Public Opinion

by Walter Lippmann

irrefragable

its best the press is a servant and guardian of institutions; at its worst it is a means by which a few exploit social disorganization to their own ends.

This is the primary defect of popular government, a defect inherent in its traditions, and all its other defects can, I believe, be traced to this one.

augurs,

Society had grown furiously and to colossal dimensions by the application of technical knowledge. It was made by engineers who had learned to use exact measurements and quantitative analysis.

Again they had to deal with facts they could not apprehend, and as once they had to call in engineers, they now have to call in statisticians, accountants, experts of all sorts.

perorations

Men cannot long act in a way that they know is a contradiction of the environment as they conceive it.

If they are bent on acting in a certain way they have to reconceive the environment, they have to censor out, to rationalize.

The only institutional safeguard is to separate as absolutely as it is possible to do so the staff which executes from the staff which investigates.

Continuous investigation of this sort would not at all resemble the sensational legislative inquiry and the spasmodic fishing expedition which are now a common feature of our government.

the more you are able to analyze administration and work out elements that can be compared, the more you invent quantitative measures for the qualities you wish to promote, the more you can turn competition to ideal ends.

parochial

For issues, as they are stated by a partisan, almost always consist of an intricate series of facts, as he has observed them, surrounded by a large fatty mass of stereotyped phrases charged with his emotion.

eulogistic

He needs a Socrates who will separate the words, cross-examine him until he has defined them, and made words the names of ideas.

disentangled idea with a name of its own, and an emotion that has been scrutinized, is ever so much more open to correction by new data in the problem.

After it has been thoroughly criticized, the idea is no longer me but that. It is objectified, it is at arm's length. Its fate is not bound up with my fate, but with the fate of the outer world upon which I am acting.

The study of error is not only in the highest degree prophylactic, but it serves as a stimulating introduction to the study of truth.

prater,

inherent difficulty about using the method of reason to deal with an unreasoning world.

in human conduct the smallest initial variation often works out into the

most elaborate differences.

examine the effect of an invisible environment upon our opinions. We do not, as yet, understand, except a little by rule of thumb, the element of time in politics, though it bears most directly upon the practicability of any constructive proposal.

just how the calculation of time enters into politics we do not know at present in any systematic way.

methods of social science are so little perfected that in many of the serious decisions and most of the casual ones, there is as yet no choice but to gamble with fate as intuition prompts.

The number of human problems on which reason is prepared to dictate is small.

cannot prove in every instance that it will, nor why hatred, intolerance, suspicion, bigotry, secrecy, fear, and lying are the seven deadly sins against public opinion.