Instituto de Estudios Políticos y Derecho Público "Dr. Humberto J. La Roche"
de la Facultad de Ciencias Jurídicas y Políticas de la Universidad del Zulia
Maracaibo, Venezuela
Esta publicación cientíca en formato digital es continuidad de la revista impresa
ISSN-Versión Impresa 0798-1406 / ISSN-Versión on line 2542-3185Depósito legal pp
197402ZU34
ppi 201502ZU4645
Vol.39 N° 68
Enero
Junio
2021
Recibido el 03/06/2020 Aceptado el 11/11/2020
ISSN 0798- 1406 ~ De pó si to le gal pp 198502ZU132
Cues tio nes Po lí ti cas
La re vis ta Cues tio nes Po lí ti cas, es una pu bli ca ción aus pi cia da por el Ins ti tu to
de Es tu dios Po lí ti cos y De re cho Pú bli co “Dr. Hum ber to J. La Ro che” (IEPDP) de la Fa-
cul tad de Cien cias Ju rí di cas y Po lí ti cas de la Uni ver si dad del Zu lia.
En tre sus ob je ti vos fi gu ran: con tri buir con el pro gre so cien tí fi co de las Cien cias
Hu ma nas y So cia les, a tra vés de la di vul ga ción de los re sul ta dos lo gra dos por sus in ves-
ti ga do res; es ti mu lar la in ves ti ga ción en es tas áreas del sa ber; y pro pi ciar la pre sen ta-
ción, dis cu sión y con fron ta ción de las ideas y avan ces cien tí fi cos con com pro mi so so cial.
Cues tio nes Po lí ti cas apa re ce dos ve ces al año y pu bli ca tra ba jos ori gi na les con
avan ces o re sul ta dos de in ves ti ga ción en las áreas de Cien cia Po lí ti ca y De re cho Pú bli-
co, los cua les son so me ti dos a la con si de ra ción de ár bi tros ca li fi ca dos.
ESTA PU BLI CA CIÓN APA RE CE RE SE ÑA DA, EN TRE OTROS ÍN DI CES, EN
:
Re vicyhLUZ, In ter na tio nal Po li ti cal Scien ce Abs tracts, Re vis ta In ter ame ri ca na de
Bi blio gra fía, en el Cen tro La ti no ame ri ca no para el De sa rrol lo (CLAD), en Bi blio-
gra fía So cio Eco nó mi ca de Ve ne zue la de RE DIN SE, In ter na tio nal Bi blio graphy of
Po li ti cal Scien ce, Re vencyt, His pa nic Ame ri can Pe rio di cals In dex/HAPI), Ul ri ch’s
Pe rio di cals Di rec tory, EBS CO. Se en cuen tra acre di ta da al Re gis tro de Pu bli ca cio-
nes Cien tí fi cas y Tec no ló gi cas Ve ne zo la nas del FO NA CIT, La tin dex.
Di rec to ra
L
OIRALITH
M. C
HIRINOS
P
ORTILLO
Co mi té Edi tor
Eduviges Morales Villalobos
Fabiola Tavares Duarte
Ma ría Eu ge nia Soto Hernández
Nila Leal González
Carmen Pérez Baralt
Co mi té Ase sor
Pedro Bracho Grand
J. M. Del ga do Ocan do
José Ce rra da
Ri car do Com bel las
An gel Lom bar di
Die ter Nohlen
Al fre do Ra mos Ji mé nez
Go ran Ther born
Frie drich Welsch
Asis ten tes Ad mi nis tra ti vos
Joan López Urdaneta y Nil da Ma rín
Re vis ta Cues tio nes Po lí ti cas. Av. Gua ji ra. Uni ver si dad del Zu lia. Nú cleo Hu ma nís ti co. Fa-
cul tad de Cien cias Ju rí di cas y Po lí ti cas. Ins ti tu to de Es tu dios Po lí ti cos y De re cho Pú bli co
“Dr. Hum ber to J. La Ro che”. Ma ra cai bo, Ve ne zue la. E- mail: cues tio nes po li ti cas@gmail.
com ~ loi chi ri nos por til lo@gmail.com. Te le fax: 58- 0261- 4127018.
Vol. 39, Nº 68 (Enero - Junio) 2021, 273-289
IEPDP-Facultad de Ciencias Jurídicas y Políticas - LUZ
Rethinking the category of organic
intellectual of/by Antonio Gramsci
in today’s world
DOI: https://doi.org/10.46398/cuestpol.3968.17
Anatolii P. Getman *
Danilyan Oleg G. **
Magda Julissa Rojas-Bahamón ***
Diego Felipe Arbeláez-Campillo ****
Olexandra’s Ptashnyk-Serediuk *****
Abstract
The attempt to assess the essential functions and aspects of
the intellectual establishment in the modern and contemporary
world occupies a prominent place in the social sciences and in the
political philosophy of the 20th century. Antonio Gramsci was undoubtedly
one of the philosophers who made the most heuristic and hermeneutical
contributions, from his revisionist Marxist perspective, to understand
intellectuals as leading actors and active political subjects, situated in the
dilemma of favoring the preservation of the established order, in the case
of traditional intellectuals, or in promoting their radical transformation
as a program of action of the so-called organic intellectuals, who dedicate
themselves at all times to interpret the needs and aspirations of justice and
equity of the time and social space of which they are part, to endow it with
concrete political content. Consequently, the objective of this scientic article
is to examine the role of the critical intellectual with social commitment in
the current complex context, marked by the systemic crisis of the current
world order. Methodologically speaking, the document presented here was
developed through dialectical hermeneutics and the documentary research
* Doctor of Legal Sciences, Professor, Rector of Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University, Ukraine.
