Of all political terms associated with John Locke, you might not expect him to be linked to “consciousness-raising.”
Yet William Safire’s Political Dictionary includes this reference in the second paragraph of its “consciousness-raising” entry:
“Consciousness,” wrote John Locke in his 1690 Essay on Human Understanding, “is the perception of what passes in a Man’s own mind.” That quality of cognition ? involving perception, memory, and judgment ? combined with self-awareness is usually involved in the many uses of the word.
After spending another three paragraphs explaining how the term “consciousness-raising” has been used in political discourse over the years, Safire concludes:
By the mid-’70s, the word had been taken over by the women’s movement ? see WOMEN’S LIB and SEXISM ? and the use by Locke in this entry would be frowned on.
