THE THEORY OF PUBLIC OPINION
PUBLIC OPINION AS ORGANIZATION—AGREEMENT NOT ESSENTIAL—PUBLIC OPINION
VERSUS POPULAR IMPRESSION—PUBLIC THOUGHT NOT AN AVERAGE—A GROUP IS
CAPABLE OF EXPRESSION THROUGH ITS MOST COMPETENT MEMBERS—GENERAL AND
SPECIAL PUBLIC OPINION—THE SPHERE OF THE FORMER—OF THE LATTER—THE TWO
ARE UNITED IN PERSONALITY—HOW PUBLIC OPINION RULES—EFFECTIVE RULE
BASED ON MORAL UNITY.
Public opinion is no mere aggregate of separate individual judgments,
but an organization, a coöperative product of communication and
reciprocal influence. It may be as different from the sum of what the
individuals could have thought out in separation as a ship built by a
hundred men is from a hundred boats each built by one man.
A group “makes up its mind” in very much the same manner that the
individual makes up his. The latter must give time and attention to the
question, search his consciousness for pertinent ideas and sentiments,
and work them together into a whole, before he knows what his real
thought about it is. In the case of a nation the same thing must take
place, only on a larger scale. Each individual must make up his mind
as before, but in doing so he has to deal not only with what was
already in his thought or memory, but with fresh ideas that flow in
from others whose minds are also aroused. Every one who has any fact,
or thought, or feeling, which he thinks is unknown, or insufficiently
regarded, tries to impart it; and thus not only one mind but all minds
are searched for pertinent material, which is poured into the general
stream of thought for each one to use as he can. In this manner the
minds in a communicating group become a single organic whole. Their
unity is not one of identity, but of life and action, a crystallization
of diverse but related ideas.
It is not at all necessary that there should be agreement; the
essential thing is a certain ripeness and stability of thought
resulting from attention and discussion. There may be quite as much
difference of opinion as there was before, but the differences now
existing are comparatively intelligent and lasting. People know what
they really think about the matter, and what other people think.
Measures, platforms, candidates, creeds and other symbols have been
produced which serve to express and assist coöperation and to define
opposition. There has come to be a relatively complete organization
of thought, to which each individual or group contributes in its own
peculiar way.
Take, for instance, the state of opinion in the United States regarding
slavery at the outbreak of the civil war. No general agreement had been
reached; but the popular mind had become organized with reference to
the matter, which had been turned over and regarded from all points of
view, by all parts of the community, until a certain ripeness regarding
it had been reached; revealing in this case a radical conflict of
thought between the North and the South, and much local diversity in
both sections.
One who would understand public opinion should distinguish clearly
between a true or mature opinion and a popular impression. The former
requires earnest attention and discussion for a considerable time,
and when reached is significant, even if mistaken. It rarely exists
regarding matters of temporary interest, and current talk or print is
a most uncertain index of it. A popular impression, on the other hand,
is facile, shallow, transient, with that fickleness and fatuity that
used to be ascribed to the popular mind in general. It is analogous to
the unconsidered views and utterances of an individual, and the more
one studies it the less seriously he will take it. It may happen that
ninety-nine men in a hundred hold opinions to-day contrary to those
they will hold a month hence—partly because they have not yet searched
their own minds, partly because the few who have really significant and
well-grounded ideas have not had time to impress them upon the rest.
It is not unreasonable, then, to combine a very slight regard for most
of what passes as public opinion with much confidence in the soundness
of an aroused, mature, organic social judgment.
There is a widespread, but as I believe a fallacious, idea that the
public thought or action must in some way express the working of an
average or commonplace mind, must be some kind of a mean between the
higher and lower intelligences making up the group. It would be
more correct to say that it is representative, meaning by this that
the preponderant _feeling_ of the group seeks definite and effectual
expression through individuals specially competent to give it such
expression. Take for instance the activities of one of our colleges
in intercollegiate athletics or debates. What belongs to the group at
large is a vague desire to participate and excel in such competitions;
but in realizing itself this desire seeks as its agents the best
athletes or debaters that are to be found. A little common-sense and
observation will show that the expression of a group is nearly always
superior, for the purpose in hand, to the average capacity of its
members.