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1987-2760. Email: apgetman@nulau.edu.ua
** Doctor of Philosophical Sciences, Professor, Head of the Department of Philosophy of Yaroslav Mudryi
National Law University. ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5308-4664. Email: odana@i.ua
*** PhD. Educación y cultura ambiental. Docente IE Jorge Eliecer Gaitán, Universidad de la Amazonia,
Colombia. ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4882-1476. Email: mjulissa@gmail.com
**** Grupo de investigación Lenguajes, representaciones y Educación, Universidad de la Amazonia,
Colombia. ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9041-9563. Email: dfaca@hotmail.com
***** Candidate of Sociological Sciences, Associate Professor of the Department of Social and Humanitarian
Disciplines of the Precarpathian Department of the National Academy of Internal Affairs. ORCID ID:
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1529-2443. Email: ops78@ukr.net
274
Anatolii P. Getman, Danilyan Oleg G., Magda Julissa Rojas-Bahamón, Diego Felipe Arbeláez-
Campillo y Olexandra’s Ptashnyk-Serediuk
Rethinking the category of organic intellectual of/by Antonio Gramsci in today’s world
technique. The ndings obtained allow us to conclude that critical thinking
is key to revitalizing democracies.
Keywords: organic intellectual; traditional intellectual; Antonio
Gramsci; critical thinking; systemic crisis of the world order.
Repensando la categoría de Intelectual Orgánico de
Antonio Gramsci en el Mundo de Hoy
Resumen
El intento por valorar las funciones y aspectos esenciales del estamento
intelectual en el mundo moderno y contemporáneo ocupa un lugar
prominente en las ciencias sociales y en la losofía política del siglo XX.
Antonio Gramsci fue sin duda uno de los lósofos que más aportes heurísticos
y hermenéuticos efectúo, desde su perspectiva marxista revisionista,
para comprender a los intelectuales como actores protagónicos y sujetos
políticos activos, situados en la disyuntiva de propender a la conservación
del orden establecido, en el caso de los intelectuales tradicionales, o en
impulsar su transformación radical como programa de acción de los
llamados intelectuales orgánicos, que se dedican en cada momento a
interpretar las necesidades y aspiraciones de justicia y equidad del tiempo
y espacio social del que forman parte, para dotarlo de contenido político
concreto. En consecuencia, el objetivo de este artículo cientíco consiste
en examinar la función del intelectual crítico con compromiso social
en el complejo contexto actual, signado por la crisis sistémica del orden
mundial vigente. Metodológicamente hablando el documento que aquí se
presenta se desarrolló mediante la hermenéutica dialéctica y la técnica de
investigación documental. Los hallazgos recabados permiten concluir que
el pensamiento crítico es clave para revitalizar las democracias.
Palabras clave: intelectual orgánico, intelectual tradicional; Antonio
Gramsci; pensamiento crítico; crisis sistémica del orden
mundial.
Introduction
Lato sensu for intellectuals we want to cover, following the contributions
of Mansilla (2002), the specialists, technical-organizational of the public
administration, in areas as diverse as the economy, the human and
social sciences, university professors, public policy makers, planners,
philosophers, writers and social communicators, among others. “But
275
CUESTIONES POLÍTICAS
Vol. 39 Nº 68 (Enero - Junio 2021): 273-289
this term is usually designated in a more restricted way to” independent
“producers of spiritual values, to creators of meaning who take advantage of
the most advanced knowledge of the international cultural community...”
(Mansilla, 2002: 430).
The notion of intellectuals is a broad concept in which a set of different
activities such as science, culture, literature, art and philosophy, among
others, are delimited, in which, beyond their particularities, development
creative and cognitive processes as a trade or profession by people who
are, strictly speaking, responsible for developing and socializing the ideas
and reections that set the standard, materially and symbolically, in the
public opinion of a society that grants them moral-scholarly authority or,
simply, to act as specialists in the different human activities in the face of
the production of goods and services.
In the case of intellectuals in political activity, their social impact is much
greater, without ignoring that even approaches that in principle do not have
a concrete political foundation, could ultimately have biased political and
ideological uses, as happened, for example, with the theory of evolution of
Charles Darwin, which would degenerate into social Darwinism to justify
racist policies of social exclusion that sought the predominance of certain
ethnic groups over others.
From this perspective, intellectuals have at the time a very important
connection with the socio-political realities of which they are part and,
therefore, their published work has repercussions, according to their
particular bias, either in the preservation of the established order, in
the in the case of the so-called traditional intellectuals, or, in promoting
their transformation as a program of action, in the case of the so-called
organic intellectuals, who, according to Gramsci (1967), are dedicated to
interpreting at all times the needs and aspirations of justice and fairness of
time and the social space of which they are part, to provide it with concrete
political content contrary to the hegemonic interests of the historical bloc
6
(Portelli, 1978).
The objective of this scientic article is to examine the role of the
critical intellectual with social commitment in the current complex context,
marked by the systemic crisis of the current world order (Villasmil, 2020;
6 Simplifying things, in Antonio Gramsci’s terminology the historical block is the symmetry that exists
between the infrastructure, that is, for Marxism, the totality of the productive forces that in a time
and space determine the existing means and modes of production. , with the superstructure, or more
specically with the culture, the law and the general episteme of a model of society, to respond at all
times to the hegemonic project that identies a dominant class in the exercise of power and justies
or tries to justify and rationalize, in social representations, their domination, symbolic capital and
particular privileges as something natural and never as a historical anomaly that benets some and
harms many others. For more information in this regard, we recommend consulting the Gramsci texts
that appear at the end in the reference index or the link: https://kmarx.wordpress.com/2012/11/20/
el-intelectual-organico-en-gramsci -an approximation/.
