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THE APPEAL TO REASON
Plato's ship at sea

"it is not the order of nature that I should handle a mutiny..."
"We shall all go on the rocks, they to be punished for their sins;, I, with the assurance that I knew better..."

Reason is slower than the rate at which action has to be taken
Discovery and the propagation of that which is proven takes time

Looking with hope even in dark events

Disputes and how judges decide the basic facts of an issue and "boil the fat out of" it, leaving only well defined facts.
All who are not entangled now will not be entangled as they can view the issue through the facts and not stereotypes and slogans.

All this can lead to the liquidation of the "censoring, stereotyping and dramatizing apparatus"

Civic education as preparation for dealing with the unseen environment

THE APPEAL TO THE PUBLIC

Private citizens couldn't digest all this information, most issues can only be dealt with by well informed insiders.
The public can only judge whether the conditions and procedures are sound, but not the facts themselves.

Appealing to the public usually means escaping insider criticism and winning popularity contest -> citizen can be made skeptical through education
Insisting on procedure

Information collected by bureaus would be available to all for study

Dry rot -> circulation of men and ideas b/w agencies

INTELLIGENCE WORK

Specialists in departments learn all they can and send reports
Experts translate, but must not have a "policy"

Assembling of information and control of policy must be divorced
Power of experts comes from impartiality

Existing bureaucracy can't be overhauled -> info agencies for each one make the work of each agency visible to all

The question of funding
Coordination, standards of measurement

THE ENTERING WEDGE

The social scientist -> how does he get his laboratory?"
Low status -> low confidence and influence
Assembles data out of mass of unrelated material

Several data gathering institutions demonstrate the need to interpose "expertness" between the private citizen and the wider world

NEWS, TRUTH AND A CONCLUSION

Distinction between news and truth
News is regarded as organ of direct democracy, but cannot translate the whole of public life.

Quality of information machinery -> social organization -> quality of news

Primary defect of popular government is expecting news to translate the unseen environment without expert institutions that gather data.

Due to the above, to create ideological news, one can arrange a stunt.

The strike is reported when & as it affects the special reader, to the people involved it is much more richly complicated.

Complex circumstances -> overt act as signal -> signal published as stereotyped bulletin -> meaning injected by reader

No formal process -> reporter/editor discretion
Change of direction risky, better to let news taper out

THE NATURE OF NEWS
Watchers stationed at places.
Example of "John Smith" -> newspapers know in a few minutes the bald facts recorded at the County Clerk's Office.

For news, something definite must occur in unmistakable form, a manifestation.
News is the report of an aspect of social conditions, not of seeds germinating, but of first sprouts.

News service requires a good machinery of record.

THE CONSTANT READER

Constancy depends on habits
Judgement of news based on how we feel involved -> accountability as special readers -> news edited for people who wish to read about themselves

"printed diary of a home town"
Economics of news - reporting most poorly paid
Deeper reason -> The Brass Check
What is the "fair body of truth"?

A NEW IMAGE

In absence of specialized institutions, Common Interest eludes Public Opinion and is managed by a specialized, irresponsible class.

Democratic theory: Trying to control government at the source -> downstream decisions invisible

THE BUYING PUBLIC

Economics of news -> democratic theory demands truth is not earned but given gratis -> newspapers beholden to buying public and advertisers

Problem of figuring out "distinct essential groups of functions"

Uninstructed/uninterested voter.
Two kinds of uninstructed voter: enlightened and unenlightened.Unenlightened uninstructed voters can be gotten to the polls

A scheme would have to be imposed, submitting the scheme to democracy runs into the same issues.
Therefore Guild Socialism isn't a better way of turning self-centered opinion into social judgment.

Critique of G. D. H. Cole's Guild Socialism

Shop democracy subject to external limiting conditions
Management of external relations -> reps carrying out "workers' will" would result in logroll or chaos.

Worker's "will" regarding the industry, nation is limited by access, stereotype and self-interest.

Reps for "some particular function" -> must still deal with larger environment, must conceive of common interest

Congress a group of blind man in a vast world, mosaic of local impressions not enough for national policy.
The President has access to data through agencies.
Congressmen can't understand a fraction of the bills they're voting for.

Rotation in office regarded as a great reform

As a result of democracy implemented in a non-ideal environment, Patronage replaced, rather than dissolved, the federalists with a new governing class. Patronage created stability for the federal government due to weakening local identity and bringing together members of the class.

In practice, offices oscillate between henchmen. Permanent professional politicians.

Constitutional convention worked behind closed doors.

The constitution went back to the British Monarchy for a model. Gentry not strong enough to survive the struggle after Washington.

Jefferson's election "great revolution of 1800"
Attached the symbol of democracy to the constitution and created a great conservative fiction.

