Exploring Ambivalences of Common Sense: A Feminist-Gramscian Approach to Possibilities of Agency in Bourgeois Capitalist Hegemony

Capitalism, as a social formation, is characterised by a dynamic relationship of power and domination that simultaneously provides possibilities for agency. This phenomenon of capitalist ambivalences is particularly evident when examining common sense. Common sense is a pivotal concept in Antonio Gramsci’s understanding of hegemony, which is based on ambivalences itself. In this article, I analyse the ambivalences of bourgeois capitalism through Gramsci’s concept of common sense and its associated ambivalences. Adopting a feminist perspective, I demonstrate how common sense can be employed to reveal a conflictual ambivalence, consisting of an analysis of bourgeois capitalist hegemony and the potential for individual and collective agency, both within and beyond it. While asking for possibilities of agency, this article highlights three modes of ambivalence: the ambivalence of everyday life in capitalism; the ambivalence of capitalist hegemony; and the ambivalence of contradictions in capitalism. Gramsci’s perspective remains relevant today as the masses’ unbroken consent to capitalism and the growing appeal to authoritarianism and fascism are cyclically prompting questions about common sense. Exploring the ambivalences of common sense allows us to analyse the current societal conditions, however, without resigning ourselves to them.