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persons in the same social set, diffe: widely as between

social sets, and between two nations, or two colors,

may differ to the point where there is no common

assumption whatever. That is why people profess

ing the same s tock of religious beliefs can go to war.

The element of their beliefwhich determines conductis that view of the facts which they assume.

r h ~ , , , , , , i ~ . " , r ~ , , ~ I ~ , , , , £ Q . ' d e s , , , , , ~ e l t t e . r . , , . , s . Q , . , . , , s u h t l ¥ r " " a n , d . ~ " § , Q , , , , ~ ~ ! : : ; , , , " , , .~ i I X . d , y _ j t J l t Q , , , , , ~ t . h ~ , ~ J I ! ~ ~ i . ! l g , , , = Q L , J 2 . g , 1 ? J ! . f ~ c , , , ~ P ~ . ~ , ~ . ~ ~ ; r " J : h ~ ~ < , ~ , " ,

~ ~ r t h o g < 2 , ~ l 1 e O ! Y . J l 9 1 g § ~ ! h ~ J " , a__ 2 . l l b l i , ~ ~ . = Q p i l l i Q n , o - . J : Q ! l : : " , _ .~ i l i t Y J ~ e . § . ' h , , 3 _ m Q t i ! J E £ ! g ! E $ ~ . n . t ~ ~ g E 2 ~ 1 ~ , , < ~ L . . f ~ s ' 7 ~ ~ : ' ~ ~ I h ~ , , " , , c , , .

~ h ~ r l : J ~ J ! m . ; § l l g g t ~ < t L l l . g j , ~ " ~ ! h ~ ! ~ ~ j , , n ~ , " , ! I t £ ; , ; . J 2 r £ ~ ~ ; l 1 , L ~ . ~ X , ~ , ! ~~ . f i £ ~ J : ~ 1 ~ G ~ t r i ~ i ~ : 1 ~ : : : ~ ~ i ~ ~

t ~ ~ ~ ",.pa

t e r n"of

. s t e r ~ Q ! Y 1 2 ~ ~ . , , . @ ; , t J > b ~ ~ _ ~ , e X l . t e t ~ . _ Q L..

J J . t . ~' c o ~ r a r & ~ y ~ d ; W : ~ i ~ : ~ ~ ~ £ : ~ ~ , ! £ . , . ~ £ , " L ~ ; S , ! . ~ . , . Y f ~ . ; . , ~ . h : ~ J !see, and In ~ h a t J , ! g 1 i t " , ~ f ~ ~ l j i l l , " " ~ ; ~ ; ~ " " ~ ! h ~ m J " " . " , , , , , T h a t IS

" = ~ " " " " " " " " ' ; ~ " _ " , , 4 ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' , " , , , ' ' ' • .' 1 " h 1·~ , with t h _ U ~ ! . j £ l l l ~ U l , , , , t h . e ; ; . » L Q t . d , J " e , . n ; e ~ S , ; I 2 Q . l £ , y ' ; ~ ;of a'j o u ~ ~ r t c ! ~ " ~ , ; . ' ! ~ . , " . , ~ ~ E l ~ , 2 ! ; ! . ' ; ; ; . i ! , § , , , , , ; ~ £ i ~ ~ , r i ~ 1, . , I ? - g 1 ! , S , ~ iwliy '-a"c'apitalist sees one se t of facts, and certain

aspects of human nat ure, l iterally sees them; his

socialist opponen t ano ther set and other aspects,

and why each regards the o ther as unreasonable. or

perverse, when the real difference between them IS a

difference of perception. ,TJ!f!l.. ~ l i J f ~ r e D s ~ , j § j m p Q § ~ ~ t .by t h ~ ~ . i f f e r ~ n . c e _ h e t : . w e e t l - t - h € - " ' G a p i . . t a l i s . ' t " " , a n . d " . s . Q d , ~ ! ! ~ ~ , ~ , ~

p a t t ~ E ! 1 ' d . ' " < Q . f _ ~ l ~ r ~ Q J : ¥ . p e s . e, <" "There are no classes In

A m ~ ~ i c a " wri tes an American edi tor. "The history

of all hitherto existing society is the history of class

struggles," says the Communist Mani festo. I.f you

have the edi tor's pattern in your mind, you will see

vividly the facts that confirm it , vaguely and inef-

PUBLIC OPINION

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ f - ~ , ~ i ~ ~ ~ ! - p r o - _" ' ' ' ' ' " ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' , c " , . ' " " , < " ' , ) " w ' ' ' H " " " ~ g ' " n " , , , , , " , , " , , , , , , I t < ~ . " " " ' . " ~ I , ; " " , " - " , ~ " " " " , J " n ! , ~ , t n " ~ l t l , £ l U , , . a l . " At tIi'e"

