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THIS IS THE COURSE BLOG FOR PHIL 450 - CONSCIOUSNESS, INTENTIONALITY, EMBODIMENT (SPRING 2009), COLLEGE OF CHARLESTON, DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY
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Gerloff's article got me thinking about the relative strength of gatekeepers in influencing the collective consciousness. It seems like certain gatekeepers (i.e. media conglomerates) hold a disproportionate amount of influence in bringing important ideas to the forefront of the collective consciousness, and they may even hold the sole responsibility for causing shifts in that consciousness. Whether United States citizens (as well as the entire world) grasp the significance of certain aspects of President Obama's speech is in large part due to media coverage of the speech. Gerloff implies that each individual has the power to shift the collective consciousness, but perhaps common individuals don't have that power. And if gatekeepers such as the mainstream media play as large an influence as I think they do, then it seems our collective consciousness is decided more by the market forces of capitalism (since media coverage is primarily a business) than by any idealistic consideration of values.
ReplyDeleteI agree that "consciousness is decided more by the market force of capitalism" as stated by Emily. However, can't two people who have never met have the same ideas as well, as Professor Coseru states in his lecture. Even in other areas like religion or literature people have similar ideas, or see someone as an important figure. Collective consciousness can be found anywhere at anytime, I suppose.
ReplyDelete"How do you introduce to a collective a profound shift in attitude, belief, and understanding -- and not be silenced or marginalized in the process?"
ReplyDeleteThe citizens of the United States (and the rest of the attentive global community, for that matter) should not be surprised by the achievement of Barack Obama or the achievement of this nation. This was the next step in a process that began when the first Europeans colonized the Americas. The drafting of the Constitution, abolition of slavery, the various rights movements- have all led to this day.
To answer the question (how do you introduce the shift without being silenced or marginalized?), I think we need to give more credit to the slow conditioning of consciousness. We could not have gone from slavery to a part African-American president.
Both social and technological progress have triggered various degrees of the evolution of consciousness. Imagine what it must have been like to realize the world was bigger than your town? Bigger than your country? Your continent? Your world? Imagine reacting to the news that the universe is infinitely expanding... A consciousness operating in a seemingly finite world was faced with the infinite... how does feeling that small change the collective consciousness?
Gerloff's article seems to (as Emily points out in her comment to the piece) assume that media conglomerates and common civilians are on the same playing field as far as having control over the general collective consciousness is concerned. At first glance it is clear that the media industries have a commanding control over the idealisms that this collective consciousness seems to adhere to. Perhaps though there are other arenas where the everyday citizen can have more of an equal oportunity to contribute. The internet has obviously become a fantastic venue for the ideals of the common person to be contributed along side those ideals of the status quo. With this new setting that provides us all with a voice to convey our ideals, we must consider some more of Gerloff's article. We must learn to monitor the direction that our collective conscious is heading. With more venues for expression come more responsibilities to partake in a "legitimate vetting of a new potential shift . . . " in our collective consciousness. In short, we have to be careful to collectively make positive decisions. A drastic change that occurs in the collective consciousness could potentially spell disaster or prosperity for the agents involved. Nonetheless it still seems constructive to me to allow these venues of expression to remain active in order to promote communication within our society. I simply wonder where all this speed and technology of communication will lead our collective consciousness and how fast will we get there? Gerloff asks "what kind of gatekeepers will we be?" I wonder if and how our methods of gatekeeping will affect the collective consciousness: for better or worse.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Gerloff that; "Consciousness cannot remain static forever." I also agree with Evan that the internet is key in our gathering of information without the hindrance of the hand-full of news sources. I question the magnitude of the shift in collective consciousness. I waited in line for 3 or 4 hours listening to people praising Obama, but I'm not so sure that they are in the same boat as Obama as far as public service goes (volunteering and such). It kind of reminded me of a mob psychology. It was actually kind of scary. But I do feel that racial tides are changing and Obama's speech was monumental. I feel that our generation is extremely homosexual friendly, pretty blind to skin color, but gender inequality is still a hurdle I think we have yet to collectively conquer. Obviously I voted for the guy that I thought was the best and he's an eighth African-American ((Bob Barr/libertarian)And his ancestors were slaves in Georgia. Not to take away from Obama's 'blackness', but just making the distinction between the two candidate's ancestry) And Barr took over 18,000 votes in Ohio, the biggest swing state.
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