His existence as such is only conceptual, not real.

His existence as such is only conceptual, not real. What actually exist are the aristocrats and the masses. Man as such could exist only in a classless society, had there been any. Hence in a class-dominated society social self-consciousness is identical with class self-consciousness.

According to this theory class self-consciousness is equivalent to the consciousness of one's own interests, for its philosophy is based on the view that the personality of every individual is governed by his material interests. In any social structure the most important factor is its economic basis. It is common material life and common material interests which give the individuals belonging to a particular class, common conscience, common taste and common judgement.

Class life begets class out-look and class out-look makes a man look at the world and society from a particular angle and interpret them as the class interest demands. Accordingly his efforts and social out-look are always class-oriented. Marxism believes in this kind of self-consciousness, which may be termed as Marxist self-consciousness. V. National Self-consciousness It means the consciousness of one's relation to the people with whom one has national and racial ties.

Man as a result of passing a common life with a group of people having a common law, a common way of life, a common history, common historical successes and failures, a common language and literature and finally a common culture, develops a sort of fellow feeling and a sense of oneness with that group. As an individual has an ego, similarly a nation also by virtue of its having a common culture develops a national ego.

A common culture resulting from belonging to a common race brings about similarity and unity among human individuals. Nationhood backed by a common culture turn 'I's' into 'We' for the sake of which people often make sacrifices. They take pride in its successes and feel ashamed of its failures. National self-consciousness means the consciousness of national culture, national personality and national ego. Basically there exists no world culture.

Various cultures exist simultaneously, and each one of them has its own basic characteristics and distinguishing features. Therefore the idea of one single world culture is absurd. Nationalism which was popular in the nineteenth century and is still more or less being preached is based on this very philosophy.