276
Anatolii P. Getman, Danilyan Oleg G., Magda Julissa Rojas-Bahamón, Diego Felipe Arbeláez-
Campillo y Olexandra’s Ptashnyk-Serediuk
Rethinking the category of organic intellectual of/by Antonio Gramsci in today’s world
Parra, 2020; Arbeláez-Campillo et al, 2019; Arbeláez-Campillo and
Rojas-Bahamón, 2020), all within the framework of an inter-ideological
political and philosophical debate that seeks to rethink - in the heat of the
requirements and challenges imposed by the 21st century agenda - some
theories, thinkers and works that, As in the case of certain proposals by
Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937), they continue to have an unusual validity
beyond the differences of time. As might be expected due to the nature of
the subject, methodologically speaking the document presented here was
developed through dialectical hermeneutics and the documentary research
technique, from a holistic and interdisciplinary vision of political thought.
The work is divided into four particular sections, namely: 1) revised
literature, which accounts for the substrate of classical or neoclassical
works that, in primary and secondary sources, directly or indirectly address
the central role played by the subject of the intellectuals in the work of this
remarkable Italian thinker; 2) methodology, section where the interpretive
processes used in the organization and reading of the sources collected in
the form of printed documents in physical and digital format are succinctly
exposed; 3) organic intellectuals in today’s world, where the political and
ideological implications that in theory and in reality impose the practices of
critical, associative and innovative thinking are discussed. Finally, the nal
reections and the main research ndings are presented in the conclusions
section.
1. Literature reviewed
Next, a selective bibliographic balance is made of what, in our opinion,
are the main works on the broad and advanced philosophical project
of Antonio Gramsci, either due to the depth of his investigation, the
appropriate handling of primary sources or for the consistency of his ideas.
This documentary archiving was carried out as a condition of possibility to
determine the contributions or limitations of the selected anthology that,
in theory, would correct this investigation. It should be claried that the
scientic article presented here focused almost exclusively on the question
of intellectuals and, furthermore, that the work is subsidiary in its main
lines of argument of the imprint of these works with which it dialogues in a
hermeneutic and intertextual.
Gramsci is a thinker situated in the rigors of Italy in the second decade
of the 20th century (Fiori, 1976); Consequently, he experienced rsthand
the transformation of the nineteenth-century world order that would
mark the beginning of the end of the British, Ottoman, Tsarist Russia and,
ultimately, the construction of the USSR. His particular reading of Marxism
allows him to rethink the role of culture, the State and intellectuals in the
new order of things that was being born dialectically at the time, from the
277
CUESTIONES POLÍTICAS
Vol. 39 Nº 68 (Enero - Junio 2021): 273-289
deep conviction that the processes of domination develop mainly in the
systems of beliefs - ideology and superstructure - that serve as the basis
for the law, the institutions of power and all historically existing forms of
state and government, since it is not possible for the ruling classes to govern
solely through coercive devices of social control, which is why which appeal
to the legitimation of their hegemony in the collective imaginary (Díaz-
Salazar, 1991).
For Bobbio (1991), roughly the political theory of Gramsci that emerges
from his fragmented thought due to the difculties of his life history,
opposes the notions of civil society and the State. Unlike the tradition
implemented by contractarians, conditioned by the enlightened liberal
tradition, the State is now not the highest incarnation of the social contract
to denitively overcome the state of nature, characterized in its course by
the irrationality of a type of relationship intersubjective where the will of
the strongest predominates at each moment. The Gramsci of the prison
notebooks:
(…) Belongs to this new history in which, to summarize, the State is not an end
in itself, but an apparatus, an instrument; He is the representative of interests not
universal, but particular; It is not a prevailing entity over the underlying society,
but is conditioned by it and, therefore, subordinate to it, is not a permanent
institution, but a transitory one, destined to disappear with the transformation of
the underlying society (Bobbio, 1991: 340).
For its part, civil society would be the social dimension that is not directly
controlled by the State, as a neural point of the hegemonic political system
and the constituted powers, in the words of Portelli: “Civil society is the true
home and scene of history… civil society encompasses the entire material
exchange of individuals in a given phase of development of the productive
forces” (1978: 15).
Without wishing to comment on the limitations or weaknesses of this
conception of civil society, two preliminary conclusions quickly emerge: on
the one hand, the State is not the last stage in the history of the forms of
political organization, hence the Marxists postulate the supposed need for
its dissolution because it is an instrument of domination that represents
the particular interests of the elites in the exercise of power; on the other
hand, organic intellectuals set themselves up as a sort of lucid conscience
of the revolutionary social forces that bet on the liberation of all forms of
exploitation.
According to Buci-Glucksmann (1978), the distinguished Italian thinker
was undoubtedly a revisionist Marxist, while his vision of dialectical
materialism as a politically situated method of study to interpret the
ultimate meaning of the historical movement of human societies and
278
Anatolii P. Getman, Danilyan Oleg G., Magda Julissa Rojas-Bahamón, Diego Felipe Arbeláez-
Campillo y Olexandra’s Ptashnyk-Serediuk
Rethinking the category of organic intellectual of/by Antonio Gramsci in today’s world
to build theoretical-practical tools in favor of the denitive liberation
of the subordinate groups. Therefore, his work represented a kind of
Western alternative to a too economistic or too Leninist Marxism that, by
concentrating on the study of social systems and structures, underestimated
the analysis of individuals and particular groups that, like intellectuals,
movements Students or political parties play a role in the construction,
maintenance or destruction of the superstructure and its historical block.
