Collective Consciousness

Music connects to our worlds, what we perceive as life as A Tribe Called Quest extol in the brilliant Black Noise by Tricia Rose’s (1994, p.68), suggesting ‘the rhythmic instinction to yield to travel beyond existing forces in life. If you want to get rhythm then you need to join a tribe’. Natural cohesiveness that transcends our world, both imagined and real, featuring a collective consciousness that pervades and sweeps through the music. Modern Western cultures struggle with the concept of collective consciousness because there is often a negative impact that occurs. Within a scenius (a scene containing unusually high levels of genius) the group think supports positive elements, such as in the London Jazz scenius where places such as The Total Refreshment Centre and the Tomorrows Warriors school help people on a group path, showing value in nurturing communal musiking. Stories told within mainstream media rely on collective consciousness to push ideas, generally in a negative way. Get Brexit Done, Covid-19 lockdowns, the Middle East situation where a lack of historical knowledge is used to sway arguments. Which side are you on, the Palestinians or the Israelis, when the situation is much more nuanced, non linear. Chaos Theory is utilised to confuse and subvert populations. Obvious 20^th Century examples include Stalin, Hitler, Apartheid, Anti- black racism, Trump, Johnson, Berlesconi. Dominic Cummings sadly slumped at a desk on live TV lying, needing an eye test to confirm that he was driving a car. If you can start to move the juggernaut of the group down one path then it is unstoppable as there is no room to turn around and the vessel is so large that it would take forever anyway. Brian Eno demonstrated Chaos Theory with his 2 handed pendulum, where simple motion on the first one creates infinite non repeated movements on the second. So a little nudge one way can send all kinds of confusion across the next, thereby subordinated populations. Collective consciousness came through in punk, hip hop, techno, jungle etc.. through commonalities of fashion, style, music, art, taste, lifestyle, place, rhythm, dance. There are instigators, those key people who lead the collective in a certain direction. We are all swayed in some way, which can be a positive in cultural scenes but have global destroying effects in political spheres.

Emma Warren – Total Refreshment Centre