False consciousness is a concept that comes from the theory of ideology, and especially from arguments on this subject within Marxism. It refers to a state in which people’s beliefs, values or preferences are seen as ‘false’, that is, artificially created by their culture or society. For example, a conflict between trade unions inside a work-force might be seen as a false consciousness on the grounds that workers ‘ought’ to realize that unity in the face of capitalists is in the ‘true interests’ of all workers. Similarly, affluent workers who see a government that might increase their taxes to pay for welfare benefits to the less affluent as less in their interest than one which might reduce taxes would also be suffering from a false consciousness, because they ‘ought’ to realize that ultimately all workers are exploited by capitalist society. A ‘true consciousness’ would have them supporting their less affluent fellow workers. Clearly it is an evaluative concept, and one that requires a very powerful theory to support it. Otherwise we can all describe anything someone else wants as a ‘false’ interest. Nevertheless, there are clear examples of people suffering false consciousness, believing that some policy will help them when it will not, or holding values and attitudes that one can easily trace to ideological conditioning or media manipulation.
There is a need, as with all concepts in this area, to establish ground rules for using the arguments, which can otherwise turn into a powerful myth to uphold totalitarian or other undemocratic governments (see dictatorship of the proletariat). As with similar ideas, for example alienation, it is assumed that there exists an essential human nature that is discoverable whatever the apparent characteristics. It is historically similar to ideas in traditional Catholic political theory, for example in Aquinas or Augustine, where the thesis that man has fallen from a state of grace justified hieratical authority. The idea is that, uncontaminated by external forces, unfallen people would perceive society correctly, and neither be the tools of the exploiters nor be able to exploit, because a potential exploiter would not be able to disguise from himself what he was doing. It is this general distortion which gives false consciousness its power. An example might be the acceptance both by factory owners and workers that minimal pay rates and high job insecurity were necessary for the economy to flourish. The theory, shared by both sides, justifies to everyone both exploiting and being exploited. Only where the exploiters actually do realize that matters might be organized otherwise but continue to maintain the economic theory in question, does a ‘false’ consciousness become a ‘mendacious’ consciousness.
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