Artemy Magun 1
The Probing of God-Bearer
2020,
vol. 19,
No. 3,
pp. 409–425
[issue contents]
The article is simultaneously an extended review of the book by Grigory Yudin entitled Public Opinion; or, The Power of Numbers (EUSPb Press, 2020) and an essay on the phenomenon of public opinion in the light of the repressive tendencies of contemporary society from the standpoint of critical theory. Relying mostly on Adorno, the author shows that public opinion polls are not only the result of the alienating reification, but also an effect of the basic subjectivism which turns the relationship between the subject and society into a detached, contemplative, and judgmental attitude. The objectivization coincides with subjectivization. Thus, in accordance with Yudin’s book, social science, if it wants to be more than an instrument of bureaucratic domination, has to rely on dialectical logic.
Keywords:
public opinion;
Levada Center;
critical theory;
dialectic in sociology;
Grigory Yudin;
quantification
Citation:
Magun A. (2020) Zondazh bogonostsa [The Probing of God-Bearer]. The Russian Sociological Review, vol. 19, no 3, pp. 409-425 (in Russian)