The last issue of the IGS Newsletter contained a brief report on the International Symposium "Praxis, senso comune, egemonia: la psicologia dei problemi complessi / Praxis, Common Sense, Hegemony: The Psychology of Complex Social Problems." The symposium, held in Bologna in December 1991, was organized by the Istituto Gramsci of Emilia Romagna in collaboration with the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme of Paris. The principal organizer of the symposium, Professor Francesco Paolo Colucci of the Insitute of Psychology of the School of Medicine at the University of Milan, has written a long and detailed critical analysis of the papers that were presented at the various sessions of the symposium. In order to provide our readers with a general idea of the main issues that were discussed at the symposium, we are reproducing the introduction and parts of the conclusion of the English version of Professor Colucci's comprehensive account and critical assessment of the papers that were presented in Bologna. We also take this opportunity to thank Professor Colucci for providing us with detailed information concerning this symposium.
In this essay I undertake a critical analysis of the international symposium "Praxis, Common Sense, Hegemony: the Psychology of Complex Social Problems" (held in Bologna in December 1991), and attempt to highlight certain questions that may serve as hypotheses for future research. In four general sessions, the symposium looked at several interconnected themes in psychology related to the central concepts in Antonio Gramsci's thought: "praxis" or human activity; "common sense" relating to social representations and everyday knowledge; "hegemony" and how it manifests itself in politics and organizations and, consequently, the question of elites or active minorities; the "formation of man" and his psychological development seen in their relation with society. A key role is played by common sense, which links the various themes together and whose external relevance has also been underlined by recent political events. Common sense--the product of an active process of communication and co-operation while at the same time a directing activity--is the main [END PAGE 38] object of hegemoy, the aim of which is its preservation or transformation as well as the formation of man and his psychological development.
The work of the symposium centred on an analysis of Gramscian thought which stressed its relevance for several important current themes in social psychology and led to the formulation of some working hypothesis. One of these is that, given the importance Gramsci attaches to individual and collective subjectivity and the way he treats the relationship between the individual, society and history in his writings, reference to Gramsci may be useful for the kind of psychology that focuses attention on the process of interaction between the individual and society, as proposed for example by Moscovici in the introduction to his 1984 handbook. It may also, as a result of the significant openness of Gramscian Marxism towards other intellectual traditions, give rise to a debate that has so far essentially failed to materialise, despite common themes and agreement on important points, between two different theoretical approaches in current psychology: social cognitive psychology, which has developed in Europe in the last two decades from the research of scholars like Tajfel, von Cranach, Doise and Moscovici, and activity theory, which is now being developed with a more broadly-based approach by the cultural-historical school of Vygotsky, Leontyev and Luria and the Berlin school of critical psychology founded by Klaus Holzkamp. Furthermore, since activity theory is, like Gramscian thought, organically related to Marxism, it was the intention of the symposium to invite psychologists not to eschew debate with Marxism in the wake of recent fashions and events. In other words, it would be useful for the kind of psychology considered here to overcome internal bariers within an open debate that seizes on possible points of agreement without falling into eclecticism and, at the same time, acquire a truly interdisciplinary perspective. It is for this reason also important, contrary to normal practice, to take note of the work of scholars outside the discipline but who have made an essential contribution to common fundamental themes. In the field of political or, more generally, social philosophical thought, Gramsci is an emblematic and particularly important figure, though not the only one, as was emphasised also at this symposium through significant reference to other outsiders.
It is by becoming receptive to these debates and perspectives that psychology will be more able to make a contribution to those "complex social problems" hinted at in the symposium's title and related to the themes discussed. These problems concern, first of all, large-scale migrations and the ever worsening forms of ethnic divisions and racial hatred; the question of young people and their increasingly destructive and self-destructive behaviour, which are taking on different forms than in the past; and the inadequacies of the education system in anticipating and facing the transformations in progress, the failure of political parties and the apparently irreversible crisis affecting the traditional productive organizations [END PAGE 39] like the factory, all of the latter being institutions with a direct or, more or less, mediated formative function. It should also be pointed out in this respect that it was not the symposium's intention to offer diagnoses or solutions; its main focus was on the theoretical questions that psychology must take up if it wants to conduct fruitful research into these kinds of social problems. And it is precisely the increasingly frequent attention paid to them by psychologists that has put the spotlight on the inadequacy of theories and methods.
