Political consciousness, its components and levels

Man is a social being, as Aristotle rightly observed in the fourth century. BC. Therefore, every single person is the carrier of not only his individual consciousness, but also the consciousness of the public. To a large extent, the individual's own consciousness is formed by society: its economic, ethical, aesthetic and moral institutions. Hence, we can conclude that the public consciousness is divided into religious, aesthetic, moral, legal, economic and political consciousness.

Political consciousness arose, of course, later religious or moral, when human society entered that stage of its evolution, in which there was already a place of social differentiation of people, when the society split into large social groups. It can be said that the political consciousness was born at the dawn of the formation of states with their political system and political relations. It was formed in two ways: on the part of the "politicians" - those who stood at the helm of society and influenced its internal and external social life, and the people that make up this "led" society, who had some kind of views on the activities of pilots, Emotions and mentality.

Thus, it can be said that political consciousness is one of the branches of social consciousness that is formed by a combination of social views, emotions, feelings and perceptions that reflect the objective political relations between large groups / classes of people. Of course, one can not consider political consciousness in isolation from other forms of social consciousness. For example, socio-economic processes in the country directly affect the formation of acute discontent or, on the contrary, satisfaction with the existing political system. Also, the stratification of society into stable and large social groups, solidarization or, on the contrary, disunity between them also matters.

The mentality of the people or the religious views of the title religion also, albeit indirectly, influence political consciousness: for example, the view that all power is from God is superimposed on the formation of political views and behavioral attitudes. Since in the boiler of one society the socio-economic and political interests of different classes and large groups do not coincide, or even come into direct confrontation with each other, we can talk about the mass, class and even political consciousness of age or professional groups of people.

Now let us consider how a political consciousness is formed in a person. The individual, growing up, learns about the social system, the processes in society, the levers of government, and at the same time realizes his own identity with the nation, the social stratum, the class, the religious or ethnic group. When a person analyzes this knowledge or blindly absorbs them, a political attitude is gradually formed, which leads him into a state of predisposition to one or another action (be proud of the social system or actively oppose him). This is expressed primarily at the level of emotions (like / dislike) different degrees of heat. Such a mass political consciousness at the peak of its aggravation can lead to violent street riots, when the crowd does not know what it wants and what it is trying to achieve, but clearly knows what it does not want - the system of political and social relations that exists in society .

Therefore, in the political consciousness, several levels are singled out: the everyday, formed by the life experience of man, and the scientific that is formed by sociologists and political scientists on the basis of research of political processes during different time periods and in different countries. From this division, the components of political consciousness also emerge: from the ordinary - psychological, often based on the mentality, as well as sympathies / antipathies to a certain policy, and ideological-theoretical, that is, a formed system of knowledge, assessments, concepts, theories. The emotional basis of mass political consciousness makes it possible to manipulate it and, accordingly, the masses, but raising the level of development of political culture can make it more difficult to manipulate and play in populism.