~ . ' ~ " , ~ B , ~ , ~ X i , 2 f " < ; e , < ; h " " ~ t ~ ~ J : ~ , j § " , ~ . , , p ~ t t ~ x n c , , Q [ , , , § ' ! ~ ~ 9 1 i P ~ ~ ~, R § ~ & i h , Q l o g ¥ " ..,SQCUJIQg¥,r6,cU:ld-"histQ-t,.y:.'". ' " " , , . ~ I h e " . . § . , i U l l L v i e wofhn man na t r --, ,1· tit ti di . 1' - - . . _ ~": " ".Yo", """""".lLeo,,,,.,11S,.1,,.?U,,,lQllS.,,Q,J::,,,,t.t£1,. ,,,!,U,Q,!1,,,r,Q:t.k, ¥ ~ ~ J : : _

" ! . ~ l § , t § " f i , t h t Q n g ~ , . , , ~ d , t , , Q . y t . , . ' ; . ' c ' Q d e s , . , n . ' , . .Compare, for example,

the economic and the patriotic codes. There is a

war ~ u p p o ~ e d to affect all al ike. Two men are part-

ners In business, One enlis ts, the other t akes a war

can trac:t . . The soldier sacrifices everything, perhaps

even hIS hfe. He is paid a dollar a day, and no one

says, no one believes, that you could make a better

soldier out o fhim by any form of economic incentive.

That motive disappears ou t of his human .nature,

The cantractor sacrifices very li t tle, is paid a hand-

some profit over costs, and few say or believe that

he would produce the munit ions if there were no

economic incentive. .That may be unfair to him.

The P?int is that the accepted patriotic code assumes

one kind of human nature, the commercial code

another. And the codes are probably founded on

true expectations to this extent, that when a man

adopts a certain code he tends to exhibit the kind

of human nature which the code demands.

.That is one reason why it is so dangerous to generalize about human nature. A loving father can be a

sour boss, an earnest municipal reformer and a. .. ,rapacrous JIngo abroad. His family life his business

career, politics, .and his foreign p ~ l i c y rest on

totally dIfferent versions o f what others are like and

?f how he should act. These versions differ by codes

In the same person, the codes differ somewhat among

CODES AND THEIR ENEMIES 125



fectively those that contradict. If you have the

communist pattern, you wiIl no t only look for differ

en t t h i ~ g s , but you will see with a totally different

emphasis what you and the edi to r happen to see incommon.

5

A ~ , 9 : ~ .. § i q £ ~ . , . m . Y ..moral s r s . ~ ~ ~ . _ ~ . ~ ~ t ~ . g ! ? . . J ) 1 Y : a ~ c = ~ ! ~ ~ t .- : ~ I ' . § J Q n , Q f t h ~ J a c t s , who denies either...J J : L y _ ~ ~ 1

. J ~ · ~ g ! E - ~ ! ' ! . F ~ · · · g r ~ y , y e r s I o n ()f the. J'!sts..,i S".t2""mu er-···· .. y < : £ § ~ ~ . ~ ... ~ l ! $ 1 X b , ... J l ~ P : g ~ F ~ ~ ~ · How shall I accoun t 10rhim? The o p p o ~ e n t ha'salways to be explained, and

the last explanarion that we eve r look for is that he

s e ~ s a differ.ent set of facts. Such an explan,

anon we avoid, because it saps the very foundation

of ou r assurance t h ~ t we have seen life steadilyand seen It whole. It IS only when we are in thehabit of reco nizin o t i r o " ' r ' ~ " . . . .. ".".. "c •• ~ . - - . -__-; -

'__ " " " " ' _ ' ~ _ " d " . " . , . ~ g ' ' ' ' 7 C , . , ~ . , c ~ , g . " " , , , ~ " ~ p . J l ! 9 n ~ J ! § e . , . R ~ ~ ! : ~ a l experl-

~ o ~ ~ . , ~ § ~ , ~ ! l ~ . , ! h r Q J : ! g h . C ? u r .. ~ ! ~ ~ ~ o t y p e s tha t w e ~ m etrul 01 ran f . · . " C " ' " " ' ; = " ~ _ - - = ' •__' - ~ J " C 4 , ~ ~ Y : " , . c t... , . " ~ ~ ...., " , t " . Q , , . , e . ! } " . g p p o l l e l ? - ~ ~ WI t h o u ~ . t liabit