In this order of ideas, the construction of a specic socio-economic
formation such as slavery, feudalism or capitalism not only reects the
type of development of the productive forces in their different stages and
moments, but also the project of power that specialized intellectuals They
make to justify the interests of the ruling classes and make the burden
of domination more bearable, hence, since the origins of the rst human
civilizations, religions have played a leading role in the divinization of the
actors and factors of power, to inhibit a priori any form of resistance or
subversion of the established order (Gramsci, 1967; 1986). In any case, it is
clear that the infrastructure and the superstructure never emerge by chance
or providence, but by the deliberate materialization of hegemonic interests,
rationalized by theories, ideologies and all kinds of power discourses.
These postulates explain the centrality of intellectuals in Gramsci’s
thought and its dichotomous organization in the categories of traditional
intellectuals vs. organic intellectuals. In the rst case, according to Dussel
(2001), organic intellectuals have the maximum purpose of collaborating,
according to the status and role in which they are located, in the
construction of a critical philosophy, that is, a systematic approach based
on empirical evidence. that presents the prevailing system of domination
as an intolerable reality that can and should be transformed, for which
purpose they empathically place themselves in the place of the victims,
while proposing viable alternatives to radically improve their historical
situation and living conditions in general.
In stark contrast, traditional intellectuals or, according to Dussel (2001),
intellectuals functional to the system do not have any ethical conict with
the result of the prevailing order of things, either because they do not have
historical and political awareness of reality, think about this point , in the
fundamental engineers or technicians for the development of industrial
activity in the different productive proceedings that fall into the category
of intellectuals or; because they are comfortable with their privileges as
a high-level workforce, or; simply because, as traditional intellectuals,
who may have been organic at one stage of their life, ideologically assume
that the present moment is the obligatory product of historical evolution,
insofar as the system of relationships that exists between people, including
Dramatic experiences of injustice and inequality represent the best way to
divide the valuable goods that emerge from work to maximize the common
good (Fontana, 1999).
279
CUESTIONES POLÍTICAS
Vol. 39 Nº 68 (Enero - Junio 2021): 273-289
2. Methodology
Dialectical hermeneutics is constituted in a philosophical tradition
that became in the 20th century a research methodology, otherwise useful
when it comes to interpreting the symbols and signs that emerge from the
relationship between texts and contexts to produce scientic knowledge that
values, All other things being equal, the objective and subjective dimension
of a reality. In the words of Moreno (2008), the exegetical action develops
a dialogue between at least two different horizons: on the one hand, the
one that comes from the tradition that identies the questioned text as an
understandable fragment of its time and space and; on the other, the horizon
to which the interpreting subject belongs. Many times both horizons are
very different, which is why in order to understand the message of a text,
one must rst understand its context of origin, from its own narrative logic.
On this occasion, each and every one of the sources collected and ordered
under the research documentary design protocol, were re-read based on
three specic criteria that were formulated in the questions:
1. What political and ideological interests does the questioned author
defend?
2. In what way does the work in question reect the great lines of
thought of its time and space of origin?
3. What theoretical or practical utility do the revised ideas, categories
or concepts acquire for today’s world?
4. What function does Gramsci’s theory give to the critical intellectual
with social commitment immersed in a general context marked by
the crisis of the current world order?
Therefore, with this methodological criterion, the hermeneutical circle
advanced by us, as an intertextual dialogue that occurs between texts and
different contexts, horizons and knowledge, was oriented to seek answers,
even if they are partial, to each of these questions without any intention of
arrive at denitive conclusions on the subject or provide knowledge with
the claim of universality. Rather, it was a question of qualifying Gramsci’s
central ideas about intellectuals in order to strengthen at least theoretically,
in today’s world, the role of the critical intellectual, a bulwark that is
certainly not the monopoly of any particular political tendency of the left or
right, such as some radical populist speeches have pretended.
3. Organic intellectuals in today’s world
Together with the questions formulated in the previous section, it was
also investigated: ¿What specic ideas are salvageable from an approach
280
Anatolii P. Getman, Danilyan Oleg G., Magda Julissa Rojas-Bahamón, Diego Felipe Arbeláez-
Campillo y Olexandra’s Ptashnyk-Serediuk
Rethinking the category of organic intellectual of/by Antonio Gramsci in today’s world
that originated in a reality very different from that of today’s world? How
valid can a vision of intellectuals that arises within a philosophy anchored
in historical reality have multiple totalitarian experiments in the 20th
century? And what characteristics would organic intellectuals have in
today›s world? These and other similar questions will try to be answered in
this section as a condition of possibility to solve the objective of the research
and at the same time promote an academic debate that allows rethinking
the organic intellectual establishment and, functional to the system, in the
coordinates of the general crisis in full development.
To answer the rst question, it is well to reiterate that some theories
manage to transcend their epochal context for different reasons, ranging
from the validity of their ideas to responding to current problems or
because of their intrinsic ability to adapt - without losing their essence - to
new ones. or renewed problems imposed by epistemological reection and
reality itself. As will be argued in this section, we believe that this is the case
of Gramsci’s theory of organic intellectuals, a prelude to all the postmodern
planning of critical and counter-hegemonic thinking. In this order of ideas,
at least concepts such as: organic intellectuals, traditional intellectuals, the
historical bloc and civil society are salvageable, all in the Gramscian sense.
As for the second question, it is clear today that in many crucial respects
the experiments of real socialism deviated from the original meaning of
classical Marxism. Hence, the dictatorship of the proletariat, where it was
implemented, was in practice the dictatorship of the one party to undermine
social pluralism and, immediately afterwards, the dictatorship of the
one party was really the dictatorship of a caudillo like Stalin or a clique.
civic-military closed of the politburo of the communist party. In addition,
it should be noted that for Gramsci the last stage of the organization of
the classless society was the dissolution of the State, however, for obvious
reasons this step was not promoted in practice by any Marxist socialist
organization in the exercise of power.
