On December 7, 2016 a lecture of the Russian Academy of Sciences full member Mikhail Gorshkov "Russian society as it is" was held in MEPhI as a part of the "Academic readings".

Myths can penetrate in any scientific sphere. It is especially easy to believe them, if you do not know how to acquire knowledge. Is it possible to objectively judge the modern society, the thoughts and feelings of millions of people? One of the major Russian social scientists, the Head of the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, has spoken about the possibilities of studying these issues. The topic of the conversation was "Russian society as it is".

But first, the lecturer tried to identify, "why is such science necessary?". He stressed that the subject of sociology is all that is important for the people: relationship with others, impressions from events, objectives, expectations, professional choice, and more. Studying people's opinions allows, in particular, calculate the social consequences of the decisions in different areas of our lives. If the events have already happened, you can quickly collect data that show the reaction to what happened. In general, sociology is an essential tool for managers there. A clear example can be the case with the accession of the Crimea - the proposal for a referendum was preceded by large-scale surveys. Such studies are carried out in universities. It is important to know for heads of universities how the educational process goes on, which subjects students like most and which less.

If we imagine two subsystems in the society, economic and non-economic, it will be very interesting to see what is more important for the country's development - material or spiritual basis? There are many myths and pseudo-scientific arguments about the absolute domination of the economy. But M.Gorshkov provided the results of studies, showing, that in Russia non-economic factors play a special role during the economic slump, and people’s activity increases. "During the crisis, the number of self-sustaining population in Russia has not decreased, it has grown".

Another issue is the different nature of young people and older people’s values ​​, the breakage of the links between generations. So is this gap irresistible? Studying the value orientations, social scientists have found that in each age group there are those who adhere to tradition, a significant number of people. "Both young people and the older generation are now, as they say," in the same trend, "moral views for most people are the same - close people. There is no gap."

"What are the Russians dreaming of? According to our research, in the first place is the loved ones’ health (and then their one), and the second is life in a fair and reasonably arranged society. It is simply amazing. None of the Western studies has recorded such thing. For a modern Russian social justice is really important, and it is more important than personal success. After that you really want to live and work."

I did not used to see how the table data surveys, difficult for understanding from the outside, add up to logical and impressive findings.  Thus, sociological surveys, using sophisticated quantitative methods and mathematical analysis, answer the questions: "What do people need to be happy", " is tradition and innovation more important for the Russians", "is there a problem of" fathers and children"?", "How to define success in Russia and abroad? "," what is social mood? "," what is uplifting? ". Sociologists dare to consider these phenomena as objectively existing - and they have ways to really explore social facts.

A question to the lecturer: do people, who in the period of economic recession become more active, enter the group of people, whose moral has lowered?

Answer: You want to evaluate in complex, but we have not tracked such correlation. If there was a difference in the variations of large numbers, we would have noticed. During the recession a number of people prefer to rely not on the state, but on themselves.

A question to the lecturer: what can sociologists say about what the ideal graduate of advanced technical directions?

Answer: the human mind should be regarded as integral, specialists’ interests in any field are many-sided. At the UN summit an unexpected thought was suggested in 2010 that «the XXI century will be the century of the social sciences." The point here is that the role of the social in our lives is constantly growing, and therefore I would advise to get away from one-sided approach to the ideal of students and graduates of technical specialties.

The Academic readings will continue in the second semester of the academic year.