A further aspect that needs to be underlined is that the symposium was not on Gramsci's thought but on some themes dealt with by Gramsci and important for current psychology. (The relationship between Gramsci's ideas, already of interest to pedagogists and sociologists for some time, was considered for for the first time at this symposium.) Gramsci's role here is as a thought-provoking catalyst, but neither a fortuitous nor a contingent one, also because of what was said above about the importance for psychology of its relationship with outsiders. What is important above all, however, is that the symposium accepted Moscovici's invitation to overcome the taboo of never speaking ill of the dead, and in particular with regard to Gramsci, who has always been--especially in Italy--the object of panegyrics aiming to use him for the most varied ends. After all, it is criticism which demonstrates the vitality of ideas. In this light, the criticisms directed at Gramsci--as part of a discourse that nonetheless identifies various interesting aspects of his work--particularly in the papers of Serge Moscovici (Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, Paris) and Georg Rückriem (Hochschule der Künste, Berlin),1 have the merit, independently of how debatable they may be, of posing with extreme clarity questions not only on Gramsci but also on the themes dealt with at the symposium:
- The relationship between subject, understood as both a biological and a psychical unit, and society and the very definition of "social" in psychology;
- The transformations in activities, common sense and social representations;
- The question of hegemony and elites.
These are closely interconnected questions cutting across the various papers, which can serve as a guiding thread for a critical analysis of the symposium; thus, hegemony may be a factor of transformation or preservation, and the relation between individual subject and society encompasses that between individual (the leader) elites and masses.
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1. Moscovici, for instance, notes that Gramsci has been the only Marxist to pose the problem of common sense, without reducing it to the question of ideology, also in connection with the transformation of Marxism itself from a scientific theory to a shared mass culture. Rückriem maintains that it is possible and useful to take the Gramscian category of praxis or activity, and therefore the formative function attributed by Gramsci to the organization of work in the modern big factory, as the starting point for an explanation of subjectivity. [END PAGE 40]
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In order to draw up a balance sheet of the symposium we need to see to what extent and which ways the various papers and the debate developed the working hypothesis put forward at the atart. In raising questions and producing comparisons of considerable relevance, Gramsci's thought also gives rise to numerous references to other outsiders. For example, Willem Doise (University of Geneva) refers to Durkheim and Cattaneo, Bernd Fichtner (University of Siegen) to von Humboldt, Martin Hildebrand-Nilshon (Freie Universität of Berlin) to Ariés, etc. But it is Uwe Flick (Technische Universität of Berlin), more than anyone else, who bases his paper on the importance that the reference both to the new common sense tretaed by Gramsci and to Ludwig Fleck and Alfred Schutz--two thinkers usually neglected, if not totally ignored, by psychologists--can have at present for the study of social representations and common sense or, as he prefers to define it, "everyday knowledge". . . .
As regards further possible contributions to psychology, the themes mentioned here and developed in an original way by Gramsci refer directly to thinkers like Weber and Pareto, as Walter Tega (University of Bologna) reminds us. On the other hand, it is the social sciences, including psychology, which are carrying out the most advanced research into these themes and categories that have also been analysed by American neocontractualism and are considered from a different perspective and no longer presented on an ideological or properly Gramscian level. Rita Medici (University of Bologna) appropriately calls attention to the relation between Gramsci, in particular his theory of collective will, and the classical thinkers of political philosophy like Hobbes.