~ e ~ . " h e l i e ~ ~ i n , " , t h e , . " . a h s Q b J 1 i ~ 1 1 l · ~ ? f . § ~ " ~ ~ ~ ~ " " Y l S i O n a m i" ~ ; ~ ~ ; ~ ~ , g ~ ~ ! } . d y ' ,!g .. , £ . h ~ ~ o ~ s : .char'ac'teroT-ail- ..·

~ p e ~ , ~ , ~ ; ! ~ , ~ ~ . : , " , .... , ~ , ~ E e..\\T . l ? ~ ~ c t ' : ~ ~ · . · i l 1 I i ' n g ' I o " · ' ~ ~ g ] I [ D l i a t -t , ~ e . r ~ ~ r e t.WQsICles to a '. quest ion," they donor'"

~ : i ~ ~ : ; ! h ~ ~ ~ r ~ J f : t ~ ~ ~ : t ~ b w ~ : ~ e ~ ~ e : :after long critical education, they are fully conscious

of how second-hand and subjective is their appre-

hension of their social data.

...! ~ ~ : ~ , ~ ~ 9 . " l e c ; , ~ i ? l ? : s . e e v i y i d l y . ~ ~ c ; ~ j t ~ , . Q ~ l 1. _ ~ a . s p , e , . c . t ~ a . n ~ :Qn.tri.¥e their .. ( ) i n , ~ . ~ ! ' p ~ ~ r i . ~ j i 9 ~ ~ ' . : : · Q ( " ~ h ; ' t ~

t h e ~ , , , , , s . e . e , . , . J l ~ , l S , , , . h ~ l m Q § . l i m . P 9 ~ s . , ! , ~ ! ~ for them to c r ~ a l ' f - ' "

each o ! l w : - E d L l l Q , . l l ~ . § l ~ ~ ~ , , " . " J J t h e . ~ , p ~ ! ! . ~ ~ " " B " ! ~ , , , . ! h ~ , ! E _~ ~ ~ n c e a ! " , , ~ r 2 £ i ~ a l . J 2 , £ i U ! t , ~ ~ ! h ~ Y ~ ~ " , e ! ! 2 , J , £ U . R ~ E . , , ; ! 2 g ~ ~ ~U ~ ~ , - ' U l J . n . t e . t R . t ~ ~ t ~ ~ ! i . 9 1 1 : ~ ~ .. b " ~ ) : J 9 , ~ ~ , , _ ~ p < ? 1 1 . It...((realit ." It may not resemble the reality, except

t at it culminates in a conclusion which :fits a real

experience. I may representmy trip from NewYorkto Boston by a straight line on a map, just as a man

may regard his triumph as the end of a straight and

narrow path. The road by which I actually went

to Boston may have involved many detours, much

turning and twisting, just as his road may. have

involved much besides pure enterprise, labor and

thrift. Bu t provided I reach Boston and he succeeds,

the airline and the s traigh t path will serve as ready

made charts. Only when somebody t ri es to follow

them and does no t arrive, do we have to answer

o b j e c ~ i o n s . If we insist on our charts, and h: insistson rejecting them, we soon tend to regard him as a

dangerous fool, and he to regard ?S as l i a r ~ and

hypocrites. Thus we gradually pamt portraIts of

each other. Fo r the opponent presents himself as

the man who says , evil be thou my good. He is an

annoyance who does not :fit into the scheme of

things. Neverthe1ess he interferes. And since that

scheme is based in our minds on incontrovertiblefact fortified by irresistible logic, some place has to

be found for him in the scheme. Rarely in politics

or indus tr ial disputes is a place made for him by the

simple admission that he has l o o k e ~ upon the same

reality and seen another aspect of It. That would

shake the whole scheme.

Thus to the Ita lians in Paris Fiume was Italian.

I ' l7ODES AND THEIR ENEMIESUBLIC OPINION26



PUBLIC OPINION CODES AND THEIR ENEMIES 129

It was no t merely a city that it would be desirable

to include within the Italian kingdom. It was

Italian. They fixed their whole mind upon the

Italian majority within the legal boundaries of the

city itself. The American delegates, having seen

more Italians in New York than there are in Fiumewithout regarding New York as Italian, fixed their

eyes on Fiume as a central European port of entry.

