Ability of the ruling class to manipulate the working class ideologically through their hegemony

The Italian socialist Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) emphasized the ability of the ruling class to manipulate the working class ideologically through their hegemony (that is, a form of domination that appears to be legitimate to those within the system). In any society, the elites had the power to determine not only what would be legal and illegal but also what would be considered normal and abnormal. In this way, they shaped the character of everyone living in a particular territory. Gramsci (1971) believed that intellectuals had a crucial role to play in challenging this domination because they could step outside social conventions and see how people were brainwashed into thinking one way or another having trouble paraphrasing