Consciousness

Consciousness begins with the self and may be described as the active interpretation of social, cultural, historical, spiritual, ideological, and political forces of life. Various states of consciousness are based on self-awareness, mindfulness of one's surroundings, and the ongoing response to one's environment. Consciousness also implies attentiveness to one's own thoughts, actions, and sense of self or identity. As such, consciousness may infer a cognitive and physical existence—including the discernment of lived experience, remembrance, and a sense of being within time and space. Moreover, consciousness emphasizes morality, correct and incorrect behavior, measures of right or wrong, and higher order.

Consciousness is deliberate and intentional and yet may be the result of phenomena that are quite unintentional. For example, our subconscious thoughts lie just beneath the surface of intentional, observable, or palpable reality. More specifically, a hypnotic state of consciousness, or dream state of consciousness, might be described as truth beyond concrete reality. So the questions continue: Where does consciousness begin? When does it end? Are we born into consciousness, or is it a realm to be achieved? How do we know what we know?

In terms of communication and consciousness, the theory of linguistic relativity suggests that awareness of any concept requires having the language to grasp and understand the concept. The theory assumes that one cannot conceive a thing without first having a transferable concept of the thing—that is, the product of language. The value of linguistic relativity is its emphasis on consciousness as perceived, experienced, and understood through symbols. However, counterarguments posit that it is highly unlikely that consciousness ever fails to exist—regardless of one's (in)ability to communicate.

Consciousness is both independent and collective. The famous and often quoted statement by philosopher René Descartes, “I think therefore I am,” suggests that consciousness begins with the independent I. Conversely, the Afrocentric theorist Maulana Karenga has suggested that it is not simply “I think therefore I am,” but rather “I am related and relate to others, therefore I am,” which situates consciousness as an ongoing, collective, and interactive encounter.

Independent and collective states of consciousness contribute to a perplexing dialectic. For example, in his exploration of the African American experience, W. E. B. Du Bois often used the formulation of the veil as a metaphor for the division between Blacks and Whites. For Du Bois, the veil represents a particular and dynamic sense of dual consciousness, which African Americans have been forced to navigate in American life to the extent that African and American have been understood as distinct and competing positions.

Du Bois's use of the veil can also be thought of as expressing a cultural epistemology largely unrecognized by dominant White society. Du Bois argues that African Americans have long understood and negotiated the dialectical tensions of existing in and between two worlds. By removing the veil, Du Bois reveals the self as filtered through the terminal screen of Whiteness, resulting in a sense of dual consciousness that is highly ambivalent across various contexts of life. Removal of the veil then connotes sharing one's understanding of social order and meaning. For Du Bois, consciousness consists of independent and mutual knowledge of self.

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