions will be judged as though you were completely sober and capable of planning.  Any woman involved will be a helpless victim of you, and anyone in the vicinity.


• If your ALLEGED actions become public, the resulting embarrassment will be just what you deserve.  She, on the other hand, will be protected from public exposure, and, if “outed”, will blunt efforts to hold her responsible for her actions by crying “slut shaming” (which, according to feminists, is a BAD thing, unlike the same thing used against males).


• If brought up on charges by the college, you will have few Constitutional Rights.  No Due Process, Right to an attorney, Rules of Evidence, or Jury of your Peers.  You could be expelled from college, losing a significant investment of time and money, with little ability to appeal that decision.  All for an incident that does NOT rise to the level of a prosecutable crime.

If female, you will be “subtly” encouraged to:

• Engage in random sex with relative strangers.  You will be told that it is “empowering”.


• Drink liberally, and then use your drunken state as a reason why your partner in sex is TOTALLY to blame for the activities you both decided to engage in.


• Express your bitterness towards men in all-female group sessions.  Accept no responsibility for your decisions turning out badly.  Focus on your victimhood.


• Sign up for “women’s classes”, then, complain that employers don’t want to hire you at high wages, even though what you learned has no economic value to employers.


• DON’T take math, science, or technical courses beyond the minimum.  They’re HARD!  Complain about the “mean and sexist” professors that expect you to master the coursework, without some special assistance to you for the “handicap” of being a woman.

And the classes!  As a “privileged person (if White, even though your background may be poverty-stricken and uneducated, you will be assumed to be a member of the Power Elite.  A Person of Color, even though coming from a well-educated and wealthy family background, will be presumed to be disadvantaged and given scholarships & financial assistance), you will be accused of promoting cultural/political hegemony.  That’s like the WORST thing, EVAH!

Of course, you will ask what that is.  The professor’s explanation will be meandering and confusing.  Like me, you will finally Google the phrase, only to find that it means (Wikipedia definition):

Hegemony (UK /hɨˈɡɛməni/, US /hɨˈdʒɛməni/;^[1][2][3] Greek:ἡγεμονία hēgemonía, "leadership" and "rule") is an indirect form of government, and of imperial dominance in which the hegemon (leader state) rules geopolitically subordinate states by the implied means of power, the threat of force, rather than by direct military force.

Huh?  According to Merriam-Webster, it’s better (and more clearly) defined as:

he·ge·mo·ny

noun \hi-ˈje-mə-nē, -ˈge-; ˈhe-jə-ˌmō-nē\

: influence or control over another country, a group of people, etc.

Full Definition of HEGEMONY

1:  preponderant influence or authority over others : domination <battled for hegemony in Asia>

2:  the social, cultural, ideological, or economic influence exerted by a dominant group

I don’t get it.  Rather than using military muscle to overcome a government, and subdue a people, Hegemonists use influence/persuasion to spread their way of life to other cultures.

And, somehow, that’s a BAD thing?

Understand, these professors don’t see violent takeover as bad – providing that the states exerting this enforced, imposed-from-afar influence are NOT the United States of America.  They have no problem with rooting for Muslim-dominated countries to invade, China to send out its armies, or for Russia to take over the Crimea.

They just don’t want the USA to come out on top – ever – even by peaceful means.

Oh, on that how to use the professor’s words against them in arguments?  Don’t accept their framing of that phrase.  Every time they talk about political or cultural hegemony, say:

• So, if I understand you correctly, you’re saying that using peaceful, non-violent means to spread your culture is wrong?  Are you in favor of imposing your culture by force?


• So, if you DON’T try to persuade people to give up aspects of their culture, you’re in favor of:
  
  
  
  • Slavery of Africans by people of Arab descent?
  
  
  • Genital mutilation?
  
  
  • Forced marriage by adult men to underage girls – even as young as 6?
  
  
  • Stoning of women who have sex outside of marriage – even if raped?
  
  
  • So, you’re against the Russian take-over of the Crimea?
  
  
  • So, you’re against forbidding Christianity in Muslim countries, which is being facilitated by burning churches, kidnapping and rape of Christian women, then forcing them to convert and marry their rapists? (Christians were in these countries BEFORE Islam – they have the antiquity high ground)
  
  
  
  

You get the idea.  Turn their words against them.  Make them justify their position.  As Saul Alinsky wrote, in Rules for Radicals,

RULE 4: “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.” If the rule is that every letter gets a reply, send 30,000 letters. You can kill them with this because no one can possibly obey all of their own rules. (This is a serious rule. The besieged entity’s very credibility and reputation is at stake, because if activists catch it lying or not living up to its commitments, they can continue to chip away at the damage.)