Friday, November 8, 2013

General Information On Collective Consciousness

By Sonya Riley


Collective consciousness, also seen as collective conscience, refers to a specific set of shared moral attitudes, ideas and beliefs. These shared things operate as a unified source within various societies. The term was first coined by a French sociologist by the name of Emile Durkheim in a book he wrote titled Division of Labor in Society, published in 1893.

Conscience, a French word, may be translated in the English language as conscience or conscious. It may also refer to awareness or perception. Some choose to use the word conscience as a untranslatable technical term or foreign word without considering its meaning in English. Generally, it does not reference moral conscience, but an understanding that is shared when it comes to social norms. When it comes to the word collective, Durkheim clearly states that he is not hypostatizing or reifying the concept. To him, this word merely refers to something common to most individuals, a social fact.

Durkheim employs this term often in four books: Suicide, The Division of Labor in Society, Rules of Sociological Method, and The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. He thought that in traditional or primitive societies a totemic religion exists and plays a big part in uniting members. This is possible through development of common consciousness. In these societies, which are based around clan, family or tribal relationships, contents of consciousness of an individual are shared among others in the society. This creates mechanical solidarity via shared likeness.

This term and concept is applied in areas outside of Durkheimian social theory. There are many things classified under this terminology that are present in societies of the modern day that other sociologists have found. The term is even employed by parapsychologists.

Mary Kelsey is a lecturer of sociology who employed the term in the early 2000s. She used this word to describe people who exist in a social group and are aware of the shared circumstances and traits. Said awareness leads people to act as a community in order to have solidarity. Instead of living as an individual, people join forces to create groups that are dynamic and share resources and knowledge.

There is a new theory that suggests the character of this consciousness is relative to the kind of mnemonic encoding applied in certain groups. For instance, cohesive groups that have an informal structure tend to represent important aspects of a community as episodic memories. This, in turn, has an influence that is predictable on the collective ideology and behaviors. It typically leads to indulgent atmosphere, solidarity that is strong, ethos that is exclusive, and more.

Society consists of numerous collective groups, for example: organizations, regions, nations, family, community. These units have capabilities to act, decide, think, reform, judge, reflect, and conceptualize. Differing behaviors among such groups vary based on the different collective consciousness, which is to say variations in consciousness may have a practical meaning.

The term collective consciousness was first used in the 1890s by sociologist Emile Durkheim. The Frenchman used this term to refer to shared ideas, beliefs and moral attitudes within societies. This concept has been used by other psychologists and sociologists to identify various theories and ideas.




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