Yesterday, I spent part of my day reading literature authored by Michel Foucault and Antonio Gramesci:
Foucault, because he's got a way with understanding complex social anomalies:
"...There is notone but many silences, and they are an intregal part of the strategies that underlie and permeate discourses,"
(In,
The History of Sexuality 1: An Introduction, 1984).
and
Gramsci, because of his doctrine of Hegemony:
"...the rule of one class over another is not dependent on economic or physical power alone but on persuading the ruled to accept a system of beliefs belonging to the ruling class (James Joll, UK, 1977).