[12:16 – 12:55] According to Vilém Flusser, the political consciousness or the political thinking was never as strongly pronounced as it was during the Enlightenment in the 18th century. One of the most important prerequisites for this was the invention of letterpress printing which over time made writing as a medium more popular than the image. [9:00 – 11:18] Linear writing is directly connected to political consciousness. Before there was writing, humans only had the image to make sense of the world that surrounded them. The image is connected to a magical-mythical consciousness: everything happens over and over again, there is no before or after, no cause and no effect. Only with the invention of writing, things that happen are brought into a chronological order. Thus, a historical consciousness arises. Humans can now perceive the world as a process. Events are singular and occur in a chronological sequence, they have a cause and an effect.

The historical consciousness and the political consciousness correspond because in order to think or act politically, one must have an understanding of the notion of cause and effect which result in intentionality. This form of thinking, which is connected to concepts such as rationality and progress, has rather positive connotations. [14:23 – 15:24]. However, Flusser, following Hegel, assumes that the political consciousness is always an unhappy one. To him, politics are the distinction between private and public space, between domus and forum. People must leave the house to get the information which is accessible in the public sphere and then take it home to receive it in private. Every walk into the public sphere causes a loss of the self, every return into the private space means losing the world. That is why the political consciousness is always an unhappy consciousness, too.

For Flusser, political consciousness underwent a tremendous change post World War II. Before, political consciousness developed gradually directed toward progress, mirroring linear writing, whereas images documented said progress and in turn shaped political consciousness [20:20-20:30]. Afterward, however, Flusser argues that political consciousness became informed by an increasingly accelerated onslaught of images. This had the effect that political consciousness became informed by a succession of imagistic events, meaning that historical events became only events if they existed as technical image [21:30-22:20]. Political consciousness, then, became driven by a need and longing for images. In reference to the Romanian Revolution, Flusser wonders whether “It's the image, which now causes events” [22:31-22:34] further highlighting the centrality of the image to political consciousness. Thus, politics, and political consciousness, has become nothing but a reaction to a succession of images.