#40 Our Collective Consciousness

Last week I caught a snippet of a television show on which Deeprok Chopra was appearing. Deeprok Chopra is a trained Indian medical doctor who is also a writer and speaker on a myriad of topics including the mind-body connection.  He was discussing "collective consciousness"*.  It is a perfect descriptor for what is going on all around us.


Chopra believes that "the world is as we are". He further states all of the social and economic injustice, environmental degradation, and the dysfunction of our politics and institutions are all a reflection of our collective consciousness.  We as a society project our mores onto everything we do.  Thus we see examples of these norms in the television shows that we watch, the bickering and fighting we witness daily by our politicians -- everything is about who is going to win, not what is good for us as a whole or what is good for this country.  And I believe he is right on.


I want to provide two very subtle examples of this ME vs. WE collective consciousness. Both are holiday commercials.  The first one is a Kohl's advertisement for Black Friday.  It shows a happy, singing young woman in a crowd outside of Kohl's waiting for the store to open.  When the door opens she puts her hand up to "stop" an older woman from entering before her.  She walks in, grabs a cart, continues merrily along  putting things into her cart -- she evens grabs something out of someone's else's cart -- to that person's stunned amazement.  She breezes through her shopping and checks out.  The Kohl's shopping experience has been a piece of cake.


The second one is an Audi commercial.  The parents watch as their son drives up to their house for a holiday visit in a very spiffy new Audi.  As he walks through a different door into the house, he calls out to his parents that he is home.  Meanwhile the parents book out the front door and decide to take a "joy" ride in his car - thus leaving him there looking bewildered. 

Are these commercials cute and funny?  I think not -- but I believe that Kohl's and Audi thought so.... Do I really want to see some self centered young woman thinking that she can just disrespect others and take what she wants?  And those parents, do I really want to know that they are so self centered that they would rather go drive a car than greet their son? Which makes me ask again, what is it that we collectively care about? 

Our collective consciousness has allowed for these very self-centered kinds of commercials -- it is the Me vs. WE mentality, which has created a lot of chaos and instability in our country.  The good news is that according to Chopra there is an opportunity to change our collective consciousness and it all starts with each and every one of us.  

To be continued in the new year -- but for now -- HAPPY NEW YEAR'S!!!!

* A term coined by the French sociologist Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) to refer to the shared beliefs and moral attitudes which operate as a unifying force within society.