They saw vividly the Jugoslavs in the suburbs and

the non-Ita lian hinterland. Some of the Italians in

Paris were therefore in need of a convincing explana

tion of the American perversity. They found it in a

rumor which started, no one knows where, that an

influential American diplomat was in the snares of a

Jugoslav mistress. She had been seen. . .. He

had been seen. ...

At Versailles just off the boule

vard. . . . The villa with the large trees.

This is a rather common way of explaining away

opposition. In their more libelous form such charges

rarely reach the printed page, and a Roosevelt may

have to wai t years, or a Harding months, before he

can force an issue, and end a whispering campaign

that has reached into every circle of talk. Public

, men have to endure a fearful amount of poisonous

clubroom, dinner table, boudoir slander, repeated,r : e l a ~ o r a t e . d , chuckled ? v e ~ , and regarded as delicious.

) yvhtle t ~ I S sort thing IS, I believe, less prevalent

(J lI n America than In Europe, yet rare is the American

".... ' \ ' < t . " , , ~ . o ' fficial about whom somebody is no t repeating a",,'PIS'1 ~ ~ s c a n d a l .

' ' { f { ' l : r ' " ~ ' i - . ~ ~ L J h ~ __ P p o s i t i Q n " " w } y ' ~ _ ! ! t e k . ~ ~ _ y j : , J 1 ~ i . n ~ ... ~ n f t _ ~ o n -~ . E : , a ~ 2 : ' ~ If prices go up unmercifully the pro:---

fiteers have conspired; if the newspapers misrepre

sent the news, there is a capitalist plot ; if t he rich

are too rich, they have been stealing; if a closely

fought election is lost, the electorate was corrupted;

if a statesman does something of which you dis

approve, he has been bought or influenced by somediscreditable person. If workingmen are restless,

they are the victims of agita tors; if they are restless

over wide areas, t here is a conspiracy on foot. If

you do no t produce enough aeroplanes, it is the work

of spies; if there is t rouble in I reland, it is German

or Bolshevik "gold." And if you go stark, staring

mad looking for plots, you see all strikes, the Plumb

plan, Irish rebellion, Mohammedan unrest, the restor

ation of King Constantine, the League of Nations,

Mexican disorder, the movement to reduce armaments, Sunday movies, short skirts, evasion of the

liquor laws, Negro self-assertion, as sub-plots under

some grandiose plot engineered either by Moscow,

Rome, the Free Masons, the Japanese, or the Elders

of Zion.



CHAPTER X

THEDETECTION OF STEREOTYPES

I

~ K l ~ _ d i p l Q m J l t i ~ J , § " " . , , ~ Q m , p ~ 1 1 e d ~ tQ_ta.lk. au t l2gd to

, < = t h ~ " , . } , Y . ~ r r L l l g J l e , Q p l e s . " . J . e a t . n e d " h Q l Y . . J Q J 1 § . ~ ~ J l ! ! g e r ~ -. 1 9 I J r , , , , Q L . s t e r . e , Q , t ; , y , : , 1 1 ~ , § . ~ . , , . , , , , T h e y were dealing with a pre:-

carious alliance of powers, each of which was main-

taining it s war un ity only by the most careful

leadership. The ordinary soldier and his wife, heroic

and selfless beyond anything in the chronicles of

courage, were still no t heroic enough to face deathgladly for all the ideas which were said by the foreign

offices of foreign powers to be essentia l to the future

of civilization. There were ports, and mines, rocky

mountain passes, and villages that few soldiers

would willingly have crossed No Man's Land to

obtain for their allies.

Now it happened in one nation that the war

party which was in control of the foreign office,

the high command, and most of the press, had claims

on the terri tory of several of i ts neighbors. These

claims were called the Greater Ruritania by the

cuItivated classes who regarded Kipling, Treitschke,

and Maurice Barres as one hundred percent Ruritan-

ian. Bu t the grandiose idea aroused no enthusiasm

abroad. So holding this finest flower of the Ruritan-

ian genius, as their poet laureate said, to their hearts,

130

THE DETECTION OF STEREOTYPES 131

Ruritania's statesmen went forth to divide and con-

quer. They divided the claim into sectors. Fo r

each piece they i n v o k e ~ that s t e ~ e o t y p e which s o ~ eone or more of their allies found It difficult to resist,

because that ally had claims for which it hoped to

find approval by the use of this same s t e r e o t y p ~ .The first sector happened to be a mountainous

region inhabited by alien peasants. R u r i t ~ n i ademanded it to complete her natural geographIcal

frontier. If you fixed your attention long enough on

the ineffable value ofwhat is natural, those alien peas-

ants just dissolved into fog, and only the slope .of the

mountains was visible. The next sector was Inhab-

ited by Ruritanians, and on the principle that no

people ought to live under alien rule, they were re-

annexed. Then came a city of considerable com-mercial importance, no t inhabited by Ruritanians.

