Criticism of public opinion

Critique of Public Opinion is a work by the sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies , published in 1922 . It is counted among the basic texts of social science media criticism . It is the public opinion in the social form company locates. Its counterpart on the part of the community is religion .

content

Tönnies' criticism of public opinion is considered a prime example of his applied sociology . Public opinion is the expression of a social will, that is, of the bourgeois-modern, rational, goal- and purpose-determined spirit that has historically emerged from religion and against it. In this process, traditional beliefs and traditional institutions have been undermined and destroyed.

Public opinion affects the legal, economic, social, political and especially the moral life of a politically connected entity (such as a nation but also humanity) like an ideal, invisible court that judges and condemns publicly relevant actions according to ethically reasonable criteria . In her concrete statements (books, newspapers, magazines) she is always determined by the partisan and economic interests of the bearers of public opinion , which Tönnies calls opinion soldiers, who try to turn their partial opinion into an overall opinion . Opinions are weapons in class , corporate and party struggle.

Tönnies differentiates between public opinion and public opinion . Opinions, no matter how absurd, outdated or politically incorrect, that are publicly expressed are public opinions that can be referred to, regardless of whether they are affirmative, critical, indignant or secretly approving. Only when such opinions flow into a broad mainstream of consensus does it become public opinion , the pressure of which hardly anyone can escape. Public opinion is not identical with an emotionally charged popular sentiment, although loosely connected to it. The public opinion is not the quantitative majority opinion, but always will think of part of an overall society intellectually most active, financially strongest and literary influential.

Only when reason emancipates itself from party and economic interests as well as intellectualism and the spirit of a truly social coexistence (as organically deepened reason ) works in it can public opinion take on the function of religion as a binding, unifying, integrative and normative power.

expenditure

• Ferdinand Tönnies: Critique of Public Opinion. Julius Springer, Berlin 1922 ( digitized from the University and City Library of Cologne ).
• Ferdinand Tönnies: Critique of Public Opinion. [1922]. Scientia, Aalen 1981.
• Ferdinand Tönnies: Critique of Public Opinion. [1922]. Edited by Alexander Deichsel , Rolf Fechner, Rainer Waßner (=  Ferdinand Tönnie's complete edition , vol. 14). Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2002, ISBN 3-11-015349-1 .
• Ferdinand Tönnies: Critique of Public Opinion. [1922]. Edited by Arno Bammé and Ingrid Reschenberg, Profil Verlag, Munich, Vienna 2018, ISBN 978-3-89019-726-5 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Marcus S. Kleiner (Ed.): Basic texts for social science media criticism . Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2010, ISBN 978-3-531-14371-2 , p. 50; Tönnies text excerpt, pp. 151–168.
2. ^ Arno Bammé : Ferdinand Tönnies. An introduction , Metropolis-Verlag, Marburg 2018, ISBN 978-3-7316-1373-2 , p. 126.
3. ↑ Unless otherwise stated, the presentation follows Rainer Waßner , Critique of Public Opinion . In: Sven Papcke and Georg W. Oesterdiekhoff (eds.), Key Works of Sociology , Westdeutscher Verlag, Wiesbaden 2001, ISBN 978-3-531-13235-8 , pp. 491–493.
4. ↑ Michael Beetz, Public Opinion as a Collective Form of Will. Difficulties in sociological conceptualization . In: Peter-Ulrich Merz-Benz (Ed.): Public opinion and sociological theory: With Ferdinand Tönnies further thought , Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2015, ISBN 978-3-658-09446-1 , pp. 35–60, here p 49.