Patronage: public office regarded as a type of property, expected to remain in-class

THE ROLE OF FORCE, PATRONAGE AND PRIVILEGE

Maz 1787 - revision of Articles of Confederation in full reaction against premise of 18th century democracy.
The problem was "to restore government as against democracy".

Madison
"Ambition must be made to counteract ambition"

Hamilton favored the gentry for a government, used class privileges to make the Union

Enough for the township -> enough for any purpose

Men formed pictures of outside from pictures in their heads, cultivated by stereotypes nurtured by the community.

No way of gathering info -> democratic theory falls back to wisdom and experience of the voter.
"Only real disagreement could be the judgment of the same facts"
Could assume homogeneous code of morals
Takes supply of information for granted

Jefferson's democratic ideal: ideal environment + selected class

Became political gospel for all politics, not just special environments.
In Jefferson's age, all public opinion was spontaneous and subjective, this had to be considered.
Security seen as necessary for Democracy
Dangerous crises incompatible with
--> efforts to enclose part of the earth's surface: "democratic wars"

Assumed men have equal competence

Democratic philosophers were aware of the limitations of knowledge, found home in remote, unspoiled country villages.

de Tocqueville: doctrine of Popular Sovereignty nurtured in the townships took possession of the State in the American Revolution

Jefferson: These ideal communities must be fenced off from the rest of the world.

THE SELF-CONTAINED COMMUNITY

Ideally just pattern of rights and duties -> everyone obeys then opinions don't matter
All systems assume an established harmony.

Other philosophers took conflict for granted: Machiavelli
Worse name and more disciples than anyone else.

"Men judge more by the eye than by the hand"
People whose vision can't be corrected

Many ideologies agree that the art of government is a natural endowment, disagreement is over who is endowed.
Knowledge of the world was taken for granted.

Facts that could be possessed effortlessly are limited to a small environment in which Democracy can function.
Small ruling class -> this works, entire nation less so

Old theories redate most info technology
Range of attention as basis for political science

THE SELF-CENTERED MAN
Not much science on Public Opinion.

Working out of realistic opinion takes a lot of effort, needs great justification for support.

Every political theory has an inscrutable element going unexamined in its heyday. In Democracy this is Popular Sovereignty.
Assertion of human dignity, which analysis seemed to degrade. Democrats had to insist man is legislator by nature, like Aristotle's slave.

Trying to meet popular feeling while mending fences & consolidating position by addressing an issue or placating a group.

Creation of consent improved tremendously with Democracy, became more scientific.
Intuition and rules of thumb cannot be relied upon, knowledge needed for management of affairs doesn't come up spontaneously from the human heart.

Foreign affairs -> unseen environment

Leaders pretending they uncovered a program existing in the minds of the public
Not news, but news with an aura of suggestion about it

1. Leader vocalizes prevalent attitude of the mass to gather attention & support
2. The policy might have nothing to do with it

Trusted men using accepted symbols go a long way

Good leaders also seek a measure of consent

LEADERS AND THE RANK AND FILE

Leaders cultivate symbols which conserve unity.
Bagehot: "Our royalty is to be reverenced"
Symbol: Mechanism for solidarity & exploitation

Manipulation of masses via symbols often only way for quick mass action.
Often an action would fail if everyone understood it.

Limit of endurance
Indirect effects -> leader has a free hand

No common idea emerges from private notions
Organization is needed
"Pantomime in reverie" - reaction to impressions of invisible world is no practical issue

People who say Yes may have different, contradictory reasons for doing so.

Proposals to curb steering committee merely postpone or obscure the need for a machine. Creating an issue voters can say Yes or No to.

"The Many can elect after the Few have nominated."

Symbols are useful and powerful. Symbols are employed in speeches and publications.
The words must be spoken by the right people at the right time.

"Phrases equally noble, true, and almost reversible"

How symbols take root in minds: Beloved/authoritative persons. Positions of authority are contextual

Distinction b/w members and rank & file: Not tied by common conviction
Distance enhances view of mass cooperation

Reception of the Fourteen Points, description of use of hierarchy of symbols.
Rights of Humanity -> Rights of France, Britain, Italy

How Hamilton trading the site of the capitol for two necessary votes.
"In the crystallizing of a common will, there is always an Alexander Hamilton at work"

THE TRANSFER OF INTEREST

How is Public Opinion crystalized
People do different things for different reasons
Vote for one party for different, sometimes opposing reasons
Concept of "oversoul"

Hughes' first speech after accepting Republican nomination
Method of securing homogeneous vote from heterogeneous opinion
Agreement -> detail
Disagreement -> vague
Lip service to all sides

Idea and response both second hand