Social Consciousness – Part 2
“The Importance of Social Consciousness”
According to some writers social consciousness is the knowledge that the wellbeing of each member of the society you live in has an impact on the wellbeing of all members of the society. It’s the realization that living in a community which cares about (and for) other people is worth sacrificing for. In other words, being part of the greater whole.
If you see homeless people sleeping in the streets as you drive from home to work and you just feel happy that you’re living well, then you’re not there yet. When those same homeless people make you thoughtful and it is harder to enjoy your own home thinking about their desperation, you are beginning to have social consciousness.
However, social conscience needs to be practically put into action, otherwise it will remain a theory, an understanding of a problem that massages the ego.
But, what does it mean to be part of a greater whole? How does our worldview, or model of reality, impact what we understand about who we are and how we relate to others? And how can we become more aware of all the ways we are part of an interrelated, global community?
In essence it seems as if SC depends on my worldview and my model of reality, these in turn depend on the information I expose myself to. The types of things I read and the people I surround myself with. It is for this reason that we must be especially aware of the age-old adage “Garbage in, garbage out”, it is extremely important that we apply critical thinking and not be afraid to question status quos. By doing this we will be able to be more socially conscious instead of unconscious.
Living in a socially conscious world requires trust, cooperation and togetherness, and more importantly it depends on informed citizens taking action. If we are unaware of the world around us why should we seek solutions to problems unless we are directly affected by them? The danger gets especially real if large numbers of a country’s population are unaware of the world around them. This results in the population becoming separated. The more separated people are, the less they will care about the success of the community as a whole and less devoted they will be to each other. If people are not invested in the community, why should they vote, or do anything for the common good? This could also be referred to as social unconsciousness.
Living in a socially conscious world requires trust, cooperation and togetherness, and more importantly it depends on informed citizens taking action. If we are unaware of the world around us why should we seek solutions to problems unless we are directly affected by them? The danger gets especially real if large numbers of a country’s population are unaware of the world around them. This results in the population becoming separated. The more separated people are, the less they will care about the success of the community as a whole and less devoted they will be to each other. If people are not invested in the community, why should they vote, or do anything for the common good? This could also be referred to as social unconsciousness.
Being socially unconscious creates “blindness”, blind nationalism, which in turn may facilitate radical doctrines or beliefs that my particular group is more special, intelligent, cultured etc than other groups. Believing in these “myths” allows members of groups then to find acceptable ways and words to support their ideology and vilify the ideology of the other groups. Our history in South Africa has many such examples, but if we look at the events following 9/11 it is clear that what started as innocent national pride in the USA quickly turned into a twisted ideology that saw the death of three thousand people on 9/11 as murder and the killing of one million Iraqis as patriotism.
Likewise, we lack social awareness if we do not recognise the consequences our actions have on the rest of the world. We do not think what effect the building our homes in an “eco estate” has on the environment, where our cheap products come from or what happens to our household refuse.
Ultimately, social unconsciousness leads to perverse rationalities, and it facilitates aversion and an overall lack of concern for others. Without an understanding of the root causes of major challenges, blame is put on the very people who suffer from them. Homelessness, for example, is blamed on personal characteristics or historical disadvantages, rather than mental illness or lack of community assistance. Crime is blamed on an individual’s race or culture, rather than on poverty, inequality and a laborious legal system. This lack of understanding leads to uninformed opinions and a rush to misguided solutions, often aggressive in nature. Rather than looking for root causes to teenage pregnancy, for instance, the response is to supply schools with contraceptives. This way of thinking leads to victim blaming, racism, xenophobia, intolerance, and feelings of superiority.
If we are socially unaware we are generally very shocked when deplorable events expose realities for what they actually are. These incidents may take place over several centuries or decades, as in the case of slavery, or they occur suddenly, such as the current Xenophobic violence that erupted in Gauteng or the spate of brutal rapes in our country.
These incidents suddenly disproved ideas many people thought were true. In our case the idea and very fibre of our rainbow nation. “The emperor has no clothes” is an expression that refers to such events. It is used after an event reveals how inefficient not only our emergency services, government, leaders and so forth are, but also how “blind” and uninvolved we as citizens are. It is based on Hans Christian Andersen’s 1837 folktale, the Emperor’s New Clothes. In it, an emperor marches naked before his subjects and townspeople.
No one is brave enough to reveal the truth until a child in the crowd blurts out, “The emperor has no clothes!” The child is the only one who can see the emperor for what he is. On many occasions in South Africa’s history the clothes have been torn off and the truth has been laid bare.
However, there are relatively few events that receive a lot of attention. We must actively choose to pay attention to smaller occurrences every day. If we concentrate enough, we will notice police brutality, racial discrimination, and challenges associated with inequality, taking place continuously. Without the right kind of attention, they go unnoticed, especially if we are not directly impacted by them. Sometimes they occur slowly, which make them difficult to notice, or they happen so frequently they become commonplace and easily overlooked.