Although many more phenomena of dissonance could be enunciated
between the original Marxist proposal and what happened, for example, in
China and the Soviet republics, the reality of the case is that in its essence
Marxism suffers from a proper democratic theory (Sartori, 2009; 1988) -
seminal weakness that the rst classical liberalism also possessed -, which
does not mean that his contributions to the development of critical and
counter-hegemonic thought have not been substantial to leverage later
theories such as those formulated by the Frankfurt school, the liberation or
Latin American critical philosophy, among others. Hence, even cataloging
Marxism as a philosophy close to totalitarian traditions, the validity of
many of its contributions, categories of analysis and particular concepts
cannot be denied when it comes to explaining the schemes that produce
and reproduce all forms of oppression In today’s world.
281
CUESTIONES POLÍTICAS
Vol. 39 Nº 68 (Enero - Junio 2021): 273-289
For its part, the third question, what characteristics would organic
intellectuals have in today’s world? It demands a more weighted response
from the knowledge of the great socio-political and economic trends that
dene the foundations of the history of the current world, marked by the
substantial increase in entropy and conicts of all kinds in the framework
of a transition process to a new order of uncertain content (Villasmil, 2020;
Parra, 2020; Arbeláez-Campillo et al., 2019).
Indeed, if I had to summarize the major problems that will delimit
political agendas at a global level, 5 themes would be tentatively pointed
out because of their unusual transcendence and centrality, namely: a) the
crisis of representation of contemporary polyarchies beyond the adjective of
participatory democracy or grassroots democracy; b) the growing material
and symbolic inequalities that relegate huge numbers of people to a life of
violence, lack of opportunities to develop their life projects and precarious
access to basic goods and services; c) the systematic deterioration of the
biosphere throughout the planet due to global warming and the greenhouse
effect; d) the international repositioning of authoritarian governments in
the East and West that undermine human rights and, nally; e) the absence
of a new philosophical system that leads to the emergence of a different
political thought that manages to surpass - with novel proposals - the long-
established dichotomies of Marxism / liberalism, democracy / autocracy
and planned economies / market economies, in order to achieve sustainable
development on a planetary scale.
In this order of ideas, the two categories of intellectuals formulated by
the author of the Prison Notebook, would nd themselves again facing
a bifurcated path between: adapting in an accommodative way to the
requirements of the status quo, justifying their models, practices and
representations , which would imply a traditional / functional intellectual
stance or; on the contrary, to take up the banners of struggle of the organic
intelligentsia as a condition of possibility to give answers, as a theoretician
or entrepreneur
7
in the face of resistance and social organization, to the
great challenges imposed by today’s world, challenges that translate into
in multiple problems that constitute, without a doubt, forces contrary to
democracy and the achievement of the good life for the majority.
For Jiménez et al., (2019), the organic intellectual in today’s world
is identied, in the psychological dimension of being and doing, by an
attitudinal prole of an innovative leader who gallantly assumes the
demands of the political, social and organizational environment in which
it is immersed. In the same way, he is characterized by the display of three
transversal qualities or skills in his life: critical thinking, critical behavior
and dialogic attitude, consequently:
7 For an interesting work on the development of female entrepreneurship, it is recommended to consult
(Pinkovetskaia et al., 2019)
282
Anatolii P. Getman, Danilyan Oleg G., Magda Julissa Rojas-Bahamón, Diego Felipe Arbeláez-
Campillo y Olexandra’s Ptashnyk-Serediuk
Rethinking the category of organic intellectual of/by Antonio Gramsci in today’s world
Their interrelation leads to the performance of leaders who are
dissatised with their world, capable of identifying alternatives in the eld
of politics to advance in the rational transformation of the structures that
support inequity. Their work will be consistent insofar as they involve
the affected actors in the search for consensual solutions, for which they
have the possibility of reaching agreements through a dialogical process
of an intersubjective and rational nature that will not be exempt from
contradictions and tensions (Jiménez et al., 2019: 54).
Again, it is interesting to note that the condition of organic intellectual
and critical thinker is not exclusive to any particular ideological or partisan
tendency, which is why critical thinking attitudes, wayward behavior
contrary to dominant conventions and dialogical attitude can be observed.
in the most dissimilar characters in the world of ideas that can be located
in the ideological spectrum in positions: anarchists, eclectic, moderate or
revolutionary, among others.
After the break with colonial ties, an arduous debate arises in Latin
America, to dene the national identity and at the same time determine
the best formulas to order the independent territories and modernize their
populations, in accordance with the parameters of the modernity program.
politics, in its positivist stage of “order and progress” that tries to emulate
the hegemonic societies of the West in the particular realities of the peoples
of the South, without paying attention to their specicities, imbrications
and miscegenations (multicultural and multiethnic).
In this sense, according to Villasmil and Jiménez (2015), it is common
for nineteenth-century intellectuals to group as militants or sympathizers
around the postulates of liberal or conservative parties, both with very
particular national projects, which defended centralism and the Catholic
confessional state, in the case of the conservatives - which will, in fact, be
the dominant trend.
In the case of Colombia, for example, liberalism in general and the liberal
party in particular, would be until the advent of progressive and postmodern
ideas in the country, well into the twentieth century, the main symbolic
referent that identies the organic intelligentsia. According to Martín
(2010), it was the Colombian liberals who rose up against the caudillo ideas
of some sinister gures who designed custom constitutions to position
themselves as life presidents and subject all public powers to their will;
It was the Liberals who, while in power, decreed the manumission of the
assets of the dead hands and, in this way, they advanced an additive reform
that allowed to signicantly increase the national agricultural frontier and;
Furthermore, it was the liberals who ercely and systematically defended
the secular state model, freedom of worship, expression and thought as
pillars of modernization.
