From Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg to Communist Thinker Gramsci

The new Secretary of Transportation appointed by the new US President Biden is Pete Buttigieg. This person was previously rumored to be a candidate for ambassador to China. Because of that and the fact that he is gay, there was a video slip spread on WeChat, in which he introduces to everyone his husband Graceman, who he married in 2018. I do not discriminate against homosexuals at all, but as a straight person I am just a little bit curious. If admitting being curious is not politically correct, I can pretend not to be curious.

Pete came out to run for president two years ago. I started to pay attention to him because of my enthusiasm about another candidate Andrew Yang, who shares the same ethnicity with me. Pete soon gave me the impression that he is just an elite with eloquence and a beautiful resume, but there was nothing in his talk.  The only slogan he had was unity, the country needs unity. Unity is easier said than done. For example, when a couple live together, peace or harmony at home is the most important thing, but who has the upper hand or final word is a big question. The Democrats always talk about unity but what unity, unity under a socialist agenda? Over the years I have come to know everything the Democrats say is fake, just as the communists: the fraternity they champaign is actually hatred, equality is corruption, political correctness is anti speech of freedom, support for the weak is let them stay in poverty forever, and encouragement of expressing different opinion is to haunt you afterwords.

Although Pete is white, his homosexual identity makes him an ideal minority candidate, as if he has changed from a white swan to an ugly duckling, in line with the criteria of a Democratic Party candidate. Because he is young and seems to have a promising future, he was favored by the Democratic Party leaders in the early stage and got a good start in terms of financial support, and came out on top in the Iowa primaries. He withdrew only later when Biden was thought to have a better chance of winning in the election and came to the top after Super Tuesday.

Pete’s father is Joseph Buttigieg. To say that Pete is an elite, and an Oxford scholar who graduated from Harvard, he may have to thank his father's genes, because Joseph is a titled professor of Notre Dame, a well-known private Catholic university in the United States, and his books are many. He is an Italian of Maltese origin. After having studied in the United Kingdom he came to the United States. He can be said to be a successful immigrant. But Malta is in Southern Europe, so he looks a bit dark. Pete mentioned in his autobiography that his father was discriminated because of the “blackness”. But to emphasize this blackness is probably to get close to the black voters, just like another candidate, Elizabeth Warren, who insisted that she has one-sixteenth Indian ancestry.

Joseph passed away in January 2019. At that time, his son had already started his campaign. That the son of a immigrant could do this speaks well about the American dream.  Maybe because of this, Joseph said he could die without regret. I guess why he thought so is that the United States is a great country that gives people opportunities, and I hope so. But maybe it's due to other things.  Maybe he thinks his son can now carry on what he has been doing.  What has he done then?

Joseph's academic achievements mainly consisted of translating the works of the Italian thinker and activist Antonio Gramsci, establishing the International Gramsci Society, and writing or editing many books related to Gramsci's theory.

Who is this Gramsci? He was born in January 1891 and died in April 1937. He is one of the founders and leaders of the Italian Communist Party and a great thinker of international communism. His theories have greatly enriched Marx and Leninism. In my opinion, it not only supplements the shortcomings of Marxism-Leninism, but also has far-reaching influence.

Why? Marx’s theory starts with surplus value, labor time, excess profits, etc.. These economic studies let Marx believe that when the economy reaches a certain stage, capitalism will inevitably fall. As for Leninism, it is mainly revolution, the use of force to seize power. However, at that time, Marxism-Leninism was not effective except for its success in the Soviet Union, especially in established capitalist countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States.

Gramsci fell into deep thought. How can we help the working masses in advanced capitalist countries to escape from the sea of ​​hardship? He had a very good idea, but at that time the Italian Mussolini fascist government was on stage and they sent Gramsci to prison. They even said that they would not let this guy’s brain work for 20 years.

Gramsci’s brain is indeed very powerful. He wrote thirty-two diaries in prison or when he was out on bail, which is the three-volume "Notes from Prison" translated by Joseph Buttigieg.

Gramsci discovered that to overthrow the capitalist society, one cannot rely solely on preaching the theory of surplus value, nor can it be overthrown by force. What needs to be done is to conquer the society culturally. He found that these capitalist countries have strong cultural traditions that firmly control the society. He believes that there are two important structures in a society, one is the government, which is the superstructure that Marx said, and there is the other, which is the economic foundations that Marx was talking about, but for Gramsci it is the “civil society”. Civil society mainly refers to culture, including religion, creeds, habits, etc. If these things do not change, communism cannot overthrow capitalism. Therefore, the method he proposed is that it is not necessary to advocate communist ideals first, but to destroy their culture. Only by forming a "cultural hegemony" in culture can the great cause of communism be realized. For example, the 1776 founding spirit and free thought of the United States firmly control American society. If the proletarian revolution is to succeed, it must first shake and destroy the beliefs. Another example is Christianity, which is also the basis for capitalism to survive. Only by destroying these capitalist cultural hegemonies and establishing a new cultural hegemony can the revolution succeed. 

So how can it be done?

Gramsci thinks that several methods should be used together, just like the cocktail treatment of AIDS. One is to unite all victims in different aspects, including homosexuals, transgenders, those bing discriminated against truly or by imagination such as women and blacks, and promise to give them all the promises they can promise; second, to cultivate their own cultural communicators, first of all all schools should become public, marginalize churches and private schools, and stigmatize them being unscientific and unadvanced, and then unify thinking in public schools; third, emphasize collective thinking and eliminate individual thinking, because culture is a collective phenomenon. However, advocating collectivism could be resisted, so they must be smart, and the secret is let everyone say the same thing by following political correctness; the fourth point: advocate Critical Theory), let students doubt and criticize everything. From the beginning of a child, tell them that nothing is always right, especially tradition and everything can be replaced by new visions and new theories. Criticism is an indispensable ability for modern students. "Critical Theory" is the best weapon to break the capitalist culture, because it sounds very individualistic and modern.

Gramsci’s theory now seems to be far-reaching, but no one outside of Italy knew about it for a long time. It was not until 1957 that the theory in English partially appeared. Joseph felt that was a pity, and devoted his whole life to promoting Gramsci's thought. Because of his efforts, Gramsci's thoughts that fascists tried to bury are now wide spread. He wrote affectionately: Gramsci selflessly dedicated his life to the ideal of socialism, unswervingly fighting for the cause of the oppressed people, providing great energy for the Italian Communist Party he founded by himself, and giving his life to fight the fascist dictatorship.

In addition to "Notes from Prison", Joseph wrote and edited many books based on "Critical Theory", including "Criticism Without Boundaries: The Direction and School of Postmodern Critical Theory" ", "European Christian Democracy: Critical Research in History" and so on.

A Catholic university like the University of Notre Dame has been so generously nurturing such a socialist admirer. As I said, liberals are not true defenders of freedom. They use freedom to destroy freedom.