Public Opinion

Written in 1921 following the disillusionment of WW1, this work explains how popular 'democratic' nations function. That is - not how they are supposed to function - according to ideal wish, but how it did function in the war. Lippmann was there and changed the national will. How? Why?''For the most part we do not first see, and then define, we define first and then see. In the great blooming, buzzing confusion of the outer world we pick out what our culture has already defined for us, and we tend to perceive that which we have picked out in the form stereotyped for us by our culture.'' (855)This is a key theme. What is seen must be given. Facts are never found, they are arranged. Presents Aristotle's defense of slavery as example-''Aristotle, therefore, excluded entirely that destructive doubt. Those who are slaves are intended to be slaves. Each slave holder was to look upon his chattels as natural slaves. When his eye had been trained to see them that way, he was to note as confirmation of their servile character the fact that they performed servile work, that they were competent to do servile work, and that they had the muscles to do servile work.''The slave owner saw the ''fact'' of the person as a ''natural'' slave. His perception does not allow any other ''fact'' into his mind.''This is the perfect stereotype. Its hallmark is that it precedes the use of reason; is a form of perception, imposes a certain character on the data of our senses before the data reach the intelligence.'' (1004)Lippmann provides an ''stereotype'' (worship of progress) that drives American society . . .''"It is not easy," he writes, "for a new idea of the speculative order to penetrate and inform the general consciousness of a community until it has assumed some external and concrete embodiment, or is recommended by some striking material evidence. In the case of Progress both these conditions were fulfilled (in England) in the period 1820-1850."''The most striking evidence was furnished by the mechanical revolution. "Men who were born at the beginning of the century had seen, before they had passed the age of thirty, the rapid development of steam navigation, the illumination of towns and houses by gas, the opening of the first railway." In the consciousness of the average householder miracles like these formed the pattern of his belief in the perfectibility of the human race.''These 'miracles' were proof that the 'god of progress' is alive and protecting his worshippers. What else did this 'religion' teach? -''This pattern, taken up by others, reinforced by dazzling inventions, imposed an optimistic turn upon the theory of evolution. That theory, of course, is, as Professor Bury says, neutral between pessimism and optimism. But it promised continual change, and the changes visible in the world marked such extraordinary conquests of nature, that the popular mind made a blend of the two. Evolution first in Darwin himself, and then more elaborately in Herbert Spencer, was a "progress towards perfection."''The stereotype represented by such words as "progress" and "perfection" was composed fundamentally of mechanical inventions. And mechanical it has remained, on the whole, to this day.''Mechanical progress does not produce mental, emotional, spiritual, political or any other type of progress. Human life is not 'mechanical'. The stereotype is delusional.PART I: INTRODUCTIONChapter I: The World Outside and the Pictures in Our HeadsPART II: APPROACHES TO THE WORLD OUTSIDEChapter II: Censorship and PrivacyChapter III: Contact and OpportunityChapter IV: Time and AttentionChapter V: Speed, Words, and ClearnessPART III: STEREOTYPESChapter VI: StereotypesChapter VII: Stereotypes as DefenseChapter VIII: Blind Spots and Their ValueChapter IX: Codes and Their EnemiesChapter X: The Detection of StereotypesPART IV: INTERESTSChapter XI: The Enlisting of InterestChapter XII: Self-Interest ReconsideredPART V: THE MAKING OF A COMMON WILLChapter XIII: The Transfer of InterestChapter XIV: Yes or NoChapter XV: Leaders and the Rank and FilePART VI: THE IMAGE OF DEMOCRACYChapter XVI: The Self-Centered ManChapter XVII: The Self-Contained CommunityChapter XVIII: The Role of Force, Patronage and PrivilegeChapter XIX: The Old Image in a New Form: Guild SocialismChapter XX: A New ImagePART VII: NEWSPAPERSChapter XXI: The Buying PublicChapter XXII: The Constant ReaderChapter XXIII: The Nature of NewsChapter XXIV: News, Truth, and a ConclusionPART VIII: ORGANIZED INTELLIGENCEChapter XXV: The Entering WedgeChapter XXVI: Intelligence WorkChapter XXVII: The Appeal to the PublicChapter XXVIII: The Appeal to ReasonFrom the Introduction -''And so in the chapters which follow we shall inquire first into some of the reasons why the picture inside so often misleads men in their dealings with the world outside. Under this heading we shall consider first the chief factors which limit their access to the facts.''Public opinion of the world is wrong, distorted. Why?''They are the artificial censorships, the limitations of social contact, the comparatively meager time available in each day for paying attention to public affairs, the distortion arising because events have to be compressed into very short messages, the difficulty of making a small vocabulary express a complicated world, and finally the fear of facing those facts which would seem to threaten the established routine of men's lives.''''From this it proceeds to examine how in the individual person the limited messages from outside, formed into a pattern of stereotypes, are identified with his own interests as he feels and conceives them.'' ''In the succeeding sections it examines how opinions are crystallized into what is called Public Opinion, how a National Will, a Group Mind, a Social Purpose, or whatever you choose to call it, is formed.''''There follows an analysis of the traditional democratic theory of public opinion. The substance of the argument is that democracy in its original form never seriously faced the problem which arises because the pictures inside people's heads do not automatically correspond with the world outside.''''My conclusion is that they ignore the difficulties, as completely as did the original democrats, because they, too, assume, and in a much more complicated civilization, that somehow mysteriously there exists in the hearts of men a knowledge of the world beyond their reach.''''I argue that representative government, either in what is ordinarily called politics, or in industry, cannot be worked successfully, no matter what the basis of election, unless there is an independent, expert organization for making the unseen facts intelligible to those who have to make the decisions.''This 'independent, expert organization' was created by Wilson to get populace to support the war. It worked. Lippmann was part of this. This work is the result.Lippmann concludes with this somber judgement -''Until reason is subtle and particular, the immediate struggle of politics will continue to require an amount of native wit, force, and unprovable faith, that reason can neither provide nor control, because the facts of life are too undifferentiated for its powers of understanding.''This is a sad loss of faith in 'reason' as cure. The enlightenment has failed with WW1. Lippmann does not imagine the horror to soon follow.''And yet, even when there is this will to let the future count, we find again and again that we do not know for certain how to act according to the dictates of reason. The number of human problems on which reason is prepared to dictate is small.''Lippmann now looks to something else beyond 'reason'. What? He doesn't know.Pascal wrote (four hundred years ago) in the dawn of the worship of 'reason' -''The last proceeding of reason is to recognize that there is an infinity of things which are beyond it. It is but feeble if it does not see so far as to know this. But if natural things are beyond it, what will be said of supernatural?''

