Materialistic understanding of history. Consciousness as conscious being

Speaking from the high rostrum of the UN, President Medvedev made a number of important statements concerning international relations, economics, disarmament - but we, first of all, would like to draw attention to his words regarding the moral foundations of life:

“We are all united by values that originate in morality, religion, customs and traditions. We are talking about such important categories for us as the right to life, tolerance of dissent, responsibility to loved ones, mercy and compassion. All this is the basis of both everyday life and interstate relations"

The president of a great European power speaking about values that go back to religion, customs and traditions is an important and very good sign. European - and Russian in particular - consciousness is poisoned by the Marxist idea, by origin, that “it is not the consciousness of people that determines their existence, but, on the contrary, their social existence determines their consciousness.” Economic relations are the basis, but spiritual life, ideals, values, faith are the superstructure. This idea was - and is - the source of all revolutionism, from the revolutionism of the Russian Bolsheviks to the revolutionism of the American neocons. If it is enough to reorganize social relations, the souls of people will be reorganized, and a wonderful new world will appear, where man is man’s friend, comrade and brother, then the revolution looks justified. As the hero of one Soviet film said, “there, ahead, behind the blood and behind the fires, life is bright, bright.” However, time after time there is blood and fires in abundance, and a brave new world does not appear, but something rather creepy appears; everywhere and always - from the Russian revolution to the liberation of Iraq - the thesis “remake the social order, and people will be remade after it” faces a catastrophic refutation.

The opposite thesis turns out to be true - the consciousness of people determines their existence. People's lives are determined by what they believe, what they honor, what they hope for, how they see themselves, their duty, their place in the universe. The skeleton of society, its supporting structure, turns out to be not factories and factories, not the army and navy, not parliament and government, but things that seem intangible - tradition, faith, values.

There are humorous instructions on what to do if you fall into a hole. Her first point is to stop digging any further. We are in a hole caused precisely by the Marxist, materialist approach to life - even if this approach is adhered to by people who cannot stand Marx. Alas, you can hate Bolshevism and be Bolshevik in your approach to social problems. You can never read Marx (or be hostile to him) and follow his maxim - “being determines consciousness.”

In fact, our existence is determined by the state of morals; dishonesty at work, irresponsibility, dishonesty or a tendency to drink do not come from social disorder - on the contrary, this social disorder comes from these reasons. One can be indignant at the corruption among those in charge, but the main misfortune is that there is no one to put in their place - an ordinary person, finding himself in a situation where he can become corrupted, becomes corrupted in the same way as the one who was in this place before him. The saddest thing is that this is perceived as inevitable - no one expects honesty and selfless service to the common good from anyone. In fact, only a fool will row from himself, why should a person, having the opportunity for dishonest profits and illegal pleasures, deny himself? For what reason? The reasons why people are able to curb their greed or desire for pleasure are inevitably ideological in nature. They are inevitably associated with answers to the questions posed by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant: “what can I know? what should I do? what can I hope for?” The last question is the most important - if people have nothing to hope for, if we are nothing more than overgrown monkeys, if consciousness, dreams, hopes are nothing more than flickering electrical impulses in the brain, which ceases forever with death, then what meaning can debt have? ? Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we will die!

All human civilizations included earthly life in some broader and deeper context, man was harmoniously inscribed in the universe, his duties and rights were rooted in his correlation with the very foundations of reality. Our civilization - Russia, due to the Bolshevik catastrophe, Western Europe, as a result of a smooth process of departure from faith, found itself in a unique position when many people do not see any meaning, no reason, no law in the universe. In the atheistic universe there is nothing but moving matter, man arose by chance, impersonal natural forces gave birth to him without any purpose or meaning, the universe is cold and empty, there is no beauty, no law, no purpose in it, but the meaning that we put into it we invest - nothing more than our subjective dream.

However, dreams are a weak support to resist real temptations. If you have nothing to lean on, you will fall. And until we find strong, undoubted support, we will fall. We cannot invent such a support - we can only return to it. This support is a relationship with a righteous, loving God, who created man in His image, who calls him to salvation and eternal life. Relationships that bring purpose and meaning, joy and hope to our lives.