283
CUESTIONES POLÍTICAS
Vol. 39 Nº 68 (Enero - Junio 2021): 273-289
In the 21st century, pragmatism has gained ground and it is now the so-
called technocratic intellectuals who seek to transcend left-right bipolarity
from the tacit or open claim of neoliberalism, neo-conservatism or the third
way. However, beyond their ideological camouage, they are, in essence
and existence, traditional / functional intellectuals because they seek to
perpetuate the established order at all times and reduce its tensions or
structural contradictions exclusively through reform, without ever posing a
conducive debate. to the construction of a new model of society, more just
and equitable for all.
As Uribe indicates: “The technocratic discourse is associated with
the scientic one because it defends a society where those who make the
decisions are the scientists or technical experts; these, in addition, support
their positions through rational argumentation or critical thinking” (2016:
151). Seen this way, there is no problem in empowering experts in crucial
areas of the economy or in the formulation of public policies whose purpose
is to provide timely responses to the demands, aspirations and problems of
the different communities that make up the national reality; The problem
is that science is not, in any case, an ideologically neutral phenomenon;
Therefore, in practice the technocratic groups in power have come to prop
up a neoliberal agenda that cannot replace citizen intervention in the
realization of participatory democracy, nor the collective deliberation of
major issues of national interest.
As already mentioned in a previous paragraph, these are specialists,
social communicators and experts in different areas who are interested in
providing lights for the construction of a new or renewed model of a more just
and inclusive society for all, in which, can combine development with social
equity to build a sustainable socio-political and economic ecosystem over
time; Hence, there are crucial differences between the organic intelligentsia
- won to build a new social contract as a condition of possibility to overcome
the vices and contradictions of this order of things - and the traditional
ones, who seek their prolongation over time. The following table shows
the most signicant differences that exist between these two categories of
intellectuals in the world.
284
Anatolii P. Getman, Danilyan Oleg G., Magda Julissa Rojas-Bahamón, Diego Felipe Arbeláez-
Campillo y Olexandra’s Ptashnyk-Serediuk
Rethinking the category of organic intellectual of/by Antonio Gramsci in today’s world
Political
and
ideological
interests
Model of
economy
and society
that they
defend
Social impact
of their
ideas
In tune with
the great
problems of
the country
and the
world
Organic
Intellectuals
Democratic,
inclusive, and
participatory
conception of
the exercise of
power.
They
promote the
construction
of less
hierarchical
societies and
economies at
the service
of human
dignity
and the
ecosystem.
They often
constitute
theorists
of various
political parties
and social
movements that
seek to promote
processes of
emancipation
of oppressed
and relegated
minorities.
They are
usually the
interpreters
of the main
challenges
and problems
of their time
and social
space.
They are
usually the
interpreters
of the main
challenges
and problems
of their time
and social
space.
Traditional/
functional
Intellectuals
Procedural
visions of
democracy
are privileged
over the
substantive
conception
that advocates
reducing
socioeconomic
asymmetries.
They defend
neoliberalism
and social
stratication,
as a synonym
for order and
prosperity.
Many
traditional
intellectuals
are advisers to
neo-populist
or radical
populist leaders
who tend to
personalize
political
processes to
the detriment
of democratic
institutions.
This in addition
to being the
specialists and
technicians of
the prevailing
economic,
political and
communication
apparatus.
Although
traditional
intellectuals
fully
understand
the great
problems of
their time and
space, they
often make
proposals
that retard
the necessary
historical
changes
through
gradualist
or reformist
solutions to
politics and
economics.
Table No. 1: Own elaboration based on the referenced literature and the
objective of the research.
Although it could be argued that the reality of intellectual work is
much more complex than the partial photography offered by the painting,
everything indicates that at least roughly the differences between these two
opposite ways of exercising the ofce of ideas are well represented, science
285
CUESTIONES POLÍTICAS
Vol. 39 Nº 68 (Enero - Junio 2021): 273-289
and culture. Without a doubt, organic and traditional intellectuals are
moved by the inuence of different political and ideological interests.
In this vein, both intellectual estates have up to now defended different
economic and social models. For organic intellectuals, the key is to build,
materially and symbolically, a less hierarchical and stratied society, in
which the great decisions of public interest are not only made by the usual
alliance between the political and economic elites with their backs turned
to the true national interest. Consequently, they have made an effort to
promote economic experiences, such as the orange economy or the social
market economy, among others, at the service of human dignity and of all
forms of life in general that are now threatened by the systematic predation
of their environment (Calvano, 2018; 2019).
For their part, traditional intellectuals continue to defend - until
its ultimate consequences - the development of a market economy in
accordance with the parameters of the World Bank, the International
Monetary Fund and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD), under the assumption that the invisible hand of the
market will bring order, prosperity and well-being to all communities and
regions, regardless of the empirical evidence against it that it bets for the
strengthening of the welfare state.
In this way, the impact of progressive and traditional ideas is also very
different in collective representations and insocial imaginaries. In the rst
case, any attempt to move to a qualitatively higher phase of history implies
the democratic transformation of its systems, hence, organic intellectuals
often become theorists of various counter-hegemonic political parties
and social movements that seek to promote processes of emancipation
of minorities oppressed and relegated by the prevailing statu quo. In
contrast, the traditional ones continue to act as specialists and technicians,
without a critical conscience or a dialogic attitude, in the maintenance
of the economic, political, educational and communicational apparatus
of the state, even advising many neo-populist or radical populist leaders
who tend to personalize political processes to the detriment of democratic
institutions.
