In recent years, Antonio Gramsci has become fashionable again in the political-intellectual world. This early 20th century Italian Marxist theoretician was considered heterodox because he relativized the economic determinism that Marx and Engels had made the cornerstone of revolutionary thought. He insisted on the importance of the cultural battle in the political struggle. Victory on this ground prepared, according to him, the very possibility of insurrection. A reversal of perspective useful to those who despair of seeing the Big Night arrive and set intermediate objectives that are more easily attainable. Only here, the extreme left is not the only one to claim its authority. Since the end of the 1960s, the radical right has also claimed its analyses. Around figures like that of Alain de Benoist, right-wing Gramscism wants to conquer public opinion by spreading, quietly, concepts that prepare, for example, the return of nationalist ideas.
A cultural battle that has taken a new turn since the appearance of the Internet. This deregulation of the cognitive market has, in fact, allowed all sorts of marginal players to assert their point of view in proportion to their motivation rather than their representativeness. Studies are now numerous that show how radicals use digital worlds as a mouthpiece. One question remains: who will ultimately win this war? The author of these lines does not know more than his readers, but observes with attention tiny events which make foresee the universe of the possibilities.
As such, the “pixel war” is not uninteresting. What is it about ? It is a collaborative game offered by Reddit – an American discussion site – which deploys a white canvas of 6 million pixels where everyone can, every five minutes, place a virtual brick of the color they choose. Everyone’s contribution is tiny, and if you want to create a work, you have to collaborate with digital communities.
A political “war”
The project, when it was conceived in 2017, did not meet with an echo, but, when it was relaunched in 2022, it aroused worldwide enthusiasm. The communities in question were notably national, and Internet users organized themselves to defend the colors of their country. France, it is said, won the battle: Arc de Triomphe, flag, local hero… everything was good to graphically dominate the matrix proposed by Reddit. As such, the game became, in effect, a digital war where victory went to those who were able to best coordinate armies of Internet users. The 2023 version met with more mixed success, but some saw it as an opportunity to push political messages.
There pixel war curiously illustrates the cultural battle Gramsci had in mind. To understand the story of a pixelwar, it is not enough to see the final result, but to observe the unfolding of the graphic patterns which gradually impose themselves and the efforts to cover them when they are not suitable. Thus, a community wanted to pay tribute to Nahel, the 17-year-old young man shot dead by a policeman in Nanterre, by drawing his face. The thing was made impossible by far-right communities who preferred a tribute to Lola, the 12-year-old girl murdered in Paris in atrocious conditions. We understand that these two dramas cannot be politically exploited in the same way. It seems that it was the extreme right that prevailed, not only because it was better organized, but above all because the indignation felt for the second drama seemed less obviously political than that which inspired the first. Thus, a digital community that one can imagine less politicized has engaged in the battle more willingly.
Let us draw from this micro-event no more than a meditation on the relevance of Gramsci’s thought. He was no doubt right to recall – after many other thinkers, such as Max Weber – the importance of collective beliefs for mobilizing crowds. However, was he well aware that what he called the “war of position”, supposed to lead to the “war of movement” capable of overthrowing capitalism, could get bogged down in the gigantic matrix of our political spontaneity?
* Gérald Bronner is a sociologist and professor at the Sorbonne University