It can be very difficult for people to revise even grossly and obviously erroneous views - and it is especially difficult when these views are deeply ingrained in the consciousness of not only individual people, but society as a whole. Therefore, what the president said from the UN rostrum is very important. It is not in the power of the president to change the hearts of people - but he can, as a well-known and respected person, support a certain point of view. And this point of view is not just one of the opinions - it is the basis of any sound social order.

Http://www.radonezh.ru/analytic/articles/?ID=3161

Karl Marx said about being and consciousness

Being determines consciousness - thoughts, feelings, moods, actions of a person depend on the life situation in which he finds himself
By the way, oh great, mighty Russian language, the statement about being and consciousness in Russian sounds ambiguous. What determines what: being is consciousness or consciousness is being? If you think about the construction of the phrase, it’s not clear. It would be correct - consciousness is determined by being. But we are used to...

“In the social production of their lives, people enter into certain ... relations independent of their will - production relations .... The totality of these production relations constitutes the economic structure of society, ... the basis on which the legal and political superstructure rises and to which correspond to certain forms of social consciousness. The method of production of material life determines the social, political and spiritual processes of life in general. It is not the consciousness of people that determines their existence, but, on the contrary, their social existence determines their consciousness.”

“Being determines consciousness” is the fundamental principle of materialism, in contrast to idealism, which states the opposite “Consciousness determines being” (“being is determined by consciousness”)

The dispute between materialism and idealism is one of the insoluble ones, because it poses “eternal” questions to humanity that have no answer.

—

“Consciousness determines being no less than being determines consciousness. Without high culture, a strong economy is impossible, because with a cave consciousness you can only build a cave society" (Igor Garin “Prophets and Poets”)

Dictionary

- one of the two main directions in philosophy, which asserts that nature and existence exist independently of human consciousness, matter is primary, therefore the world is knowable
- another main direction of philosophy, which affirms the idea, consciousness, spirit as primary, and matter as secondary. Denies the objective existence of the real world, recognizing the subjective, individual sensations of a person as the only reality. That is, the world is not what exists around, but what a person sees, perceives, how he feels it
- a philosophical concept denoting life that does not depend on a person’s perception of it
- a philosophical concept denoting a person’s ability to think, to determine his attitude to reality

Being determines consciousness

Being determines consciousness
From the preface to “A Critique of Political Economy” (1859) by Karl Marx (1818-1883): “It is not the consciousness of people that determines their existence, but, on the contrary, their social existence determines their consciousness.”
Allegorically: justifying someone’s moods, preferences or shortcomings (jokingly ironic).

Encyclopedic Dictionary of winged words and expressions. - M.: “Locked-Press”. Vadim Serov. 2003.

See what “Existence determines consciousness” is in other dictionaries:

Philosophy a concept denoting the presence of phenomena and objects in themselves or as a given in consciousness, and not their meaningful aspect. It can be understood as a synonym for the concepts of “existence” and “existence” or differ from them in certain semantic ways... ... Philosophical Encyclopedia

- (being colloquial), being, plural. no, cf. 1. Existence, reality. Being determines consciousness. “Movement is the form of existence of matter.” Lenin. 2. Life, existence (outdated, now ironic). His happy life will soon end. ❖ Book of Genesis (church lit.)… … Ushakov's Explanatory Dictionary

being- BEING1, I, cf Condition, the totality of conditions of the material life of society; Syn: reality. Being determines consciousness. GENESIS2, I, Wed The existence of someone, something, etc., the fullness of the manifestation of physical and spiritual forces; Syn: life. The joys of life...

being- , iya, wed. ** Being determines consciousness. // From the work of K. Marx “Towards a critique of political economy”/. ◘ Of course, being determines consciousness. However, how many times, on the contrary, has a persistent, thieving consciousness determined existence? Ave., 12/31/85. Why… … Explanatory dictionary of the language of the Council of Deputies