In this common thread, perhaps the most notable difference between
the two categories of thinkers, this in the way they connect or tune into the
great problems of the world today. Let us remember that for Gramsci (1967;
1986), the organic intellectual stands out for his role within the historical
bloc, as a moral force that dares to challenge the hegemony of the ruling class
and its control of civil society to propose new horizons and possibilities.
But unlike the time of the illustrious Italian philosopher, nowadays there
is no attempt to promote an armed revolution leading to the structuring of
a socialist society, nothing would be further from the geopolitical reality of
the 21st century world.
286
Anatolii P. Getman, Danilyan Oleg G., Magda Julissa Rojas-Bahamón, Diego Felipe Arbeláez-
Campillo y Olexandra’s Ptashnyk-Serediuk
Rethinking the category of organic intellectual of/by Antonio Gramsci in today’s world
Rather, it is about making people and communities aware of the central
challenges of their time and space and, therefore, promoting places and
moments of deliberative and grassroots democracy, for the empowerment
of citizens, leading to the achievement of consensus necessary to implement
the changes and corrections that cannot be postponed at the structural
level. For their part, traditional intellectuals, while fully understanding
the major problems of their context, often make proposals that delay the
necessary historical changes through gradualist or reformist solutions to
politics and economics, favoring the achievement of elites’ dominance. in
making binding decisions, beyond the democratic and liberal veneer of
their proclamations and speeches for mass consumption.
Conclusions
When trying to examine the role of the critical intellectual with social
commitment in the current complex context, marked by the systemic
crisis of the current world order, a set of ndings emerge that strengthen
the perspective of Gramsci’s thought. In the rst place, he urges to defeat
the pragmatism and the dominant pessimism about the impossibility of
promoting sustainable political, economic and social changes that come
to dignify life, without lies and demagogies that do not advance historical
processes.
In this sense, it is the organic intellectuals, as Portelli (1978) points out,
those who have the responsibility of maximizing the consciousness of civil
society that resists - with or without knowledge of it - the hegemony of a
determined historical bloc, the pair to reveal its possibilities of action and
of ght that are allowed by the objective and subjective conditions in which
it is immersed. Ultimately, it is about strengthening the autonomy of people
in the self-determination of their worlds of life, within the framework of a
new ethic-politics, which, without betting on the absolute equality typical of
the totalitarian orders of yesteryear, tends to structure a new social contract
in the face of the post-conict.
Second, the crisis in the representation of the current polyarchists,
which translates into the distrust of the majority in the face of the leaders
of the day and the capacity of the institutions to satisfy the growing social
demands, is not something that can be resolved within the political and
epistemological limits of all existing models up to the present, a situation
that has precisely driven the crisis of the current world order. Due to this
circumstance of exhaustion of the ways of doing and thinking about politics,
the creation of a new philosophical system by organic intellectuals with
social commitment is urgent, which will take democracy out of its quagmire
and denitively prevent the return of authoritarian forms to exercise power.
287
CUESTIONES POLÍTICAS
Vol. 39 Nº 68 (Enero - Junio 2021): 273-289
Finally, the organic intellectuals, through rational arguments, critical
thinking and a dialogic attitude - never through violence - are the rst force
in charge of demonstrating in each place and moment, the unfeasibility
of the gradualist and reformist approaches of traditional intellectuals to
confront to the challenges imposed by today’s turbulent world; in addition
to interpreting the needs and aspirations of justice and equity of the context
that are part, to provide it with concrete political content in the face of the
transforming action of reality. At this point Gramsci is still current.
Bibliographic References
ARBELÁEZ-CAMPILLO, Diego Felipe; ANDREYEVNA DUDAREVA,
Marianna; ROJAS-BAHAMÓN, Magda Julissa. 2019. “Las pandemias
como factor perturbador del orden geopolítico en el mundo
globalizado” En: Cuestiones Políticas. Disponible en línea. En: https://
produccioncienticaluz.org/index.php/cuestiones/article/view/31528.
Fecha de consulta: 16/04/2020.
ARBELÁEZ-CAMPILLO, Diego Felipe; ROJAS-BAHAMÓN, Magda Julissa.
2020. “Pandemics in globalization times” En: Amazonia Investiga.
Vol. 9, No. 27. Disponible en línea. En: https://doi.org/10.34069/
AI/2020.27.03.0. Fecha de consulta: 20/11/2020
BLOG DEDICADO AL ESTUDIO DE CARLOS MARX. S/f. El “intelectual
orgánico” en Gramsci. Una aproximación. Disponible en línea. En:
https://kmarx.wordpress.com/2012/11/20/el-intelectual-organico-en-
gramsci-una-aproximacion/. Fecha de consulta: 20/06/2020.
BOBBIO, Norberto. 1991. Estudios de la historia de la losofía De Hobbes a
Gramsci. Editorial debate. Madrid, España.
BUCI-GLUCKSMANN, Christine. 1978. Hacia una teoría materialista de la
losofía. Siglo veintiuno editores. Madrid, España.
CALVANO CABEZAS, Leonardo. 2018. Contrato social y modernidad política
en Colombia. Fondo editorial de UNERMB/ Universidad del Zulia.
Cabimas, Venezuela.
CALVANO CABEZAS, Leonardo. 2019. “Apuntes sobre los Desafíos que entraña
el Nuevo Contrato social para Colombia en Tiempos del Postconicto”
En: Cuestiones políticas, Vol. 36, No. 63, pp. 14-29.
DÍAZ-SALAZAR, Rafael. 1991. El proyecto de Gramsci. Antrhopos editorial del
hombre. Barcelona, España.
