Fear as a Phenomenon of Social Consciousness

The article is devoted to the analysis of fear as a phenomenon of public consciousness. In Soviet and then Russian science, the theory of social consciousness prevailed for a long time, highlighting levels of reflection of reality, forms of social consciousness, as well as its scope. From the standpoint of this theory, fears and anxieties can be considered from the point of view of the correlation of rational and emotional, theoretical and everyday levels, ideology, science and social psychology, the hierarchy of forms of social consciousness, which changes in different historical periods of the development of society. The author does not reject this approach but proposes to synthesize his ideas and positions into the concept of ‘real public consciousness’ (a really functioning consciousness) put forward within the sociology of life by Zh. T. Toschenko. Based on the concept of real public consciousness, the following aspects of the study are highlighted — analysis of fears and anxieties as elements of public consciousness interconnected with other elements; studying the ratio of different types of fears in the set of anxieties and concerns of a particular society; identifying the relationship of social fears with the objective conditions of society; the study of fears and anxieties from the point of view of their relationship with the real behavior of individuals and groups in real life conditions. As a phenomenon of real public consciousness, fears and anxieties can be considered as one of the indicators of the current state of social life. The development of a theoretical model for analyzing fears and anxieties as phenomena of a truly functioning public consciousness allows us to create a basis for its empirical research.