Noun, s., used. very often Morphology: (no) what? consciousness, why? consciousness, (see) what? consciousness, what? consciousness, about what? about consciousness 1. Consciousness is a person’s ability to perceive and understand the surrounding reality. Development,… … Dmitriev's Explanatory Dictionary

consciousness- I, only units, p. 1) philosophy, psychology A person’s ability to think, reason and determine his attitude to reality; mental activity as a reflection of reality. Consciousness is a function of the brain. Consciousness subjective image... ... Popular dictionary of the Russian language

being- being; (colloquial) see also. existential 1) philosophical, only: being/ Objective reality (matter, nature), existing independently of human consciousness. Objective, real being/. 2) The totality of the conditions of the material life of society. Public... ... Dictionary of many expressions

consciousness- CONSCIOUSNESS1 and ((stl 8))CONSCIOUSNESS((/stl 8)), I, cf Special.. A property of a person, manifested in his ability to reproduce reality in thinking. Being determines consciousness. CONSCIOUSNESS2 and ((stl 8))Consciousness((/stl 8)), I, cf The state of a person in ... Explanatory dictionary of Russian nouns

The variety of distinctions and their differences (primary experience), as well as preferences (singling out one or another element of the distinguished as the foreground) and identifications of the differentiated. In correlation with the world as the distinctiveness of existing things, S. forms... ... Philosophical Encyclopedia

CONSCIOUSNESS- CONSCIOUSNESS. In empirical psychology, S. is understood as such a connection between simultaneous and successive mental processes in time, which leads to the knowledge of reality and the regulation of the relationship of the individual with the outside world (about ... ... Great Medical Encyclopedia

Books

Prophets and poets (set of 8 books), I. Garin. Consciousness determines being no less than being determines consciousness. Without a high culture, a strong economy is impossible, because with a cave consciousness you can only build a cave society...

The formula “being determines consciousness” was introduced in his works by Karl Marx and it underlies historical materialism, which postulates that matter is primary and consciousness is secondary, that is, it is being that underlies consciousness and shapes it.

However, this formulation can have two readings.

In addition to the initial interpretation that being is primary and consciousness is secondary, a strictly opposite interpretation is also possible, which is that being is determined by consciousness, that is, consciousness is primary and being is secondary (by analogy with the phrase “the king is played by his retinue”).

The definition “being determines consciousness” is ambiguous and can be read from two sides, thereby inverting the meaning.

And this is actually not just a play on words.

The duality of this phrase turned out to have a deep meaning.

It is this duality that reveals the essence of the historical process much more fully and accurately than the one-sided interpretation within the framework of historical materialism about the unconditional primacy of being.

In reality, both processes take place - the process in which being influences consciousness and shapes it in accordance with the concept of materialism, and the strictly opposite process, during which consciousness influences and shapes being.

These two processes compete with each other in the course of history, replace each other and condition each other.

This is easy to see in the history of scientific and technological progress of recent centuries and the socio-political transformations that followed.

What caused the decline of absolute monarchies, the cause of the collapse of European empires and the transition to capitalism and bourgeois democracy?

The reason was a change in economic relations caused by scientific and technological progress, the advent of machines, mechanization and industrialization.

The agrarian economy, in which the main resource was the land and the peasants who worked on it, was well managed by absolute monarchies, and the simple peasant life was combined with a religious consciousness, within the framework of which the absolute monarchy was a legitimate form of government recognized by the people.

Industrialization and the emergence of machines, transport, and mechanization means led to the fact that plants and factories began to become the main economic resource. Accordingly, control of the economy began to shift to the owners of factories and factories, and machine manufacturers. Capital arose, which began to consolidate, because the growth of plants and factories led to an increase in production volumes, a reduction in the cost of a unit of production, an increase in profits and economic influence.

Industrialization led to qualitative, structural changes in the economy, and the economy is economy, life, being.

Following the changes in the economy, economy, and everyday life, the consciousness of both society as a whole and the elite began to change.

