This seems relevant:

"Gramsci gave much thought to the question of the role of intellectuals in society. Famously, he stated that all men are intellectuals, in that all have intellectual and rational faculties, but not all men have the social function of intellectuals. He claimed that modern intellectuals were not simply talkers, but directors and organisers who helped build society and produce hegemony by means of ideological apparatuses such as education and the media. Furthermore, he distinguished between a 'traditional' intelligentsia which sees itself (wrongly) as a class apart from society, and the thinking groups which every class produces from its own ranks 'organically'. Such 'organic' intellectuals do not simply describe social life in accordance with scientific rules, but rather articulate, through the language of culture, the feelings and experiences which the masses could not express for themselves. The need to create a working-class culture relates to Gramsci's call for a kind of education that could develop working-class intellectuals, who would not simply introduce Marxist ideology from without the proletariat, but rather renovate and make critical of the status quo the already existing intellectual activity of the masses. His ideas about an education system for this purpose correspond with the notion of critical pedagogy and popular education as theorized and practised in later decades by Paulo Freire in Brazil. For this reason, partisans of adult and popular education consider Gramsci an important voice to this day."
 

Tom, good find on Gramsci. What I find more important with Gramsci is the underlying thought of Hegemonic Culture "in which the values of the bourgeoisie became the 'common sense' values of all. Thus a consensus culture developed in which people in the working-class identified their own good with the good of the bourgeoisie, and helped to maintain the status quo rather than revolting."

In modern capitalism today the Prols have the same appetites as the super rich. Every grocery check out girl wants to be like Paris Hilton. It amazes me that a Prol can be so dupped into thinking they can be stars one day. The American Dream is problaby the ultimate Hegemonic Culture capitalism has ever produced. Prols will never revolt. They guard their dreams but don't have the means but they will die trying to get to the top. Hollywood will make sure this happens. There will always be a movie about a lost billionaire who falls in love with a hotel maid. There is nothing really intellectual about it. It's that Prols are somehow stuffed with the desires and appetites of the rich and I just don't know how that can work and be maintained over time. The 'masses' in America identify culturally with the stars of the Silver Screen and the Rich and the Famous. I have no clue why. I can only explain it to myself using the triumph of the idea of Hegemonic Culture.
 

Lovely post and comments, very bracing, and gave me hope. Thank you K! for keeping this tradition of satire, art, and political theory in mind and alive in your writing.