Bu t until the Eighteenth Century it had been part

of Ruritania, and on the principle of Historic Right

it was annexed. Farther on there was a splendid

mineral deposi t owned by aliens and worked by

aliens. On the principle of reparation for damage

it was annexed. Beyond this there was a territory Sinhabited 97% by aliens, constituting the natural

geographical frontier of another nation, never his-

torically a part of Ruritania. But one of the prov-

inces which had been federated into Ruritania had

former!y traded in those market s, and t he upper

class culture was Ruritanian. ~ ~ J . h ~ , , " . J 2 . ! i D £ ! R ! ~ , . 2 fc u l t Y I . ; ! 1 , . " § ' Y 1 2 ~ J i ~ l t i t L , . ! ! ! ~ S l , : " J h ~ , ~ ~ Q . ~ £ ~ § § , i t ~ , , , . Q f " . d e f e n . d i n g ,

c l ~ i l ! ~ f ! . t i g n " . " J h e " J . i ! Q d § ~ , ) Y , " ~ r ~ . ~ s l ~ ! m s g ~ ~ . m - ' Finally, therewa;"'- a port wholly disconnected from Ruritania



geographically, ethnically, economically, historically,

traditionally. It was demanded on the around that~ ~ " " : " ' ' ' ' ' ' W ' ' ' ! ' ' ' ' ' ' '' ' ' ' ' i · ' ' ' ' ' ' ' · ~ ~ · ' ' ' ' ~ ~ ·= · " ' ~ j ~ . " " . ! ~ < , » - _ w . , ~ " .: , _ . " , ~ , .. ~ - " , . " , , , , " ... "«c ....._ "_ , ...+c .•",,Q;<'_"'7> ..l'!:l_""", .• ..... _

! , ' ~ " ~ ~ § , ' , n ~ , ~ g ~ ~ l f Q r . , l l , a J i Q n . a l , d e £ e n s e . ~In the treaties that concluded the Great War you

can mult iply examples of this kind. Now I do no t

wish to imply that I think it was possible !2_EesettleE J l l : Q . E ~ " " E ~ ! l , ~ ! ~ J , ~ , 1 } ! l y , " , g ! l " J ! n ~ - , Q l l e " , . Q £ . - t h e . § . e , ... ~ ~ - : - I am certain t ha t i t was not. The very use of these

principles, so pretentious and so absolute, meant

that the spirit of accommodation did no t prevail and

that, therefore, the substance of peace was no t there.

Fo r the moment you start to discuss factories, mines,

mounta ins , or even political authori ty , as per fec t

examples of some eternal principle or other, you are

no targuing, you are fighting.

Thateternal principlecensors ou t all the objections, isolates the issue from

its background and its context, and sets going in you

some strong emotion, appropriate enough to the

principle, highly inappropriate to the docks, ware

houses, and real estate. And having started in that

mood you cannot stop. A real danger exists. To

meet it you have to invokemore absoluteprinciples in

order to defend what is open to attack. Then you

have to defend the defenses, erect buffers, and buffers

for the buffers, until the whole affair is so scrambledthat it seems less dangerous to fight than to keep on

talking.

There are certain clues which often help in detect

ing the false absolutism of a stereotype. In the case

of theRuritanian propaganda the principles blanketed

each other so rapidly that one ,could/readily seehow the argument had been c ; n s t ~ ~ ~ - " ; e ' ~ s ¥ e r i e s ~

2

Inabili ty to take account of space is another . In

the spring of 1918, for example, large n u m ~ e r s of

people, appalled by the withdrawal of RUSSIa,

manded the" reestablishment of an Eastern Front.