The reference to thinkers like Gramsci, Cattaneo, von Humboldt, Fleck, Pareto, etc., and the relations between their thought and psychology make the difficulties and obstacles, which are not only physical barriers and divisions, preventing communication and discussion between the different theoretical perspectives appear even more bogus and sterile. Moreover, such "barriers" never existed for psychologists like Vygotsky, Leontyev, and Luria. As Boris Velichovsky (Moscow State University) points out in the symposium's concluding paper, the cultural-historical school founded by them has been characterized from the beginning by a wide range of reference . . . that has made it "cosmopolitan"; and at its very roots go back not only to Marx but also to Spinoza, Francis Bacon, and Saint Augustine.
. . . [END PAGE 42] Certain divisions or the splendid isolation of schools like critical psychology now appear even more anachronistic following the disappearance of long-standing ideological or theoretical certainties. This passage from certainties and fixed points to doubts and problem-posing openings is underscored, for example, by the question posed by Rückriem in the conclusion of his paper and by others in the discussions: Can the concept of activity, which plays a fundamental role in Gramsci as well as in the cultural-historical school, still provide today the foundation for a science of man that aims to tackle the problems of contemporary society? In other words, the concept of activity, which is productive if referred to single organizations . . . raises a series of doubts if referred to society as a whole. This situation, according to Rückriem, originates in the crisis that is currently affecting our traditional views of the world and scientific conceptions, considered universally valid from the Enlightenment on, which in referring to activity or praxis are emphasized by the Marxist conception of progress and, consequently, by Gramsci's thought and the cultural-historical school. The focal point of the question, then, is that "not only is it (the principle of activity) charged with the destruction of outer nature in the name of ruling over nature, but also the destruction of inner nature, the suppression of the senses, of the body and sexuality." The concept of activity, therefore, requires overcoming the limits, present in its leading theorists like Leontyev, that are once again connected with an unsatisfactory integration of the individual and supra-individual levels.
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On the other front, the divisions or the persistence of illusory barriers may be due to a kind of anti-Marxist prejudice but still refer to a relationship between psychology and Marxism. At present, any consideration of Mraxism may be rejected by a generalized dismissive attitude that holds it to be obsolete and anachronistic. At the otjer extreme, there is at times the manifestation of an equally uncritical revanchism which refuses to acknowledge that in Marxism and every Marxist thinker, including Gramsci, there must be something wrong, as certain historical events show and have also unequivocably shown in the past. Then there is the risk of seeing Marxism as an undifferentiated monolithic whole, as Moscovici does in this symposium when he lumps Lenin and Gramsci together with extreme indifference. The reverse risk is to view Marxism as such a generic label that the same term means such diverse things that a comparison between authors like, for example, Gramsci and Leontyev is not methodologically feasible. Approaches of this kind prevent any relationship between the human sciences and Marxism from being considered. Marxism is, however, an external system of thought that can still constitute an important source for contemporary psychology. This may be even more the case now than in the past, since the fall of the communist regimes in the eastern Europe could help make the criticism of and general attitude towards Marxism, [END PAGE 42] and in particular the principles that inspire it, less rigid and freer from, for instance, political conditioning: in one word, more creative.
A full version of Francesco Paolo Colucci's critical discussion of the symposium can be found in each of the following publications: "International Symposium 'Praxis, Common Sense, Hegemony: The Psychology of Complex Social Problems,' Bologna, December 1991" in Revista de Psicologia Social, IX, 1 (1994), pp. 95-107; "Common Sense, Transformation and Elites" in Multidisciplinary Newsletter for Activity Theory, 15/16 (1994), pp. 45-52; and "Il pensiero di Gramsci e la psicologia oggi" in Psicologia e Società. Rivista di Psicologia Sociale, XX, 1-2 (1993), pp. 95-129. Address for correspondence with Professor Francesco Colucci: Università degli Studi di Milano; Istituto di Psicología della Facoltà Medica; via Francesco Sforza 23; 20122 Milano; Italy.