I bought this book after reading Chomsky's, "Manufacturing Consent." I recommend to everyone that they check up on the sources that are cited by others. I was actually a huge fan of Chomsky until I read Public Opinion, because I couldn't believe how much he misrepresented, not only details in the book, but Lippmann's main thesis, which is nothing more than a detailed exploration of how people come to know what they think they know. From the Intro:"Our first concern with fictions and symbols is to forget their value to the existing social order and to think of them simply as an important part of the machinery of human communication. Now in any society that is not completely self contained in its interests and, so small that everyone can know all about everything that happens, ideas deal with events that are out of sight and hard to grasp. Miss Sherwin of Gopher Prairie is aware that a war is raging in France [WWI] and tries to conceive it. She has never been to France and certainly she has never been along what is now the battlefront.Pictures of French and German soldiers she has seen, but it is impossible for her to imagine three million men. No one, in fact, can imagine them, and the professionals do not try. They think of them as, say, two hundred divisions. But Miss Sherwin has no access to the order of battle maps, and so if she is to think about the war, she fastens upon Joffre and the Kaiser as if they were engaged in a personal duel. Perhaps if you could see what she sees with her mind's eye, the image in its composition might be not unlike an Eighteenth Century engraving of a great soldier. He stands there boldly unruffled and more than life size, with a shadowy army of tiny little figures winding off into the landscape behind. Nor it seems are great men oblivious to these expectations. M. de Pierrefeu tells of a photographer's visit to Joffre. The General was in his "`middle class office, before the worktable without papers, where he sat down to write his signature. Suddenly it was noticed that there were no maps on the walls. But since according to popular ideas it is not possible to think of a general without maps, a few were placed in position for the picture, and removed soon afterwards.'"From this very basic and incontestable base, he then explores the implication of these facts upon democratic theory, socialist theory, economic theory (he tears apart the notion of a harmonious collection of selfish interests in free market capitalism), etc... He then talks in detail about exactly how the news is made, and even what constitutes news, and why. This doesn't come until the end of the book, and I'm convinced that Chomsky never got that far, because Lippmann tears holes in much of his Manufacturing Consent thesis in 1925, by simply noting the details of why some facts become news and some things simply don't. He is able to highlight the effects of press publicists and special interest lobbyists on the system long before anyone else was talking about them in the 1990's. I think everyone else is just now catching up with Lippmann, and many have yet to come close.

