True responsibility of a person towards himself, the world and other people is possible only with the liberation of consciousness from any form of ideology, which is not easy to do: people are afraid and avoid the truth, do not want to know the truth about themselves ("Yawning Heights"). As Maxim Kantor believes, the thinker defended an absolute understanding of human existence, "understood to understand" (the position of the Hegelian). Zinoviev believed in the power of reason, as well as in the power of man, in the fact that the scientific understanding of society can change it. A person must constantly think, see the real state of things, not be satisfied with illusions, understand why he acts in society in a certain way. In the later period, Zinoviev considered the main problem of our time is the unwillingness and inability of people to understand society, its changes and their own place in social evolution. For objective understanding, extra-scientific conditions are also necessary: on the one hand, a certain ethical position is the rejection of dominant values, attitudes and social rules; on the other hand, the value aspect is the formation of a social ideal. In recent works, Zinoviev considered the communist utopia to be such an ideal.