Collective consciousness is one of the subjects of sociology. Homogeneous groups of people, whether of religions, ethnicities, political parties, or nations will tend to adopt shared ideologies or social standards that permeate and govern their attitudes and behavior. For example, most Americans consciously acknowledge and value democracy as the most favorable form of government. And within a large homogeneous group, there will be subsets of collective agreement that interpret or apply the shared ideologies or macrame hat hanger australia social standards in various ways, or from a different perspective, hence we have conservatives and liberals and independents. The size and strength of these subsets can rise and fade within the larger cohort as attitudes and sympathies shift and adjust due to various influencing factors, some of external causes and some from within.
One of the well-known ideologies of Ronald Reagan – “Government is not the solution to our problems. Government is the problem.” – appealed to a subset of our collective consciousness that made him one of the most popular presidents among political conservatives. Reagan’s ideology was often quoted in the most recent Republican primary campaigns as well as in the national presidential campaign. It is, indeed, a mantra of a conservative collective agreement. Someone might disagree with its ideological absolutism, but there’s nothing covert about this political view.
Even if its specific social and political implications are less than obvious, the notion that less government is better government is a clear, overt position, IF it is indeed consciously understood for what it is. We are more likely to change our conscious agreements, if we intelligently observe and evaluate the consequences of our agreements. As a nation, the electorate majority may or may not decide to support this supposition. As a result of the publicity surrounding the recent banking scandals, public opinion appears to have shifted back to a need for more governmental intervention and regulation.
Unfortunately, we are not always fully conscious. And if not, we may too easily allow ourselves to be triggered into our “survivalist” collective unconscious.
The collective unconscious is not the content of sociological science. First observed and defined by Carl Jung, we are most likely to hear it discussed in the realm of analytical psychology. Jung referred to the collective unconscious as “a reservoir of the experiences of our species.” He believed that the human species has an active unconscious code or instinct developed over many thousands if not millions of years and embedded deeply in our psyches. It is not that much different in its origins and function from the primitive survival instincts of other living creatures. Aggressive “survivalism” is basic to our most primal nature, well hidden just under our “civilized” conscious surface. When feeling fearful and threatened, we can be triggered and converted into hostile actions against differing members of the human race. Given perceived threatening events, it is not difficult to capitalize on our primitive collective unconscious and then to incite a vengeful collective agreement to support of an aggressive attack on the perceived threatening peoples, even against a society or country that posed no real threat. We have a lot of evidence of this aggressive nature throughout history, and many adroit and powerful leaders have exploited it to their own end. Adolph Hitler is viewed as one of the consummate masters of the technique.