Public Opinion

by Walter Lippmann1922book

References and Quotes

Reference

Natural Selection

Public Opinion called for severe restrictions on public debate. The historic American argument was "a defect of democracy." It was impossible, said Lippmann, for the public even to know what its own best interests were. The public was hopelessly childish; it had to be cared for. Schools would have to teach children that the old ideal of active, participatory citizenship was biologically impossible. Decisions in complex industrial society had to be made by "invisible experts acting through government officials" for the good of all.

Where It's Used →

Reference

Natural Selection

Walter Lippmann, among many, picked up these notes sounded by Mosca and augmented by the important American Fabian Herbert Croly in his book The Promise of American Life (1909). Teddy Roosevelt’s Progressive platform of 1912 was heavily larded with Croly/Mosca substance, an outlook demanding the public step back and let experts make the important decisions so the promise of American life could be realized. With these precepts in mind, Lippmann produced his own pair of influential books, Public Opinion (1922), followed by The Phantom Public (1925).

Where It's Used →

Quote

Used in: Bionomics

The mass of absolutely illiterate, of feeble-minded, grossly neurotic, undernourished and frustrated individuals, is very considerable, much more considerable there is reason to think than we generally suppose. Thus a wide popular appeal circulated among persons who are mentally children or barbarians, people whose lives are a morass of entanglements, people whose vitality is exhausted, shut-in people, and people whose experience has comprehended no factor of the problem under discussion. (p. 71)

Where It's Used →Where It's From →