the intangible public opinion as safeguard of the rechtsstaat these intangible concepts, just as the “Volksgeist” or the “volonté générale”.3 The French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu even claimed in 1973 that the public opinion as such did not exist.4 For Georges-Henri Soutou, public opinion is an abstraction. He thinks it is better to talk about currents or movements of opinions.5 Elections or referenda reflect these currents. The same goes for the press. There is no such thing as “the” press, but only a group of different media, reflecting or steering parts of the public opinion. Still, in its abstraction, a dichotomy can be made between the “public opinion” and “private opinions”, with the first being the opinion of the group and the latter the opinion of the individual.6 Next to it, public opinion can be distinguished from public outrage, with the latter being a heated expression of the first. Traces of the importance of public opinion can be found across different epochs. It was already there in Ancient Greece, where the citizens generated a mutual opinion on public places such as the agora and the ecclesia.In1861,Edgard Boutaric gave an example from the Middle Ages: the French King Philippe le Bel (1268–1314) understood the importance of public opinion for his struggle with pope Bonifatius VIII (1230–1303).7 2 The best effort to define public opinion in all its complexity is still by Ferdinand Tönnies in his 1922 book “Kritik der öffentlichen Meinung”. For a recent analysis, see, Baechler, Jean, Qu’est-ce que l’opinion publique? I: d’Orceval, François, (red.), Opinion publique et crise de la démocratie, Paris 2019, s. 17–43. 3 The concepts are actually related. For the link between public opinion andla volonté générale, see: Soutou, Georges-Henri, Des Lumières à l’opinion publique: politique extérieure et société (XVIIIe–XXe sciècle). I: d’Orceval, François (red.), Opinion publique et crise de la démocratie (s. 73–96). Paris 2019, s. 76. Hegel saw the public opinion as the volatile Volksgeist. Bourgeois, Bernard, Que faire de l’opinion publique. I: d’Orceval, François (red.), Opinion publique et crise de la démocratie, Paris 2019, s. 47–48. 4 Bourdieu, Pierre, L’opinion publique n’existe pas. Les Temps Modernes, 1973 (to be consulted through https://www.acrimed.org/IMG/article_PDF/article_a3938.pdf. 5 Soutou, Des Lumières à l’opinion publique, s. 73. 6 On the origins of private and public opinion, see Wetters, Kirk, The Opinion System: Impasses of the Public Sphere from Hobbes to Habermas, New York 2008, s. 1–5. 7 See Contamine, Philippe, Naissance médiévale de l’opinion publique. I: d’Orceval, François (red.), Opinion publique et crise de la démocratie, Paris 2019, s. 65–71. 66 The discovery of modern public opinion
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