Lippman is sadly under-appreciated these days, I hadn't even heard his name until the past year, when, while working on my dissertation, I came across this book. Written in lucid, clear prose, yet dealing with incredibly complex theoretical and philosophical issues, Public Opinion argues that not only is there not really an agreed-upon "Public Opinion," but that people rarely even understand what they think they know, let alone what they can agree upon with other people. Lippman persuasively demonstrates that opinions are formed in such a way that they have little or no bearing upon "really existing" facts and truth most of the time, and instead are ill-informed, vague, and haphazard in their application of rational thought. Lippman closes by arguing that, since no one has the time or ability to be as informed as they are expected to be on every issue, what is needed is a group of intellectuals dedicated towards improving the quality of media we receive; a sort of "filter" which can correct misperceptions and inform the public at large. (Although, in his subsequent Lippman becomes even more pessimistic, arguing that there is no such thing as "the public".) This book is a must-read for those fascinated by media, politics, or even more general philosophical/culture questions.

very good...

This is a magnificent book for many reasons. First, it is admirably well written. The prose is sober and elegant, typical of the early XX century journalism (H.L. Mencken could have written it).Secondly, because it is a deep analysis of Democracy that defies time. It deals with the "mass thinking" (see the masterful "The Rebellion of the Masses" by Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset) and its perils.And then, to these eyes perhaps the best part of this brief volume, it delves into journalism. This section (the last of the book) is a masterclass in how to write news, indeed a must for all reporters that are or that want to be.A brilliant book, written a Century ago but that could have been published last week, and as a bonus, a call of attention for politicians and public figures with a tendency to overdo the "populist" angle, and a brave defense of education as a defense for barbarism. All in less than 300 pages.

The copy I received says the publisher is Suzeteo Enterprises. It does not look like it is from the original publisher. There seems to be many such reprints. It is hard to tell whether they are authorised reprints or there is no longer any copyright for this book and many publishers are taking advantage of that. The print in this book is clean enough and it comes in hardcover, well-bound but it is clearly a simple reprint.That said, the opinions of Walter Lippman are not affected and his bright, clear thoughts cover many areas of public life and extend into the private domain including the grand but futile attempts by people who try to control their assets after they have died. Elaborate wills are drawn up but are struck down by the courts.

Not that I agree with what he's saying, but this is a founding text in the mindset that gave rise to neo-liberalism's opposition to government by the people in favour of government by the market. Read it alongside Lippmann's The Phantom Public. And don't believe anything you hear people saying about Lippmann's books, because you'll hear things that just plain wrong: you have to read them for yourself.

Lipmann had a shrewd insight into the fault lines and cracks in Human society. He has done more to go further and to suggest ideas to strengthen popular culture than many sociologists and psychologists of this and the twentieth century.