Industrialists, owners of factories (cars), capitalists became stronger and more influential than the former elite - the nobility, landowners, boyars and princes. They realized their power and this allowed the capitalists to begin dictating their terms and promoting reforms beneficial to them.

At the same time, a class of workers, the proletariat, appeared - their life was already fundamentally different from the life of the peasants. Workers became residents of cities with all the attendant everyday differences. The level of literacy among workers was from the very beginning higher than among peasants and continued to rise as production became more complex and machines improved. Workers began to read newspapers, became socially active, and created trade unions.

The result was a series of bourgeois revolutions, the fall of absolute monarchies (in some cases complete, in others with transformation into constitutional ones) and the establishment of democratic regimes.

Just in case, I note that in Russia the first (February) revolution was also bourgeois-democratic. And the Bolshevik Party was also democratic, only not liberal, but socialist. The Bolsheviks were originally social democrats, their party was called the RSDLP - the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party.

The transformation of absolute monarchies into liberal democratic and social democratic regimes was the result of changes in the economy and subsequent changes in consciousness.

At this stage, everything turns out in full accordance with the concept of historical materialism and the basic interpretation, which is that being (matter) is primary and consciousness is secondary.

Existence has changed - consciousness has changed.

The economy (being) has changed - the control system (consciousness) has changed.

Where then does duality and the possibility of the reverse interpretation come from, that consciousness itself can be primary and determine being?

The reverse interpretation becomes relevant due to the fact that the invention of machines and the creation of industry are the result of conscious activity, the result of the work of scientists, inventors, engineers, and entrepreneurs.

Scientific and technological progress, which led to qualitative changes in the economy, transformed the economy and led to changes in everyday life (being) is the result of conscious activity.

Therefore, it turned out that the consciousness of scientists, inventors, engineers and entrepreneurs led to a change in the economy, economy, existence, and these changes at the next stage led to a change in consciousness throughout society and further to a change in the socio-political system.

Scientific and technological progress was driven by a minority whose consciousness turned out to be higher than the current economic structure, higher than current existence. A minority that was not satisfied with the surrounding reality, methods and means of production, and the technological level. The minority, which in its consciousness rushed forward, rose above the existing way of life, economy, way of life, turned out to be above being and, as a result, changed it.

And following the changes in existence that the minority initiated and began to embody, the rest of society followed - the majority, whose consciousness began to change following the changes in everyday life, lifestyle, economic structure, methods and means of production and the resulting products implemented by the minority.

This is exactly how the real historical process goes.

The consciousness of the minority changes the existence of the majority, after which the consciousness of the majority changes.

After this, the next stage begins and so on.

Both of these processes go on continuously - the minority, whose consciousness turns out to be higher than the current existence (in the broad sense, of course), constantly attempts to change it. Sometimes this process goes faster, sometimes it begins to stall, encountering the inertia of the majority, the stability of the existing government and society’s satisfaction with the current state of existence.

The authorities generally never want to change, the only exceptions being individual representatives. The majority is almost always inert and its consciousness, determined by the current way of life that satisfies the masses, resists change. Therefore, the process is nonlinear and uneven.

Changes begin as a result of the fact that technologies and scientific discoveries developed by a minority accumulate and quantity turns into quality; the scientific and technological revolution leads to a radical restructuring in the economy and a revolution in the system of management and government.

Changes can begin as a result of a management crisis, when the government becomes incapacitated, loses the ability to govern in the old way (the old way of life) and the rotation of the elite begins, a progressive-minded minority comes to power.

Changes can begin as a result of the fact that the majority ceases to satisfy its existence and this dissatisfaction becomes decisive for changes both in mass consciousness and in power.

However, in any case, changes in existence are carried out by a minority, its consciousness, its abilities, scientific discoveries, technical innovations, management decisions, technologies and new models of the structure of the state and society.

The majority may be more or less ready for changes - they can slow down these changes and resist them, or, on the contrary, look forward to them and welcome them in every possible way. But the specifics of changes are always a product of the conscious activity of a minority, which, due to its knowledge, abilities, experience, availability of tools, coordination of actions, develops and makes decisions, creates technologies, makes discoveries, implements developments and trains the majority in their use, disseminates its ideas about new ways of farming, new approaches to management - ideas about a new being.

