Cultural Hegemony, Political Movements, and the Problem of Publicity

Abstract

How does social change happen in a political arrangement? My dissertation argues that societies are transformed by the acceptance of “hidden scripts” that challenge the legitimacy of the dominant narratives accepted by the status quo. This “street domain,” as I term it, is important for not only understanding the nature of a public sphere but also for predicting the evolution of the “mainstream” discourse in a political arrangement. Finally, I argue that in Western culture there is a historical set of norms and incentives that prevent actors from recognizing the value of the “street knowledge” that constitute the content of the hidden scripts in a society. I call this set of norms and incentives the problem of white-mindedness.