Following the work of
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (; ; 27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a German philosopher. He is one of the most important figures in German idealism and one of the founding figures of modern Western philosophy. His influence extends ...
,
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
outlined the workings of a political consciousness.
The politics of consciousness
Consciousness
Consciousness, at its simplest, is sentience and awareness of internal and external existence. However, the lack of definitions has led to millennia of analyses, explanations and debates by philosophers, theologians, linguisticians, and scien ...
typically refers to the idea of a being who is self-aware. It is a distinction often reserved for human beings. This remains the original and most common usage of the term. For Marx, consciousness describes a person's political sense of self. That is, consciousness describes a person's awareness of politics. For Marx, an authentic consciousness was linked to understanding one's true position in History. While Hegel placed God behind the workings of consciousness in people, Marx saw the
political economy
Political economy is the study of how Macroeconomics, economic systems (e.g. Marketplace, markets and Economy, national economies) and Politics, political systems (e.g. law, Institution, institutions, government) are linked. Widely studied ph ...
as the engine of mind.
In the 20th century, many social movements and intellectuals have developed this use of consciousness.
False consciousness
In Marx's view, consciousness was always political, for it was always the outcome of politic-economic circumstances. What one thinks of life, power, and self, for Marx, is always a product of ideological forces.
For Marx, ideologies appear to explain and justify the current distribution of wealth and power in a society. In societies with unequal allocations of wealth and power, ideologies present these inequalities as acceptable, virtuous, inevitable, and so forth. Ideologies thus tend to lead people to accept the status quo. The subordinate people come to believe in their subordination: the peasants to accept the rule of the aristocracy, the factory workers to accept the rule of the owners, consumers the rule of corporations. This belief in one's own subordination, which comes about through ideology, is, for Marx,
false consciousness
In Marxist theory, false consciousness is a term describing the ways in which material, ideological, and institutional processes are said to mislead members of the proletariat and other class actors within capitalist societies, concealing the ex ...
.
That is, conditions of inequality create ideologies which confuse people about their true aspirations, loyalties, and purposes. Thus, for example, the
working class
The working class (or labouring class) comprises those engaged in manual-labour occupations or industrial work, who are remunerated via waged or salaried contracts. Working-class occupations (see also " Designation of workers by collar colou ...
has often been, for Marx, beguiled by nationalism, organized religion, and other distractions. These ideological devices help to keep people from realizing that it is they who produce wealth, they who deserve the fruits of the land, all who can prosper: instead of literally thinking for themselves, they think the thoughts given to them by the ruling class.
Consciousness and the political-economy
For Marx, consciousness is a reflection of the political economy. A person's thoughts tend to be shaped by his or her political and economic circumstances. He famously wrote, "It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness."
Perhaps Marx's greatest contribution to modern thought... is his comprehensive investigation into the role of Ideology, or how social being determines consciousness, which results in certain (for the most part unconscious) belief and value systems depending on the particular economic infrastructure pertaining at the time. From a Marxian point of view all cultural artifacts--religious systems, philosophical positions, ethical values--are, naturally enough, products of consciousness and as such are subject to these ideological pressures.Sullivan, Robert. The Victorian Web
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Consciousness and social movements
Many
social movements
A social movement is a loosely organized effort by a large group of people to achieve a particular goal, typically a Social issue, social or political one. This may be to carry out a social change, or to resist or undo one. It is a type of Group ...
have loosely followed Marx's thinking on consciousness. Attaining consciousness, many believe, means finding one's ''true'' historical path, as opposed to the propaganda dispensed by the ruling elites. Thus, the
feminist movement
The feminist movement (also known as the women's movement, or feminism) refers to a series of social movements and political campaigns for Radical politics, radical and Liberalism, liberal reforms on women's issues created by the inequality b ...
spoke of
consciousness raising
Consciousness raising (also called awareness raising) is a form of activism popularized by United States feminists in the late 1960s. It often takes the form of a group of people attempting to focus the attention of a wider group on some cause or ...
and many South African activists have subscribe to a
Black Consciousness Movement
The Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) was a grassroots anti-Apartheid activist movement that emerged in South Africa in the mid-1960s out of the political vacuum created by the jailing and banning of the African National Congress and Pan Afri ...