It even happens that the process is not ascending, but descending; instead of development, degradation begins, decline occurs, but the scheme still remains the same and a new being is formed by the consciousness of the minority, after which the consciousness of the majority changes.

An example of a top-down process is the destruction of the USSR.

The liquidation of Soviet power was predetermined by the partelite and anti-Soviet sentiments that arose in the circles of the liberal intelligentsia.

Starting from 1953, the process of degradation of the partelite began, the consciousness of the Soviet leadership began to be simplified and gradually became extremely primitive. Leaders with a high level of consciousness began to be replaced by party dummies who could only mechanically repeat memorized slogans, approve the line of the party and government, and reward each other.

Khrushchev, without a doubt, was a very ideological leader, but he was poorly educated and his level of consciousness was significantly lower than Stalin’s, which predetermined the beginning of personnel degradation and the adoption of incorrect management decisions.

Brezhnev's level of consciousness turned out to be even lower than Khrushchev's. Brezhnev's level of consciousness was collecting cars and awards. If Khrushchev, with all his shortcomings, was a fanatic of astronautics and rocket science, that is, in his mind there was a place for progress - this can no longer be said about Brezhnev, in his mind there was no longer a place for progress, progress was beyond his understanding. Under Brezhnev, not a single significant breakthrough was made that could be compared with astronautics, industrialization or electrification. On the contrary, it was under Brezhnev that the Soviet subtraction technology was destroyed, which was replaced by the criminal cloning of Western developments. Under him, gas exports began “in exchange for pipes,” which later turned into gas exports “in exchange for clothes.”

The consciousness of the entire party elite in the 60s and 70s began to quickly simplify and degrade.

The result was the emergence of a “party bourgeoisie,” the emergence of a party mafia and guild members. The party elite became bourgeois, its consciousness was simplified to a primitive capitalist level, reduced to the accumulation of capital and the acquisition of luxury goods.

It was this simplification of the consciousness of the partelite that led to the fact that the Soviet economy began to degrade, become simpler, and was ultimately handed over to the cooperators, after which it collapsed and was handed over.

A striking illustration of this process is the transformation of the Ministry of Gas Industry into the Gazprom Corporation, carried out - attention - back in 1990. Gazprom was created by order of the Council of Ministers of the USSR even before the liquidation of the Union and the start of mass privatization!

The degradation of the consciousness of the partelite, which fell below what was required for the preservation and development of the USSR, predetermined its destruction and the transition from the Soviet economy to capitalism in its most wild, primitive, raw material form.

As the partelite degraded and its level of consciousness lowered, Soviet existence also changed - such phenomena as shortages, cronyism, blackmail, mafia, and racketeering arose. And all this did not start in the 80s - it started back in the 70s, and the first manifestations can be traced back to the 60s.

The changing existence with the growth of shortages, the spread of fartsovka, the rise of imported goods over Soviet ones, the rise of cooperators over employees of Soviet enterprises - has given rise to changes in mass consciousness.

The more existence changed, the more consciousness changed.

The less Soviet existence became, the less Soviet consciousness became.

By the end of the 80s, Soviet society practically ceased to be Soviet, it became consumerist and largely anti-Soviet - this is what led to the fact that about a million people gathered for a rally in support of Yeltsin in August 1991, and there was no rally against Yeltsin at all.

When the finally decayed partelite, whose consciousness became entirely bourgeois, capitalist and liberal-democratic, liquidated the USSR and launched the process of barbaric privatization (that is, transferred the country to capitalism in its most primitive form), life in the country finally changed and led to that the consciousness of the majority has become as primitive as the new being and as the consciousness of the degraded partelite that gave birth to it.

This illustrates that the process “consciousness - being - consciousness” can go both upward and downward.

The minority that makes up the elite of society can pull society both up and down, depending on how the consciousness of this very minority changes.

