PUBLIC OPINION by WALTER LIPPMANN TO FAYE LIPPMANN ...

That is the radical way. For the troubles of the press, like the
troubles of representative government, be it territorial or
functional, like the troubles of industry, be it capitalist,
cooperative, or communist, go back to a common source: to the failure
of self-governing people to transcend their casual experience and
their prejudice, by inventing, creating, and organizing a machinery of
knowledge. It is because they are compelled to act without a reliable
picture of the world, that governments, schools, newspapers and
churches make such small headway against the more obvious failings of
democracy, against violent prejudice, apathy, preference for the
curious trivial as against the dull important, and the hunger for
sideshows and three legged calves. 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.
PART VIII - ORGANIZED INTELLIGENCE
CHAPTER XXV
THE ENTERING WEDGE
1
If the remedy were interesting, American pioneers like Charles
McCarthy, Robert Valentine, and Frederick W. Taylor would not have had
to fight so hard for a hearing. But it is clear why they had to fight,
and why bureaus of governmental research, industrial audits, budgeting
and the like are the ugly ducklings of reform. They reverse the
process by which interesting public opinions are built up. Instead of
presenting a casual fact, a large screen of stereotypes, and a
dramatic identification, they break down the drama, break through the
stereotypes, and offer men a picture of facts, which is unfamiliar and
to them impersonal. When this is not painful, it is dull, and those to
whom it is painful, the trading politician and the partisan who has
much to conceal, often exploit the dullness that the public feels, in
order to remove the pain that they feel.
2
Yet every complicated community has sought the assistance of special
men, of augurs, priests, elders. Our own democracy, based though it
was on a theory of universal competence, sought lawyers to manage its
government, and to help manage its industry. It was recognized that
the specially trained man was in some dim way oriented to a wider