Social Consciousness

Basic category of historical materialism corresponding to “social being”. It refers to the spiritual aspect of social life, is men’s subjective reflection of the objective process and conditions of all social life, including all elements of human consciousness, conceptual formation as well as all spiritual phenomena and spiritual processes in human society.

Social consciousness has a complex structure. From the point of view of the subject of consciousness, it can be divided into individual consciousness and group consciousness. Individual consciousness is the product of individual practice in society, and is a reflection of an individual’s unique social experience and social status. Group consciousness is the common consciousness of a social community (such as family, industry or profession, political party, class, nationality, country, etc.) forged by a certain number of people and is the product of group practice, a reflection of a group’s common social experience, social status and social conditions. Individual consciousness and group consciousness are interconnected, interact with each other and transform into each other. From the point of view of different levels of reflection of social being, social consciousness can be divided into social psychology and forms of social consciousness. Social psychology is a lower social consciousness, manifests itself as feeling, customs, habits and prejudices directly connected with daily social life, and is a spontaneous and non-stereotyped form of social consciousness. The forms of social consciousness, also known as ideological systems, are a higher social consciousness, a conscious, systematic and stereotyped social consciousness. These two different levels of social consciousness are closely connected and interact with each other. Forms of social consciousness are based on social psychology and in turn have a guiding effect and influence on social psychology. According to their different relations with the economic foundation, various forms of social consciousness can again be distinguished into social ideology and non-ideological forms of social consciousness. Social ideology includes political and legal thoughts, ethics, literature and art, religion, philosophy and a large part of social sciences. It is a conscious reflection of the economic foundation and the political system of a certain society, embodies the interests and demands of a certain class, has a distinct class nature as well as epochal and national character, and they belong to the superstructure of a certain society. Non-ideological forms of social consciousness are other forms of social consciousness that do not belong to the superstructure, such as natural science, linguistics, rhetoric, logic, common psychology, etc., reflecting natural phenomena and social phenomena that do not belong to the economic foundation, are closely connected with the productive forces and do not have class nature.

The question concerning the relation of social consciousness and social being is the basic question of the conception of history. The answer to this question is the criterion for classifying historical materialism and historical idealism. Historical materialism holds that social being determines social consciousness and that social consciousness depends on social being. Social consciousness is a reflection of social being, it arises, changes and develops itself with the rise, change and development of social being. As the social being is, so will there necessarily be a social consciousness that reflects that social being. Social consciousness has a historical nature, and there is no such thing as an eternally immutable social consciousness. In class society, most social consciousness has class nature.

Social consciousness has a relative independence. The development and change of social consciousness and social being are not completely synchronized. The change and development of social consciousness often lag behind the change and development of social being. This asynchrony is relative, as social consciousness will change sooner or later when social being changes. The development of social consciousness and the level of socio-economic development are uneven and non-corresponding. It sometimes happens that economically backward countries surpass economically developed countries in the sphere of ideas. Engels said: “the philosophy of every age has as its presuppositions, a certain intellectual material which it inherits from its predecessors and which is its own point of departure. That is why philosophy can play first violin in economically backward countries: France in the eighteenth century as opposed to England upon whose philosophy her own was based; and later Germany as opposed to both.” Such unevenness, non-correspondence is also relative; the development of social consciousness ultimately presupposes the degree of socio-economic development. Various forms of social consciousness have a historical inheritance in their development. The social consciousness of each historical period has an intrinsic relation of inheritance with the social consciousness that precede it. Advanced social consciousness is founded on the basis of critical inheritance of the excellent achievements of social consciousness created in history. What social consciousness inherits is determined, in the last instance, by the state of social being. Various forms of social consciousness interact with each other and influence each other. Every form of social consciousness does not arise and develop in isolation, but is interconnected with other forms of social consciousness. Philosophy has a guiding effect on other forms of consciousness, and political and juridical ideas have the greatest and most immediate influence on other forms of consciousness. Their interaction is conditioned, in the last instance, by the economic foundation.

Social consciousness has a reaction upon social being. Engels pointed out: While the material mode of existence is the primum agens [primary agent, prime cause] this does not preclude the ideological spheres from reacting upon it in their turn, though with a secondary effect. Advanced social consciousness, which reflects the requirements of the development of society, furthers the development of society, while backward and decaying social consciousness fetter the development of society. This is a prominent manifestation of the relative independence of social ideology. The nature and magnitude of the reaction of social consciousness ultimately depends on the state of social being and is based on the determining part played by social being on social consciousness.

Marxist theory of social consciousness has an important guiding significance. In upholding the Marxist theory of social consciousness, we must unambiguously oppose erroneous theories such as “de-ideologization”, strengthen the construction of socialist spiritual civilization, practice and cultivate the socialist core value outlook, and provide a strong spiritual driving force for the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics.