Consciousness raising

Consciousness raising is a term used to denote the experiential process by which individuals change their whole perception of reality or world view. In this sense, consciousness is not simply a set of opinions, information or values, but a total configuration in any given individual. Included in this idea of consciousness is a person's background, education politics, insight, values, emotions and philosophy, but consciousness is more than these or the sum of them; it is the whole human being and his way of life; it is that by which he creates his own life and thus creates the society in which he lives.

As a mass phenomenon, consciousness is formed by the underlying economic and social conditions. Conscientization philosophy involves recognition of the inevitability of nature compared with the changeability of culture, and the dangers of confusing the two (in particular in the hands of an oppressor). It explores possible alternatives in the current epoch for liberation, assuming a teleological view of human nature and emphasizing the role of consciousness in overcoming "limit situations".

When human civilization changes slowly, the existing consciousness is likely to be in substantial accord with underlying material realities. In a rapidly evolving society, the consciousness of many begins to lag increasingly far behind reality or to lose touch with a portion of reality altogether. Individuals may maintain a level of consciousness appropriate to an earlier society of small towns, face-to-face relationships and individual economic enterprise. They may have a consciousness formed by organized technological and corporate society, but far removed from the realities of human needs. Such combinations of anachronistic consciousness (characterized by myth) and in human consciousness (dominated by the machine reality of corporate state) may, through the process of consciousness raising, come to be perceived as utterly unable to manage, guide or control the immense apparatus of technology and organization. A new consciousness emerges appropriate to the new social, economic and technological realities.

The present inadequate level of consciousness is characterized by: subordination of man's nature to his role in the economic system (either on the basis of economic individualism or on the basis of participation in organization); domination of the environment by technology; subordination of man to the State (either by the theory of the unseen hand, or by the doctrine of the public interest); conception of man as basically antagonistic to his fellow man; and definition of man's existence and progress in material terms.

The emerging level of consciousness is characterized by: restoration of the non-material elements of man's existence; transcendence of science and technology (restoring them to their role as tools rather than determinants); assertion that the individual should have the power to choose a way of life. It does not describe a society in terms of its structures and institutions but in terms of the way of life, for the locus of any new social order is not in politics or economics but in how and for what ends the individual lives. A fundamental object of the consciousness raising process is transcendence or personal liberation. It is a liberation that is both personal and communal, an escape from the limits fixed by custom and society, in pursuit of something better epitomized by choice of a life-style and the idea that the individual need not accept the pattern that society has formed for him, but may make his own choice.

Consciousness raising groups meet in order that, through the group process, individuals may become more aware of their relation to their social context, political situation, economic situation, sex roles, civil and legal rights, and of the possibilities for change.