, which calls upon Blacks to pursue their "true" political trajectory (as opposed to the ideas set out by, for example, the
apartheid
Apartheid (, especially South African English: , ; , "aparthood") was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. Apartheid was ...
regime). In the latter example, for many South African Blacks, consciousness meant rejecting racist ideas about Blacks, rejecting White rule of the nation, and restoring Black identity, history, and power.
In a politically charged sense, becoming "politically conscious" is often meant to connote that people have awakened to their ''true'' political role, their ''actual'' identity. For Marx, this meant that the working classes would become conscious of themselves as the agents of history--they would unite and share in the wealth of labor. This, for Marx, was their historical role and their right (as opposed to working for wages, fighting wars on behalf of capitalists, and so forth). For many African Americans, "consciousness" has meant identifying and discrediting forms of
White supremacy
White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any power and privilege held by white people. White su ...
, including those internalized by Blacks. In these uses of the term "consciousness" is truth or destiny. These uses of political consciousness are often politically charged. Does, for example, a Black woman lack consciousness because she generally supports a system run mostly by White male capitalists? If she became politically conscious would she think differently? What is her "true" consciousness supposed to look like?
Many Marxists, feminists, African Americans (and other groups), have ceased to argue that there is one true form of consciousness. Instead, while preserving a sense that the ruling class perpetuates a
dominant ideology
In Marxist philosophy, the term dominant ideology denotes the attitudes, beliefs, values, and morals shared by the majority of the people in a given society. As a mechanism of social control, the dominant ideology frames how the majority of the p ...
and often behaves in ways which harm people, many dissenters now hold a more liberal position which tolerates a variety of political positions. The complexities of political consciousness are described by the theories of
cultural hegemony
In Marxist philosophy, cultural hegemony is the dominance of a culturally diverse society by the ruling class who manipulate the culture of that society—the beliefs and explanations, perceptions, values, and mores—so that the worldview of t ...
.
See also
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Critical consciousness
Critical consciousness, conscientization, or in Portuguese, is a popular education and social concept developed by Brazilian pedagogue and educational theorist Paulo Freire, grounded in post-Marxist critical theory. Critical consciousness focuses ...
*
Class consciousness
In Marxism, class consciousness is the set of beliefs that a person holds regarding their social class or economic rank in society, the structure of their class, and their class interests. According to Karl Marx, it is an awareness that is key to ...
*
Consciousness raising
Consciousness raising (also called awareness raising) is a form of activism popularized by United States feminists in the late 1960s. It often takes the form of a group of people attempting to focus the attention of a wider group on some cause or ...
*
Double consciousness
Double consciousness is the internal conflict experienced by subordinated or colonized groups in an oppressive society. The term and the idea were first published in W. E. B. Du Bois's autoethnographic work, ''The Souls of Black Folk'' in 1903 ...
*
History of Consciousness
History of Consciousness is the name of a department in the Humanities Division of the University of California, Santa Cruz with a 50+ year history of interdisciplinary research and student training in "established and emergent disciplines and fiel ...
, an interdisciplinary program at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
*
Identity politics
Identity politics is a political approach wherein people of a particular race, nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation, social background, social class, or other identifying factors develop political agendas that are based upon these i ...
*
Woke
''Woke'' ( ) is an adjective derived from African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) meaning "alert to racial prejudice and Racial discrimination, discrimination". Beginning in the 2010s, it came to encompass a broader awareness of social ineq ...
Notes
References
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Frederic Jameson
Fredric Jameson (born April 14, 1934) is an American literary critic, philosopher and Marxist political theorist. He is best known for his analysis of contemporary cultural trends, particularly his analysis of postmodernity and capitalism. James ...
, ''The Political Unconscious''. {{ISBN, 0-8014-9222-X
External links
Outline for Hegel's ideas on consciousness at Marxists.org
Marxist theory
Political philosophy
Concepts in political philosophy
Identity politics
Critical pedagogy