Man is a social being, as Aristotle rightly noted in the fourth century. BC. Therefore, each individual person is a carrier not only of his individual consciousness, but also of public consciousness. To a large extent, the individual’s own consciousness is formed by society: its economic, ethical, aesthetic and moral principles. From this we can conclude that public consciousness is divided into religious, aesthetic, moral, legal, economic and political consciousness.
Political consciousness arose, of course, later than religious or moral, when human society entered the stage of its evolution in which there was already a place for social differentiation of people, when society split into large social groups. We can say that political consciousness arose at the dawn of the formation of states with their political system and political relations. It was formed in two ways: on the part of “politicians” - those who stood at the helm of society and influenced its internal and external social life, and the people who made up this “led” society, who had certain views on the activities of the helmsmen, emotions and attitudes.
Thus, we can say that political consciousness is one of the branches of public consciousness, which is formed by a combination of social views, emotions, feelings and perceptions that reflect objective political relations between large groups / classes of people. Of course, one cannot consider political consciousness in isolation from other forms of social consciousness. For example, socio-economic processes in a country directly affect the formation of acute dissatisfaction or, conversely, satisfaction with the existing political system. Also important is the stratification of society into stable and large social groups, solidarity or, conversely, disunity between them.
The mentality of the people or the religious views of the titular religion also, albeit indirectly, affect the political consciousness: for example, the view that all power is from God is superimposed on the formation of political views and behavioral attitudes. Since in the boiler of one society the socio-economic and political interests of different classes and large groups do not coincide, or even come into direct conflict with each other, we can talk about the mass, class and even political consciousness of age or professional groups of people.
Now we will consider how political consciousness is formed in a person. An individual, growing up, learns about the social system, about the processes operating in society, levers of governance, and at the same time realizes his own belonging to a nation, social layer, class, religious or ethnic group. When a person analyzes this knowledge or blindly absorbs it, a political attitude is gradually forming in him, which leads him to a state of predisposition to certain actions (to be proud of the social system or to actively oppose him). This is expressed primarily at the level of emotions (like / dislike) of varying degrees of intensity. Such a mass political consciousness at the peak of its aggravation can result in violent street riots when the crowd does not know what it wants and what it is seeking, but it clearly knows what it does not want - the system of political and social relations existing in society .
Therefore, several levels are distinguished in the political consciousness: the ordinary, which is formed through the life experience of a person, and the scientific, which is formed by social scientists and political scientists on the basis of the study of political processes over different time periods and in different countries. The components of political consciousness flow from this division: from the ordinary - psychological, often based on the mentality, as well as likes / dislikes for a certain politician, and ideological and theoretical, that is, a formed system of knowledge, assessments, concepts, theories. The emotional base of mass political consciousness makes it possible to manipulate it and, accordingly, the masses, but increasing the level of development of political culture can complicate such manipulation and the game of populism.