288
Anatolii P. Getman, Danilyan Oleg G., Magda Julissa Rojas-Bahamón, Diego Felipe Arbeláez-
Campillo y Olexandra’s Ptashnyk-Serediuk
Rethinking the category of organic intellectual of/by Antonio Gramsci in today’s world
DUSSEL, Enrique. 2001. Hacia una losofía política crítica. Desclée. Bilbao,
España.
FIORI, Giuseppe. 1976. Vida de Antonio Gramsci. Ediciones península.
Barcelona, España.
FONTANA, Josep. 1999. Historia: análisis de la realidad y proyecto social.
Biblioteca de bolsillo. Barcelona, España.
GONZÁLEZ, Fernán. 2014. Poder y Violencia en Colombia. ODECOFI-CINEP.
Bogotá, Colombia.
GRAMSCI, Antonio. 1967. La formación de los intelectuales. Editori Riuniti.
México DF., México.
GRAMSCI, Antonio. 1986. Cuadernos de la cárcel Edición crítica del Instituto
Gramsci a cargo de Valentino Gerratana (cuatro tomos). Ediciones era.
México DF., México.
JIMÉNEZ IDROVO, Ítalo Vinicio; FERNÁNDEZ ESPINOSA, Cira; SÁNCHEZ
PADILLA, Yadira Liliana. 2019. ¨Perl actitudinal de líderes innovadores:
Una mirada desde la psicología política¨ En: Revista de Ciencias Sociales.
Vol. XXV, No. 3, julio-septiembre, pp. 1315-9518.
MANSILLA, H.C.F. 2002. “Intelectuales y política en América Latina Breve
aproximación a una ambivalencia fundamental” En: Espacio Abierto.
Vol. 11, No. 3, julio-septiembre, pp. 429-454.
MARTÍN, Américo. 2010. La violencia en Colombia. Los Libros de el nacional.
Caracas, Venezuela.
MORENO OMEDO, Alejandro. 2008. El aro y la trama Episteme, modernidad
y pueblo. Convivium. Miami, EUA.
PARRA CONTRERAS, Reyber Antonio. 2020. “Una perspectiva del mundo
que se nos avecina” En: Revista de la Universidad del Zulia. Disponible
en línea. En: https://www.produccioncienticaluz.org/index.php/rluz/
article/view/31532/32613. Fecha de consulta: 22/06/2020.
PINKOVETSKAIA, Iuliia; ARBELÁEZ CAMPILLO, Diego Felipe; ROJAS
BAHAMÓN, Magda Julissa; GROMOVA, Tatiana; NIKITINA, Irina.
2019. “Female entrepreneurship development in the Russian Federation”
En: Amazonia Investiga, Vol. 8 No. 18, enero-febrero, pp. 111-118.
PORTELLI, Hugues. 1978. Gramsci y el bloque histórico. Siglo veintiuno
editores, Bogotá, Colombia.
289
CUESTIONES POLÍTICAS
Vol. 39 Nº 68 (Enero - Junio 2021): 273-289
RUBIANO MUÑOZ, Rafael. 2007. Derecho y Política Miguel Antonio Caro y
la regeneración Miguel Antonio Caro y la regeneración Miguel Antonio
Caro y la regeneración en Colombia a nales del siglo XIX. En: Opinión
Jurídica Opinión Jurídica - Universidad de Medellín. Vol. 6, No. 12, pp.
141-162.
SARTORI, Giovanni. 1988. Teoría de la democracia 2. Los problemas clásicos.
Alianza universitaria. Madrid, España.
SARTORI, Giovanni. 2009. La democracia en 30 lecciones. Taurus. Bogotá,
Colombia.
URIBE, Catalina. 2015. El discurso político de los tecnócratas Un análisis de
la comunicación de gobierno de Juan Manuel Santo. En: De Uribe,
Santos y otras especies políticas Comunicación de gobierno en Colombia,
Argentina y Brasil. Universidad de los Andes. Bogotá, Colombia.
VILLASMIL ESPINOZA, Jorge Jesús. 2020. “La fragilidad de las civilizaciones
humanas” En: Cuestiones Políticas. Disponible en línea. En: https://doi.
org/10.46398/cuestpol.3764.00. Fecha de consulta: 20/06/2020.
VILLASMIL ESPINOZA, Jorge; JIMÉNEZ IDROVO, Ítalo. 2015. El discurso
de la unidad americana en tres tiempos: independencia, organización
nacional, antiimperialismo. Universidad de Machala. Machala, Ecuador.
ISSN 0798- 1406 ~ De pó si to le gal pp 198502ZU132
Cues tio nes Po lí ti cas
Planilla de suscripción 2015
Nom bre ____________________________________________________
Ins ti tu ción __________________________________________________
Di rec ción___________________________________________________
Ciu dad ________________________País_________________________
Che que de ge ren cia a nom bre de: Univer si dad del Zu lia (LUZ),
Fa cul tad de Cien cias Ju rí di cas y Po lí ti cas, In gre sos Pro pios
Ban co Oc ci den tal de Des cuen to, Cuen ta co rrien te Nº 212700890-9
Ta ri fa de sus crip ción por un año (dos nú me ros):
Ve ne zue la: Bs. 80 + En vío
Ejem plar so lo: Bs. 40 + En vío
Amé ri ca La ti na $ 40 + En vío
Resto del mundo $ 50 + Envío
Esta pla ni lla debe ser en via da a la si guien te dirección:
Re vis ta “Cues tio nes Po lí ti cas”
Fa cul tad de Cien cias Ju rí di cas y Po lí ti cas
Ins ti tu to de Es tu dios Po lí ti cos y De re cho Pú bli co
Apar ta do Pos tal 526, Ma ra cai bo Ve ne zue la
Puede adelantar información por: cues tio nes po li ti cas@gmail.com
~ loi chi ri nos por til lo@gmail.com
Planilla de suscripción