I do not mean morally superior, but simply more effective, in a
direction determined by the prevalent feeling. If a mob is in question,
the brutal nature, for the time-being ascendant, may act through
the most brutal men in the group; and in like manner a money-making
enterprise is apt to put forward the shrewdest agents it can find,
without regard for any moral qualities except fidelity to itself.
But if the life of the group is deliberate and sympathetic, its
expression may be morally high, on a level not merely of the average
member, but of the most competent, of the best. The average theory as
applied to public consciousness is wholly out of place. The public
mind may be on a lower plane than that of the individual thinking in
separation, or it may be on a higher, but is almost sure to be on a
different plane; and no inkling of its probable character can be had
by taking a mean. One mind in the right, whether on statesmanship,
science, morals, or what not, may raise all other minds to its own
point of view—because of the general capacity for recognition and
deference—just as through our aptitude for sudden rage or fear one mind
in the wrong may debase all the rest.
This is the way in which right social judgments are reached in matters
so beyond commonplace capacity as science, philosophy, and much of
literature and art. All good critics tell us that the judgment of
mankind, in the long run, is sure and sound. The world makes no
mistake as to Plato, though, as Emerson said, there are never enough
understanding readers alive to pay for an edition of his works. This,
to be sure, is a judgment of the few; and so, in a sense, are all finer
judgments. The point is that the many have the sense to adopt them.
And let us note that those collective judgments in literature, art
and science which have exalted Plato and Dante and Leonardo and
Michelangelo and Beethoven and Newton and Darwin, are democratic
judgments, in the sense that every man has been free to take a part in
proportion to his capacity, precisely as the citizen of a democracy is
free to take a part in politics. Wealth and station have occasionally
tried to dictate in these matters, but have failed.
It is natural for an organism to use its appropriate organ, and it
would be as reasonable to say that the capacity of the body for seeing
is found by taking an average of the visual power of the hand, nose,
liver, etc., along with that of the eye, as that the capacity of a
group for a special purpose is that of its average member. If a group
does not function through its most competent instruments, it is simply
because of imperfect organization.
It is strange that people who apply the average theory to democracy do
not see that if it were sound it must apply to all the social phenomena
of history, which is a record of the works of the collective mind.
Since the main difference between democracy and ancient or mediæval
systems is merely that the former is less restricted by time, space and
caste, is essentially an appeal to free human power as against what
is merely mechanical or conventional; by what magic is this appeal to
deprive us of our ancient privilege of acting through our efficient
individuals?
One who ponders these things will see that the principles of collective
expression are the same now as ever, and that the special difficulties
of our time arise partly from confusion, due to the pace of change, and
partly from the greater demands which a free system makes upon human
capacity. The question is, whether, in practice, democracy is capable
of the effective expression to which no very serious theoretical
obstacle can be discerned. It is a matter of doing a rather simple
thing on a vaster and more complicated scale than in the past.
Public opinion is no uniform thing, as we are apt to assume, but has
its multifarious differentiations. We may roughly distinguish a general
opinion, in which almost everybody in the community has a part, and
an infinite diversity of special or class opinions—of the family, the
club, the school-room, the party, the union, and so on.
And there is an equal diversity in the kind of thought with which the
public mind may be concerned: the content may be of almost any sort.
Thus there are group ideals, like the American ideal of indissoluble
unity among the states, the French ideal of national glory, or the
ideals of honor and good-breeding cherished in many families; and there
are group beliefs, regarding religion, trade, agriculture, marriage,
education and the like. Upon all matters in which the mind has, in
the past, taken a lively interest there are latent inclinations and
prepossessions, and when these are aroused and organized by discussion
they combine with other elements to form public opinion. Mr. Higginson,
recounting his experience in the Massachusetts legislature, speaks of
“certain vast and inscrutable undercurrents of prejudice ... which
could never be comprehended by academic minds, or even city-bred
minds,” but which were usually irresistible. They related to the rights
of towns, the public school system, the law of settlement, roads,
navigable streams, breadth of wheels, close time of fishing, etc.