The war, as they had conceived it , was on two fronts,

and when one of them disappeared there was an

instant d e ~ l C l . l ' l d that it be recreated. The unem

p l o y e d : ~ J a p ' ; ~ ' ~ ~ ? ) a r m y was to man the front! substitutingtoF"nffie Russian. Bu t there was one Insup

erable obstacle. Between Vladivostok and the I

eastern battleline there were five thousand miles of

coun try, spanned by one broken down r a ~ l w a y .Yet those five thousand miles would not stay In the

minds of the enthusiasts. So overwhelming was

their conviction that an eas tern front was needed,

and so great their confidence in the valor of the

Japanese army, that, mentally, they had p r o j e c t ~ dthat army from Vladivostok to Poland on a magic

carpet. In vain our military a.uth?rities a r ~ e dthat to land troops on the rim of SIberIa. as little

to do with reaching the Germans, as chmbing from

the cellar to the roof of the Woolworth building

had to do with reaching the moon.The stereotype in this instance was the.war.on two

fronts. Ever since men had begun to imagine the

Great War they had conceived Germany held be-


o L c o n t t a d i c t i o n s " " . s h Q l V ~ ~ q " " . t h ~ t , . " f Q t , , , " ~ 9 - ~ C h , ~ , .s@e,tQ,t:,",,,,tbat,,.,

~ . t e o 1 . ¥ p e ~ w ~ a ~ " ~ m l ? , l Q , y , ~ g ~ > ~ h ! £ h , ~ ~ 2 ! : ! ~ , g , . , . Q ! ? ! , i ! ~ . r ~ , ! ~ , " " ' ~ U ,the f u & t s - t h a t j n ! , ~ t f m : " g " ~ ~ , ! ! h , . " ! , h ~ . , , ~ 1 ~ U l J .. ~ , ~ , , , , C o J 1 1 r , ! g l c ~~ ~ of this sort is often a good clue.

PUBLIC OPINION32



134 PUBLIC OPINION THE DETECTION OF STEREOTYPES 135

tween France and Russia. One generat ion of strat

egists, and perhaps two, had l ived with that visual

image as the starting point of all their calculations.

For nearly four years every battle-map they saw had

deepened the impression that this was the war.

When affairs took a new turn, it was not easy to see

them as they were then. They were seen through

the stereotype, and facts which conflicted with it ,

such as the distance from Japan to Poland, were

incapable of coming vividly into consciousness.

I t is interesting to note that the American authori

ties dealt with the new facts more real istically than

the French. In part, this was because (previous

to 1914) they had no preconception of a war upon

the continent ; in part because the Americans, en

grossed in the mobilization of their forces, had avision of the western front which was itself a stereo

type that excluded from their consciousness any

ve ry vivid sense of the other theatres of war. In

the spring of 1918 this American view could no t com

pete with the traditional French view, because while

the Americans believed enormously in their own

powers, the French at that t ime (before Cantigny

and the Second Marne) had t he gravest doubts .

.The American confidence suffused the American

stereotype, gave it that power to possess conscious

ness, that liveliness and sensible pungency, that

stimu la ting effect upon the will, that emotional

int erest as an object of desire, that congruity with

the activity in hand, which James notes as char

acteristic of what we regard as H real." 1 The French

I Principles oj Psychology, Vol. II, p. 300.

in despair remained fixed on their accepted image.

And when facts, gross geographical facts, would

no t fit with the preconception, they were either cen

sored out of mind, or the facts were themselves

stretched ou t of shape. Thus the difficulty of the

Japanese reaching the Germans five thousand miles

away was, in measure , overcome by bringing the

Germans more than half way to meet them. Be

tween March and June 1918, there was supposed

to be a German army operating in Eastern Siberia.

This phantom army consisted of some German

prisoners actually seen, more German prisoners

thought about, and chiefly of the delusion that those

five thousand intervening miles did not really exist.'

3A true concept ion of space is no t a simple matter.

If I draw a straight line on a map between Bombay

and Hong Kong and measure the distance, I have

learned nothing whatever about the distance I should

have to cover on a voyage. And even if I measure

the actual distance that I must traverse, I still know

very l it tle unt il I know what ships are in the service,

when they run, how fast they go, whether I can

secure accommodation and afford to pay for it. In

practical life space is amatter of available transporta-

l See in this connection Mr. Charles Grasty's interview with Marshal

Foch, New York Times, February 26, 1918. ."Germany iswalking through Russia. America Japan, who are

in a position to do so, should goto meet her in Siberia,See also the resolution by Senator King of Utah, June 10, 1918, and

Mr. Taft's statement in the New York Times, June I I , 1.918, and theappeal to America on May 5, 1918, by Mr. A. J: Sack, ~ l f e c t o r of th .Russian Information Bureau: " I f Germany were in the Allied place ...she would have 3,000,000 fighting on the East front within a year."



