Public consciousness: structure, forms and historical significance

Public consciousness is a very important characteristic of a society that expresses primarily its spiritual life. This consciousness reflects the mood, ideas, theories and views of social existence and is viewed as an independent system.

Public consciousness and its importance in the development of the nation

No matter how strong or integrated the nation (or part of the population) for it is, in one way or another, the public consciousness is characteristic. The subject here is not an individual, but a society. Public consciousness is formed over the centuries and to some extent depends on the historical development of events. Mentality of the people can be called a demonstration of such a mass consciousness.

Of course, this form of consciousness has a huge impact on the development of society. The structure of public consciousness is as follows:

• Social psychology expresses the motives, moods and feelings of society and largely depends on some characteristic customs and traditions. This part of consciousness is a sensual and emotional way of knowing and responding to life.
• Ideology is a theoretical reflection of the world, which demonstrates the degree of cognition and understanding of the world by society or some part of it.

Of course, public consciousness is possible only with the interaction of ideology and social psychology.

Public consciousness and its forms

With the growth and development of mankind, people more and more improved their cognitive abilities, expanded understanding and perception of the world. This is how the following forms of social consciousness arose:

• Morality is one of the most important characteristics of collective consciousness. After all, it is she who demonstrates the views and representations of society, their system of norms and the assessment of the actions of an individual as well as a group of people or society.
• Political consciousness - shows a set of moods, ideas, traditions and views of different groups of the population. At the same time, political consciousness fully reflects the demands and interests of different social strata, as well as their relations with each other.
• Law - another form of consciousness, which is characterized by the existence of a system of norms of society. It is in this way that society assesses rights, creates a legal ideology, which is then protected by the state. It is worthwhile to understand that one person can create an idea, but it becomes a part of the public consciousness only after the society has penetrated it.
• Religion - one of the oldest forms of social consciousness, which arose over many centuries before our era. It includes faith, beliefs about the divine and supernatural, as well as the religious feelings and actions of society.
• Aesthetic consciousness - characterizes the perception of a society of sensual, artistic images.
• Scientific consciousness is one more part of life and perception of society, which seeks to systematize the world into categories. Here we take into account only those facts that found actual, material evidence. This part of consciousness reflects only rational facts.
• Philosophical consciousness is a theoretical perception of the world, which studies some general laws and characteristics of a particular society, and the entire population of the planet. This part allows us to create new methods of knowledge of the world. By the way, each historical epoch is characterized by some own, unique system of philosophical consciousness.

Public consciousness is of great importance for the development of the nation and its culture. After all, culture is considered to be the brightest reflector of collective consciousness, which demonstrates certain traditions, ideals, moral values, way of life and thinking not only of society as a whole, but of every single member of it.