This is how the principle “being determines consciousness” works in practice.

The consciousness of a progressive (or vice versa regressing) minority that is part of the elite influences existence and leads to its change, after which the new existence determines the new consciousness of the majority.

The minority, which makes up the elite of society, constantly pulls the majority towards itself through influence on its existence.

At the same time, the basis of the consciousness of the minority, its progress or regression, also lies in existence, dissatisfaction with its current state, or the inability of some to manage in the old way (within the framework of the old existence) and the desire of others to manage in a new way.

The process “being - consciousness - being - consciousness - being” is endless, while several parallel processes of changing consciousness and being can occur at once, they can overlap each other, contradictions arise between them, the old being comes into conflict with the new consciousness, and a new existence with an old consciousness, the government does not want to change, the masses have inertia of thinking, the progressive minority, on the contrary, runs ahead, sometimes far ahead...

And in this variety of processes of mutual influence of consciousness and being, it is no longer possible to unambiguously determine what is primary and what is secondary.

The debate about the primacy and secondary nature of being and consciousness is akin to the debate about what came first - the egg or the chicken.

And does it matter what happened before?

At the moment, the processes of consciousness influencing existence and vice versa are happening in parallel and at the same time - that’s what’s really important.

Both processes take place and both influences are feasible - both being on consciousness and consciousness on being.

Therefore, the formula “being determines consciousness” not only can, but also must be read in two ways, in both directions. And this is its genius, going beyond the initial framework of historical materialism.

Being determines consciousness... Many people have heard this expression. It was first used in the works of Karl Marx. However, even before this philosopher, Hegel also had similar thoughts. Let's try to understand the essence of this expression.

Every person is conditioned to one degree or another. A child is greatly influenced by his environment. This is how basic principles, opinions, judgments, and life attitudes are instilled. It is worth remembering that a person cannot be completely autonomous. Social existence and have a huge impact on everyone's life. A person largely depends on the environment in which he exists. Taken together, all material aspects of life (environment, work, etc.) constitute the Consciousness of a person - this is the spiritual side of existence, that is, thoughts, convictions, beliefs, principles, etc.

The expression “being determines consciousness” implies that the living conditions of an individual directly influence his thinking. There is no doubt that a millionaire and a person without a fixed place of residence think differently. The vast majority of people are unable to rise above the peculiarities of their existence and look at life objectively. Philosophers cope with this task most successfully.

Confirmation of the thesis “being determines consciousness” can easily be found in our modern world. For example, for some, it is absolutely normal to marry a girl under sixteen years old. For most developed countries, this fact is unacceptable.

In past centuries, slavery was widespread. This fact was considered absolutely normal and everyday. For a modern person, the use of slaves as labor seems wild.

The converse is also true. determines his existence. That is, the development of personality in material aspects depends on how the individual thinks, what priorities and goals he sets for himself. The opposite thesis can be easily proven using simple ones. If only being determined consciousness, humanity would stop in its development. There would be no global changes in the world. However, we see a different picture. With the growth of humanity's consciousness, the world changes and transforms. People increase, more respect is shown for the interests of the individual, tolerance and tolerance become important qualities of the individual.

However, despite all the positive changes in the world, there are still certain problems of existence. Human life, relative to the past and future of the entire earth, is negligibly short. But one way or another, the overwhelming majority of individuals had to think about the further development of the world around us and its current problems. The questions facing philosophers trying to comprehend existence are many and varied. However, the mere fact that people think about such abstract problems allows us to say that human consciousness does not cease to change. And this, according to the opposite thesis stated above, leads to the transformation of an already existing being.

To summarize, it can be noted that the expression “being determines consciousness” indicates that human thinking is quite subjective. It does not stand “above” the surrounding reality, but is directly dependent on it. However, human consciousness is constantly evolving, trying to rise “above” existence, and this leads to changes throughout the world. Most often, such transformations are evolutionary rather than revolutionary in nature. That is, they occur slowly, but their entry into a person’s daily life is almost irreversible.