NovelGentry
24th March 2005, 01:16
I was working on my book earlier, and I came across an interesting development as I was pointing out differeing forms of social consciousness in contrast to what we, as communists, hold above all: class consciousness.
As I listed them, them they came out in a fairly revealing order of: individual consciousness, family consciousness, and national consciousness. In short, I decided to write a small topic on the idea it pushed into my head, to possibly develop this idea and then incorporate it into the book, and possibly spawn a small essay on the subject once it's developed more.
If indeed man progresses himself materially and the social dependence of man, that is, the dependence of man's material necessity and/or desire being settled by society, the development of society as a consequence to material change can equate directly to the development of society as a change in consciousness. Which, despite seemingly like an abstraction, parralels man's material development.
Take for example the idea of an individual human being, if indeed this situation would have ever occured for the individual human being. As a person, he is born with the material necessity and too the desire for certain things, assuming a case where he is outside of the social envorionment of the predecessor to his species. Sadly, for a moment, assume creationism; that a single human once existed, with may another single human that he din't know about.
For that reason, the early portion of this example need not exist, as such consciousnesses (individual -> family) would have developed with early humans, that technically were NOT even homo-sapien. Looking at it from this perspective, the human stumbled into existence out of a mammalian societal norm where family consciousness is already in play, even early examples of tribal consciousness among "packs" of apes.
This of course leaves us at human tribal consciousness. Like earlier forms of consciousness it parralels the material consciousness of people and the material conditions set fourth by their necessity. That is to say, the tribe exists as a community of producers and consumers, whether equal or not, as all societies do from then on.
With technological change and the alterations of material conditions based on these changes, the means by which this society sustains itself does in effect outgrow the society. Thus the material change occurs first as a derivative of the basic material consciousness and need we all have. And while materially speaking and socially speaking, the form of society changes, relation to producer(s) and consumer(s) -- the social consciousness lags behind. That is to say with a specific example, families were formed before family consciousness was in place.
If there is such an outpacing, the consciousness of huamsns can always be said to be futher behind than their development as a society. That is, where national consciousness arose, was after the creation of nations itself. Where global consciousness comes into play, would have to be after there is a unification of producer/consumers globally without the lines of nations (something much like communism).
Class consciousness, however, falls as a sort of in between, before global consciousness, and after national consciousness.
My point with all this, is that it might be far easier to see the forms our consciousness progress in than to see the material conditions and changes that are pushing this society forward, and in doing so we may be able to achieve a much better grasp on social progression.
With that said, what forms of social consciousness can you think of? State them in order from which you think they would occur and cite what the socio-economic/political conditions may have been surrounding that, as well as the material progression of man.
I've already mentioned individual -> family -> tribal -> national -> class -> global.
There are certain gaps that are obviously between these forms I've given, between tribal and national there would be a HUGE gap, however, class consciousness pushing towards global social consciousness would certainly seem back to back, as the moment class consciousness arrives we are converting the nature of producer and consumer and equalizing our social relations. So if indeed there is something after global, I would assume it is outside of this earth.
Anyway -- just an idea to think about, nothing concrete, and feel free to point out if there's flaw in looking at this in parallel to the general development of society through history and thus the material conditions put forward under these different systems and consciousnesses.
All input it greatly appreciated.
As I listed them, them they came out in a fairly revealing order of: individual consciousness, family consciousness, and national consciousness. In short, I decided to write a small topic on the idea it pushed into my head, to possibly develop this idea and then incorporate it into the book, and possibly spawn a small essay on the subject once it's developed more.
If indeed man progresses himself materially and the social dependence of man, that is, the dependence of man's material necessity and/or desire being settled by society, the development of society as a consequence to material change can equate directly to the development of society as a change in consciousness. Which, despite seemingly like an abstraction, parralels man's material development.
Take for example the idea of an individual human being, if indeed this situation would have ever occured for the individual human being. As a person, he is born with the material necessity and too the desire for certain things, assuming a case where he is outside of the social envorionment of the predecessor to his species. Sadly, for a moment, assume creationism; that a single human once existed, with may another single human that he din't know about.
For that reason, the early portion of this example need not exist, as such consciousnesses (individual -> family) would have developed with early humans, that technically were NOT even homo-sapien. Looking at it from this perspective, the human stumbled into existence out of a mammalian societal norm where family consciousness is already in play, even early examples of tribal consciousness among "packs" of apes.
This of course leaves us at human tribal consciousness. Like earlier forms of consciousness it parralels the material consciousness of people and the material conditions set fourth by their necessity. That is to say, the tribe exists as a community of producers and consumers, whether equal or not, as all societies do from then on.
With technological change and the alterations of material conditions based on these changes, the means by which this society sustains itself does in effect outgrow the society. Thus the material change occurs first as a derivative of the basic material consciousness and need we all have. And while materially speaking and socially speaking, the form of society changes, relation to producer(s) and consumer(s) -- the social consciousness lags behind. That is to say with a specific example, families were formed before family consciousness was in place.
If there is such an outpacing, the consciousness of huamsns can always be said to be futher behind than their development as a society. That is, where national consciousness arose, was after the creation of nations itself. Where global consciousness comes into play, would have to be after there is a unification of producer/consumers globally without the lines of nations (something much like communism).
Class consciousness, however, falls as a sort of in between, before global consciousness, and after national consciousness.
My point with all this, is that it might be far easier to see the forms our consciousness progress in than to see the material conditions and changes that are pushing this society forward, and in doing so we may be able to achieve a much better grasp on social progression.
With that said, what forms of social consciousness can you think of? State them in order from which you think they would occur and cite what the socio-economic/political conditions may have been surrounding that, as well as the material progression of man.
I've already mentioned individual -> family -> tribal -> national -> class -> global.
There are certain gaps that are obviously between these forms I've given, between tribal and national there would be a HUGE gap, however, class consciousness pushing towards global social consciousness would certainly seem back to back, as the moment class consciousness arrives we are converting the nature of producer and consumer and equalizing our social relations. So if indeed there is something after global, I would assume it is outside of this earth.
Anyway -- just an idea to think about, nothing concrete, and feel free to point out if there's flaw in looking at this in parallel to the general development of society through history and thus the material conditions put forward under these different systems and consciousnesses.
All input it greatly appreciated.