“Collective Consciousness”
The idea of a “collective consciousness” was first used by the French theorist Emile Durkeim. The term refers to the shared beliefs of a society that develop moral attitudes used to shape and operate a unifying force within society. Durkeim believed that society was largely responsible for shaping the individuals human conscience, which in plain was the collective conscience of the group that the individual belonged to. The notion there are shared ideas and common moral within a society is a significantly difficult one to determine especially in today’s civilization. This is because there is a great separation in the division of labor, yet at the same time there is a parallel phenomenon that is people are more autonomous while depending more on society. One may tend to argue that collective consciousness has tended to fade in today’s culture because of the focus on individualism and the transition to organic solidarity.
To begin, Durkeim characterized two basic forms of social solidarity; traditional society by mechanical solidarity and modern or present society is defined as organic solidarity. This social solidarity is said to be the ties within a society that bind people together. These two relate in the sense that we as a society have moved more in the direction of an organic solidarity culture focusing on the growth of cities, fusion of markets, and capital as a structural basis. Also, organic solidarity is derived from the interdependences that come from the idea of specialized work and the similarities that people have in these fields. With this independence and specialized work people form moral and ethical codes between each other to ultimately rely on each other in the work place. Although in this organic solidarity based society we live in is independent and people have an array of varying viewpoints, interests and values the solidarity comes from the “reliance” of others performing certain duties for one...