PUBLIC OPINION

tion, not of geometrical planes, as the old rai lroad

magna te knew when he threatened to make grass

grow in the streets of a city that had offended him.

If I am motoring and ask how far it is to my destina

tion, I curse as an unmitigated booby the man who

tells me it is three miles, and does not mention a

six mile detour. It does me no good to be told that

it is three miles if you walk. I might as well be told

it is one mile as the crow flies. I do not fly like a

crow, and I am not walking either. I must know

that it is nine miles for a motor car, and also, if

that is the case, that six of them are ruts and puddles.

I call the pedestrian a nuisance who tells me it is

three miles and think evil of the aviator who told

me it was one mile. Both of them are talking about

the space they have to cover, no t the space I mustcover.

In the drawing of boundary lines absurd com

plications have arisen through failure to conceive

the practical geography of a region. Under some

general formula like self-determination statesmen

have at various times drawn lines on maps, which,

when surveyed on the spot, ran through the middle

of a factory, down the center of a village street,

diagonally across the nave of a church, or between

the ki tchen and bedroom of a peasant's cottage.

There have been frontiers in a grazing country which

separated pasture from water, pasture from market,

and in an industrial country, railheads from railroad.

On the colored ethnic map the line was ethnically

just, that is to say, just in the world of that ethnic

map.


4

But time, no less than space, fares badly. A

common example is that of the man who tries

by making an elaborate will to control his money

long after his death. "I t had been the purpose of

the first William James," writes his great-grandsonHenry j ames;' "to provide that his children (sev

eral of whom were under age when he died) should

qualify themselves by industry and experience to

enjoy the large patrimony which he expected to be

queath to them, and with that in view he left a will

which was a voluminous compound of restraints and

instructions. He showed thereby how great were

both his confidence in his own judgmen t and his

solicitude for the moral welfare of his descendants."

The courts upset the will. For the law in itsobjection to perpetuities recognizes that there are

distinct limits to the usefulness of allowing anyone

to impose his moral stencil upon an unknown future.

But the desire to impose it is a very human t ra it , so

human that the law permits it to operate for a

limited time after death.

The amending clause of any constitution is a good

index of the confidence the authors entertained about

the reach of their opinions in the succeeding generations. There are, I believe, American state con

stitutions which are almost incapable of amendment.

The men who made them could have had but little

sense of the flux of time: to them the Here and Now

was so brilliantly certain, the Hereafter so vague or

so terrifying, that they had the courage to say how

1 The Letters oj William James, Vol. I, p. 6.



PUBLIC OPINION

life should run after they were gone. And then be

cause consti tutions are difficult to amend, zealous

people with a taste for mortmain have loved to write

on this imperishable brass all kinds of rules and re

strictions that, given any decent humility about the

future, ought to be no more permanent than an

ordinary statute.

p r ~ = ~ t : ! E l ~ . ~ ~ ~ ~ ... ! : ~ £ ~ ~ t ~ t i 1 E . ~ ~ . ~ n : ! , ~ £ ~ __ } y k ! ~ l Y . l ! 2 ! o our~ ~ : To one person an institution whicl1-liiS'"

existed for the whole of his conscious life is part of

the permanent furniture of the universe: to another

it is ephemeral . Geological time is very different

from biological time. Social time is most complex.

The statesman has to decide whether to calculate

for the emergency or for the long run. Some deci

sions have to be made on the basis of what willhappen in the next two hours; others on what will

happen in a week, a month, a season, a decade,

when the children have grown up, or their children's

children. ~ , ~ , ! P 2 ~ ! . ! ~ ~ 1 j ; . 9 i ~ . i < L J I 1 t ~ ~~ " ~ ~ " ~ ~ i . ~ g ~ i ~ . ~ S ~ ~ , , , , ~ i m ~ ~ ~ " Q l l ~ ~ 1 1 J ; i Q n ~ " = ' t h . a L l 2 ; ~ -,

~ e 1 o ~ & ~ . t g the t h ! 1 . 1 g J n k " h a n d . ~ ~ ~ ~ The person who uses"~ t f i e - ' ' ' w r o r i g time-conception ranges from the dreamer

who ignores the present to the philistine who can see

nothing else., " , 1 _ " . ! r " 1 ! . ~ ~ .. , = ~ £ ~ 1 ~ , " . " , Q f " . , l L a l y . e , ~ . J l i ! S .. a _ ~ y

acu t e s e l 1 § ~ q f relati \ T ~ t h u . e ..""

