MASS LINE METHOD AND GRAMSCI’S PHILOSOPHY OF PRAXIS TO RITUAL PROPRIETY: AN OVERVIEW

Abstract

Jaspers, in 1949, coined the term ‘Axial Age’, as an age in which humans apparently became more analytical and reflective. Despite this great age, humanity is arguably still balanced in continuing regression against the former axial age. The overall research objective of this paper is therefore to examine critically the contemporary socialist attempt at combatting this regression. Chinese politics is a process of image creation, that, in turn generates new knowledge in the people, while ‘politics in command’ infers the same precept that Gramsci had called the ‘philosophy of praxis’. The mass line was a systematic and enduring set of programs and policies, prescribing the optimal form of propriety between the masses and the Party’s leadership. Xunzi had written a full account of the origin of ritual propriety and its relationship to these problematic facets of human nature. The research question asks how putting politics in command could inform party leadership by means of the philosophy of praxis. The argument sets out to bring proof for the proposition that deployment of the mass line would allow the gleaning of an epistemology of ritual propriety between the superstructure and the masses. The research paradigm is a cumulative synthesis made into new knowledge, built on top of well-established research. Thus, the manuscript’s research methodology is the construction of an argument constrained within a legal narrative concerning the various facets of Gramsci’s exegeses on folklore. Without the philosophy of praxis, governments would want to eradicate any folklore that challenged the ruling party’s worldview and legitimacy, charging such challengers as having been derelict in their externally imposed duties. This kind of contradiction is thus managed in the sole interests of a ruling class, and its unintended artifact is a truncation of creativity both within and by hegemonic groups. Gramsci conceived of the resultant subaltern groupings as being deliberately created by linguistic irradiation, so creating a war of position of self-developed identities against externally imposed identities. Combatting this, the mass line establishes the dialectical position of political activity as differentiation in the superstructures, inferring that to improve quality of life, the political activity must take control of the superstructure.