Social consciousness, or social awareness, is defined as consciousness shared by individuals within a society. It essentially means to be conscious or aware of the problems within a society or community.

In my book The laws of the jungle, I describe the discrepancy of social consciousness and the problem our society faces from the very source which in my perception is the separation of humanity from nature.

Essentially our social consciousness is fragmented mythically, culturally and geopolitically thus there is no collective social consciousness we all agree on and the concept of society excludes all species that are not human hence its limitations.

Mythically our social awareness emerges in a unique positioning of a creation story of demi-gods that are separated from and superior to all other created creatures, ordered to exploit and subdue them. I’m reading this in The first chapter of Genesis the describes how God created the Earth with all its flora and fauna and...

26 - Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. 27 - So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. 28 - God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

Such mythical indoctrination is the beginning of the existential downfall of humanity from grace. Anthropological studies prove that the natural men; those animist tribes that lived in total immersion in nature, never exploited it, never subdued it and never felt separated from it. Furthermore, the studies; without romanticising, say these peoples where the happiest and most harmonious in their conduct. This existential crisis of humanity is literally living in exile on our home planet as aliens.

From a cultural point of view our religions and creeds, our races and casts, our skin colors and sexual tendencies, our social statuses and our wealth or poverty, all these are elements of segregation further preventing us from the ability of holding a cohesive social awareness that is wide and just.

Lastly, geopolitically our planet is dissected into hundreds of territories surrounded by artificial borders - while Planet Earth is one living body that needs to be perceived and managed as such, geopolitical illusion of nationalism makes us believe that the separation is real. Instead of seeing ourselves as ‘Earthlings’ we forget the planet as a whole and believe in the delusion of separation and identify with our nation only. This is fundamentally detrimental to our existence as each territory is pulling to a different direction according to its own interests.

In order to develop proper social awareness, all these basics precepts mythical, cultural and geopolitical should be reconsidered allowing for a new social consciousness to emerge. Our home planet is one. We are not aliens, we are Earthlings. Nature is all inclusive we cannot be separated from it. Cultures are indoctrination systems, they are not real, a baby is born clean slate, without the indoctrination no one grows to be Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, Christian or Muslim. Nationalism is not real, the planet doesn’t care if it Syria or Papua New Guinea. It is one planet, where all of us are interrelated, interconnected and interdependent. And so when discussing social awareness, it is a matter of of scope and perspective.