Theory of civil society: Was there a boy?

The article is devoted to the theory of civil society, which for many years has been the reason for discussions in Russian social and scientific discourses. Over the past 30 years, a large-scale corpus of texts was created in the field of studying civil society in Russian social science, which is more confusing than clarifying the situation. The complex of ideas and concepts underlying the theory of civil society in its development is analyzed. Plato and Aristotle; Hobbes, Locke and Russo; Kant, Smith, Hegel, traditionally attributed to civil society theorists, on closer examination, developed the ideas that contradict to either the modern trend of its understanding or, to each other. K. Marx disavowed the idea of civil society, he considered a civil society as the voice of the ruling class. More than a hundred years from the middle of the XIX to the 80`s. of the XX centuries “civil society” was practically absent in scientific and political life. In the scientific literature and the media over the past half century, many definitions and interpretations of the concept of “civil society” spread. As a result of their generalization, approximately six basic interpretations are formed. If we consider these classifications in a complex, then a cognitive dissonance arises: such different phenomena cannot be hidden under the name of the same social object. What is today called the civil society theory is a vaguely defined and diverse set of approaches. Civil society is seen as a special area that must be recognized and protected from regulation. The anti-state ideological pathos of civil society is one of the most effective rams of destruction of the ideological foundations of the state.