“Every good debater in the House, and every one of its recognized legal
authorities, might be on one side, and yet the smallest contest with
one of these latent prejudices would land them in a minority.”[55]
This diversity merely reflects the complexity of organization, current
opinion and discussion being a pervasive activity, essential to
growth, that takes place throughout the system at large and in each
particular member. General opinion existing alone, without special
types of thought as in the various departments of science and art,
would indicate a low type of structure, more like a mob than a rational
society. It is upon these special types, and the individuals that
speak for them, that we rely for the guidance of general opinion (as,
for instance, we rely upon economists to teach us what to think about
the currency), and the absence of mature speciality involves weakness
and flatness of general achievement. This fault is often charged to
democracy, but it should rather be said that democracy is substituting
a free type of speciality, based upon choice, for the old type based
upon caste, and that whatever deficiency exists in this regard is due
chiefly to the confused conditions that accompany transition.
General public opinion has less scope than is commonly imagined. It
is true that with the new communication, the whole people, if they
are enough interested, may form public judgments even upon transient
questions. But it is not possible, nor indeed desirable, that they
should be enough interested in many questions to form such judgments.
A likeness of spirit and principle is essential to moral unity, but
as regards details differentiation is and should be the rule. The
work of the world is mostly of a special character, and it is quite
as important that a man should mind his own business—that is, his
own particular kind of general service—as that he should have public
spirit. Perhaps we may say that the main thing is to mind his private
business in a public spirit—always remembering that men who are in a
position to do so should make it their private business to attend to
public affairs. It is not indolence and routine, altogether, but also
an inevitable conflict of claims, that makes men slow to exert their
minds upon general questions, and underlies, the political maxim that
you cannot arouse public opinion upon more than one matter at a time.
It is better that the public, like the general-in-chief of an army,
should be relieved of details and free to concentrate its thought on
essential choices.
I have only a limited belief in the efficacy of the referendum and
similar devices for increased participation of the people at large
in the details of legislation. In so far as these facilitate the
formation and expression of public will upon matters to which the
public is prepared to give earnest and continuous attention, they
are serviceable; but if many questions are submitted, or those of a
technical character, the people become confused or indifferent, and the
real power falls into the hands of the few who manage the machinery.
The questions which can profitably be decided by this direct and
general judgment of the public are chiefly those of organic change or
readjustment, such, for instance, as the contemporary question of what
part the government is to take in relation to the consolidation of
industries. These the people must decide, since no lesser power will
be submitted to, but routine activities, in society as in individuals,
are carried on without arousing a general consciousness. The people are
also, as I shall shortly point out, peculiarly fit to make choice among
conspicuous personalities.
Specialists of all sorts—masons, soldiers, chemists, lawyers, bankers,
even statesmen and public officials—are ruled for the most part by the
opinion of their special group, and have little immediate dependence
upon the general public, which will not concern itself with them
so long as their work is not palpably inefficient or in some way
distasteful.
Yet special phases of thought are not really independent, but are to be
looked upon as the work of the public mind acting with a less general
consciousness—partly automatic like the action of the legs in walking.
They are still responsible to the general state of opinion; and it
is usually a general need of the special product, as shoes, banks,
education, medical aid and so on, that gives the special group its
pecuniary support and social standing. Moreover, the general interest
in a particular group is likely to become awakened and critical when
the function is disturbed, as with the building trades or the coal-mine
operators in case of a strike; or when it becomes peculiarly important,
as with the army in time of war. Then is the day of reckoning when the
specialist has to render an account of the talents entrusted to him.
The separateness of the special group is also limited by personality,
by the fact that the men who perform the specialty do not in other
matters think apart from the rest of the society, but, in so far as
it is a moral whole, share its general spirit and are the same men
who, all taken together, are the seat of public opinion. How far the
different departments of a man’s mind, corresponding to general and
special opinion, may be ruled by different principles, is a matter
of interest from the fact that every one of us is the theatre of a
conflict of moral standards arising in this way. It is evident by
general observation and confession that we usually accept without
much criticism the principles we become accustomed to in each sphere
of activity, whether consistent with one another or not. Yet this is
not rational, and there is and must ever be a striving of conscience
to redress such conflicts, which are really divisions in society
itself, and tend toward anarchy. It is an easy but weak defence of low
principles of conduct, in business, in politics, in war, in paying
taxes, to say that a special standard prevails in this sphere, and that
our behavior is justified by custom. We cannot wholly escape from the
customary, but conscience should require of ourselves and others an
honest effort to raise its standard, even at much sacrifice of lower
aims. Such efforts are the only source of betterment, and without them
society must deteriorate.
