And Now For Something Visually Stimulating….
A concept that I have thought to be very interesting is collective consciousness. Emile Durkheim used this concept in a few of his books, one being The Division of Labour. The concept of collective consciousness refers to beliefs held by all individuals in a society. These beliefs serve as a type of moral code; beliefs which all live by and believe to be true, therefore unifying the group. Collective consciousness seems to take on a life of its own, lasting from generation to generation. One of the best examples of collective consciousness is religion; as depicted in my picture. This is a picture of Muslims bowing in prayer to celebrate their holiday, Eid al-Fitr. The reason I chose this picture is because it illustrates a collective consciousness within this religion. Here, everyone is bowing because it is part of their society; this is how they pray and they do it because they probably always have. The same goes for most other religions. Many have books or texts which dictate what one should believe in and how one should live. For example, Christians have a bible; a book that has not been altered for centurys (not including language translations). The bible serves as a moral code and something most Christians strongly believe in and live by. Within religion there is a collective consciousness cue mainly to the idea that a religion serves as a community. Each religion has its own beliefs. If one agrees with these beliefs they are included in this society and therefore share in their collective consciousness. There is a solidarity among them. I have found this to be very fascinating because being a Christian myself, I have noticed that I tend to have more intimate friendships with those who are also Christians. I think is because they believe what I believe, which bonds us in a closer way.
