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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

Self interest: ideas of self and interest are not instinctive but acquired
Economic position may influence opinion, but exactly how you can't tell, as there are many other factors.
Theories that try to deterministically prevent events fail

Contradiction between Marxian theory and actions (Lenin)
Even in economic equality partial acc. to facts create conflict.
False determinism
Fatalistic view on human nature

SELF-INTEREST RECONSIDERED

All experiences are unique
Printed record checks each individual's fancy, but rumors can be altered unabated.
Larger audience -> lack of common words -> story more abstract -> individuals give it their own character

The character in which men deal is not fixed even in the same man in different situations. "No one self always at work".

Setting realistic enough for identification, ending romantic enough to be desirable, but not inconceivable.

Pioneering artist's reverence 4 material

Two ideas coming together arousing the same feeling.
Everything good/pleasant collects into a system of all-good, everything painful/unpleasant into a system of all-evil.

Visualization catches the stimulus and result, but the internal is badly caricatured.

The need for the observer to identify oneself with the picture: handles for identification

Motifs of sex & violence

One couple usually appointed original ancestors.

Desire to jump over necessary steps in a sequence.

League of Nations and the concept of "backwardness"

Putting together a public opinion requires picturing more time and space than directly perceivable.
Difficulties in obtaining a representative sample of a class - individuals don't do it.
"It ought to be true"

THE DETECTION OF STEREOTYPES
Fictional example of 'Ruritanian' war claims

Stereotypes: false absolutism, series of contradictions, inability to take account of space and time.
Demond to "reestablish the Eastern Front" after Russian withdrawal.
Conception of space is complicated: road, flying, available travel, difficulties etc.
Historical vs. personal scale of time
In every problem proper evaluation of time enters

CODES AND THEIR ENEMIES
Differences in assumptions to which moral codes apply - interpreters
Moral code has a picture of human nature, human nature might change to fit the moral code: different natures in different contexts
Myth: truth and error on same plane of credibility

"Of the opposition we make conspiracies"

Uncritical stereotype censors much that is needed, but what is good is also destroyed when the stereotype is shattered.

Example: Bernard Shaw on Free Trade etc.

In all stereotypes there is a point where effort ceases and things become automatic.
Laissez-faire: spontaneously move towards harmony
Collectivism: Socialist officials move towards efficiency and wisdom

Covers up some fact that would check vital movement.

BLIND SPOTS AND THEIR VALUE

What operates in history is shifting imitations, counterfeits, analogies and distortions in individual minds.
Marxism, Christianity, Constitution not as conceived, but as interpreted.
Hard to find actual culture vs. commenting on works of genius.
Bit on "Relativismus"

American stereotype of "progress", effects on WWI.
Always a point where stereotypes and facts part company.

The case of Belgian snipers, refuted by Pax, an org. of German Catholic priests.
Fog of war, no check on on imagination. Authorities happy to use myth to their advantage. Gave the myth weight, unpatriotic if not believed.

Stereotypes make us fit in, foundations of self-respect are shaken if attacked.
Stereotypes substitute order for buzzing reality, a guarantee of our self-respect, a sense of our own value and position.

Example: Aristotle's defense of slavery: Anyone who is in fact a slave by nature is destined to be so. Precedes the use of reason: imposes on data before it reaches our intelligence.
Outside stimuli evoke stereotypes.

A man seeing a sunset remembers what the painting taught him to observe.

Seeing things freshly and in detail rather than via stereotypes is exhausting.
"There is a taint on any contact between two people which does not affirm as an axiom the personal inviolability of both."

Notice trait marking a well known type, fill in the rest from stereotypes.
The gullibility in employing stereotypes: "hold them lightly"

STEREOTYPES
Eyewitnesses bring something to the scene which they later take away.

Forming habits of simple apprehension: definiteness, distinction, consistency.
In the buzzing confusion we pick out what our culture defined for us.
Congress of Psychology in Göttingen experiment: 1/40 had <20% of mistakes, 24/40, 10% of details were inventions

Information + mind that filtered it must be appraised.
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