In other words, it is the chief and perhaps the only method of moral
and intellectual progress that the thought and sentiment pertaining to
the various activities should mingle in the mind, and that whatever
is higher or more rational in each should raise the standard of the
others. If one finds that as a business man he tends to be greedy and
narrow, he should call into that sphere his sentiments as a patriot,
a member of a family and a student, and he may enrich these latter
provinces by the system and shrewdness he learns in business. The
keeping of closed compartments is a principle of stagnation and decay.
The rule of public opinion, then, means for the most part a latent
authority which the public will exercise when sufficiently dissatisfied
with the specialist who is in immediate charge of a particular
function. It cannot extend to the immediate participation of the group
as a whole in the details of public business.
This principle holds good in the conduct of government as well as
elsewhere, experience showing that the politics of an intricate state
is always a specialty, closer to the public interest, perhaps, than
most specialties, but ordinarily controlled by those who, for whatever
reason, put their main energy into it. Professional politicians, in
this sense, are sure to win as against the amateur; and if politics is
badly managed the chief remedy is to raise the level of the profession.
De Tocqueville says that “the people reign in the American political
world as the Deity does in the universe. They are the cause and the aim
of all things; everything comes from them and is absorbed by them.”[56]
And we may add that, also like the Deity, they do things through agents
in whom the supposed attributes of their master are much obscured.
There are some who say we have no democracy, because much is done, in
government as elsewhere, in neglect or defiance of general sentiment.
But the same is true under any form of sovereignty; indeed, much more
true under monarchy or oligarchy than under our form. The rule of the
people is surely more real and pervasive than that of Louis XIV or
Henry VIII. No sovereign possesses completely its instruments, but
democracy perhaps does so more nearly than any other.
When an important function, such as government, or trade or education,
is not performed to the satisfaction of watchful consciences, the
remedy is somewhat as follows. A rather general moral sentiment
regarding the matter must be aroused by publishing the facts and
exposing their inconsistency with underlying standards of right.
This sentiment will effect little so long as it is merely general,
but if vigorous it rapidly begets organs through which to work. It is
the nature of such a sentiment to stimulate particular individuals
or groups to organize and effectuate it. The press has a motive to
exploit and increase it by vivid exposition of the state of affairs;
enthusiasm, seeking for an outlet, finds it in this direction; ambition
and even pecuniary interest are enlisted to gratify the demand.
Effective leadership thus arises, and organization, which thrives in
the warmth of public attention, is not long wanting. Civic leagues and
the like—supposing that it is a matter of politics—unite with trusted
leaders and the independent press to guide the voter in choosing
between honesty and corruption. The moral standard of the professional
group begins to rise: a few offenders are punished, many are alarmed,
and things which every one has been doing or conniving at are felt as
wrong. In a vigorous democracy like that of the United States, this
process is ever going on, on a great scale and in innumerable minor
groups: the public mind, like a careful farmer, moves about its domain,
hoeing weeds, mending fences and otherwise setting things to rights,
undeterred by the fact that the work will not stay done.
Such regeneration implies the existence of a real, though perhaps
latent, moral unity in the group whose standards are thus revived and
applied. It is, for instance, of untold advantage to all righteous
movements in the United States, that the nation traditionally exists
to the ends of justice, freedom and humanity. This tradition means
that there is already a noble and cherished ideal, no sincere appeal
to which is vain; and we could as well dispense with the wisdom of the
Constitution as with the sentiment of the Declaration of Independence.
On the same principle, it is a chief factor in the misgovernment of
our cities that they are mostly too new and heterogeneous to have an
established consciousness. As soon as the people feel their unity,
we may hopefully look for civic virtue and devotion, because these
things require a social medium in which to work. A man will not devote
himself, ordinarily, where there is no distinct and human whole to
devote himself to, no mind in which his devotion will be recognized and
valued. But to a vital and enduring group devotion is natural, and we
may expect that a self-conscious city, state, university or profession
will prove to be a theatre of the magnanimous virtues.
FOOTNOTES:
[55] On the Outskirts of Public Life, The Atlantic Monthly, Feb., 1898.
[56] Democracy in America, vol. i, chap. 4.