Abstract
The paper defines the legal term of legal consciousness (“LC”) by distinguishing the area of legal knowledge and the area of opinion about law and then the author documents that LC was frequently studied in 1970s-80s, as the communist party understood LC as a means to change people's thinking and promote communist ideology. Apart from the necessary aversion to such approach, the author eventually understands this historic experience also as an inspiration for today's democratic society.
The author points out a strange paradox that our current democratic society grants individual people extensive rights but does not care about the way citizens vested rights use. The author also states that it is in the very interest of every democratic society to care for LC of its citizenship and attempt to – in a democratic and non-violent way – influence it.
Only that, the author claims, allows the society to influence the way it is developing, since otherwise democratic societies tend to be very vulnerable.