Social Consciousness in the Realities of IT-Civilization

Abstract

Mental peculiarities of man of IT-civilization are being theoretically reconstructed in the article. The relevance of the topic is determined by the impact (which is apparently controversial and frequently even causing concern) of newest technologies on people’s psyche and somatic features, their private and social life. In methodology the authors rely on non-idealistic dialectics that is correlated with the content of critical social theory. In the stated methodological paradigm, priority is given to a positive non-classical dialectics which is being distinguished from both a classical dialectics and a negative one. The paper is primarily focused on specificity of social consciousness which categorical status is mostly related to Marxist intellectual tradition. The latter is chosen as a paradigm in the given text. Along with that, Marxist problematization of consciousness and its neighboring realities – ontological, epistemological, social ones – is interpreted with historically actual objective and subjective circumstances in mind. In this regard, the role of socio-cultural templates of modernity, modernism and postmodernity is being highlighted. We specify the content of conceptually significant concepts: social consciousness, information, ideology, propaganda, and consumer society. Consumer society itself is identified as capitalism of new technological and mental mode. The negative character of information and computer technologies’ influence on human psyche is being accentuated and elaborated. On the basis of adduced arguments, it is stated: consciousness of digital society’s man is prone to destruction, eclecticism and is susceptible to being manipulated which is fraught with totalitarian outcome. The resistance strategy is being defined. Its important component is an ability to detect innovative forms of exploitation and control concealed behind technological novelties.