‘In a society in which there is no law, and in theory no compulsion, the only arbiter of behaviour is public opinion. But public opinion, because of the tremendous urge to conformity in gregarious animals, is less tolerant than any system of law. When human beings are governed by “thou shalt not”, the individual can practise a certain amount of eccentricity: when they are supposedly governed by “love” or “reason”, he is under continuous pressure to make him behave and think in exactly the same way as everyone else.’
Popper too saw the dangers inherent in public opinion, the main one of which he identified as its anonymity, which made it for him ‘an irresponsible form of power’. He contrasted it with rational discussion, with its potential for encouraging the habit of listening to other points of view and producing a readiness to compromise (rather than resorting to a fortress mentality or even violence).
Does public opinion pose any problems for the western world today?
Yes I think there is. There seems to be a tendency now to manipulate public opinion with little regard for honesty. A skillful skewing of the facts to create a false impression is seen as a clever victory. The media which has some ethical responsibility to present the truth, seems unconcerned. Opinion shows are more popular that actual journalism. Since it’s opinion the license to skew the facts seems to get the nod of approval.
I feel the public is equally at blame. They seem to be more concerned aboout who’s team is winning than rational discussion and compromise.
Well think of how we are educated. Basically from as soon as we are old enough to attend school we are taught to “fit in”. To listen to authority. To please others. We are raised to seek the approval of a teacher with a fairly typical and mediocre background and education. A person who has been given a silibus that has been filtered to remove any potentially controvertial topic. After enough years of that, it’s off to college to once again win the approval of peers and professors. College tends to be pretty self selecting. People go to “find themselves” in schools that pretty much reflect the way they already are. By the time you graduate, you are ready to join the working world. Spending the rest of your days seeking the approval of the half-wit above you has already demonstrated his ability to fit in.
That’s just the way it works. It’s just inherent in human nature that we reject those things that fall outside of our view of the world as different or strange and only accept what we already believe to be true.
What about situations where honesty conflicts with the greater good? I can probably think of scenarios where revealing the truth to the masses could do more harm than good. When does a politician do what’s right, what’s in the best interest of his constituants or what’s percieved to be the right course of action?
J.S. Mill suggested that it tends to be the views of the most vocal minority that get counted as “public opinion”.
I’d argue that it’s meaningless to talk about public opinion, as though it were some homogenous point of view.
It’s also easily manipulated by those with access to, or control over, media outlets. How do we know what public opinion is? Because newspapers and TV tells us. And these are controlled by a smallish group of interests.
I’d say the real danger is using “public opinion” as any basis for political decision-making - we are actually talking about “public opinions” (plural), and the job of politicians is to mitigate between these conflicting opinions.
I think there is a difference between withholding information for the greater good and manipulating public opinion. Withholding information I think could be justifiable if it was reasonably thought that revealing the information might cause a mass panic that may result in more damage than whatever the actual threat is. Beyond that though the danger inherent in letting someone decide what should or should not be known is fraught with the danger of abuse. Indeed, most any dictatorship relies on misinformation to massage the truth (I use that term loosely in this case) and manipulate public opinion to support their own agenda.
I think this is an excellent point. I have a great distatse for the Bush Administration because they manipulated information to take this country to war. About a month ago I saw a show about FDR on the history channel. Early on in WWII he saw that we needed to help our European allies defeat Hitler or the US would wind up faceing him alone. Public opinion in the US was against the idea. We were still recovering from WWI and many believed we never should have been there. He had to keep his beliefs hidden from the public for years in order to win reelection and then go out looking for trouble from German subs in order to win public support for WWII.
We can only guess what might have happened if leaders decided to be honest with the public. I suppose history will decide which half truths and outright deceptions served the greater good.
I believe it is possible to remain honest and just be wise in how you answer and what info you choose to share and when.
Example if FDR was asked “Do you think we should go to war in Europe?”
Instead of answering “yeah, let’s go” he might have said " I do not intend to go to war without the support of the American people. War must be our last resort. There is a legitimate concern for our own future. If we choose not to enter Europes war now then we may be faceing Hitler alone at some future date."
Does that make any sense?
Incidently. I still think our current admin are a bunch of lieing scumbags.
I think the first amendment was a wonderful thing because it specifically was designed to prevent the weight of public opinion. It’s a great human urge to try and shout down the people who don’t agree with you and no one segment of the society is immune from it. Personally, I was horrified by people screaming “traitor” post-9/11 to anyone who dared to question US foreign policy but I’ve seen other people on the dope who believe that KKK or holocaust denier sites should be similarly censored.
It prevents popular public opinion, which can sometimes be pretty ignorent, from being the only voice we hear. It allows opinion to be educated and changed. Not always for the better but the wheel keeps tirning.