' " - D l ' s " t ; i i ' t ~ ' W t r ~ ~ : " · " p ; · ; · t · N ~ ~ d .future, has somehow to be

conceived. But as James says, "o f the longer dura

tion we have no direct 'realizing' sense." 1 The

longest duration which we immediately feel is what

is called the "specious present ." It endures, ac-

1 Principles of Psychology,Vol. I, p. 638.


cording to Titchener, for about six seconds.' "All

impressions within this period of time are present

to us at once. This makes it possible for us to per

ceive changes and events as well as stationary ob

jects. The perceptual present is supplemented by the

ideational present. Through the combination of per..

ceptions with memory images, entire days, months,

and even years of the past are brought together into

h "e present.

In this ideat ional present , vividness, as James

said, is proport ionate to the number of discrimina

tions we perceive within it. Thus a vacation in

which we were bored with nothing to do passes

slowly while we are in it, but seems very short in

memory. Great act ivity kills time rapidly, but in

memory its duration is long. On the relation betweenthe amount we discriminate and our time perspective

James has an interesting passage: 2

"We have every reason to think that creatures may

possibly differ enormously in the amounts of duration

which they intui tive ly feel, and in the fineness of the

events that may fill it. Von Baer has indulged in some

interesting computations of the effect of such differences

in changing the aspect of Nature. Suppose we were

able, within the length of a second, to note 10,000 eventsdistinctly, instead of barely 10 as now; 3 if our life were

then destined to hold the same number of impressions,

it might be 1000 t imes as shor t. We should live less than

a month, and personally know nothing of the change of

(.l.eited by Warren, Human Psychology, p. 255.2Op. cit., Vol. I, p. 639.3 In the moving picture this effect is admirably produce

ultra-rapid camera.



PUBLIC OPINION

seasons. If born in winter, we should believe in summer

as we now believe in the heats of the carboniferous era.

The motions of organic beings would be so slow to our

senses as to be inferred, not seen. The sun would stand

sti ll in the sky, the moon be almost free from change,

and so on. But now reverse the hypothesis and suppose

a being to get only one roooth part of the sensations weget in a given time, and consequently to live 1000 times

as long. Winters and summers will be to him like quarters

of an hour. Mushrooms and the swifter growing plants

will shoot into being so rapidly as to appear instantaneous

creat ions; annual shrubs will rise and fall from the earth

like restless boiling water springs; the motions of animals

will be as invisible as are to us the movements of bullets

and cannon-balls; the sun will scour through the sky like

a meteor, leaving a fiery trail behind him, etc."

5

In his Outline of History Mr. Wells has made a

gallant effor t to visualize "the t rue proport ions of

historical to geological time." 1 On a scale which

represents the t ime from Columbus to ourselves by

three inches of space, the reader would have to walk

55 feet to see the date of the painters of the Altamara

caves, 550 feet to see the earlier Neander thaler s, a

mile or so to the last of the dinosaurs. More or lessprecise chronology does. no t begin un til a fter 1000

B. c., and at t hat t ime" Sargon I of the Akkadian

Sumerian Empire was a remote memory, . . . more

remote than is Constantine the Great from the world

of the present day. . .. Hammurabi had been

1 Vol. II , p. 605. See also James Harvey Robinson, TheNew History,P·239·


dead a thousand years. . . . Stonehenge in England

was already a thousand years old ."Mr. Wells was writ ing with a purpose. (C In the

brief period of t en thousand years these uni t s (in to

which men have combined) have grown from the

small family tribe of the early neolithic cult ur e to

the vast united realms-vast yet still too small and

partial-of the present t ime." Mr. Wells hoped

by changing the time perspective on our pres ent

problems to change the moral perspective. Yet the

astronomical measure of time, the geological, the

biological, any telescopic measure which minimizes

the present is no t "more t rue" than a microscopic.

Mr. Simeon Strunsky is r ight when he insists that

"if Mr. Wells is thinking of his subtitle, The Prob

able Future of Mankind, he is entitled to ask forany number of centuries to work ou t his solution.

I f he is thinking of the salvaging of this western

civilization, reeling under the effects of the Great

War, he must think in decades and scores of years." 1I t all depends upon the practical purpose for which

you adopt the measure. There are situations when

the time perspective needs to be lengthened, and

others when it needs to be shortened.The man who says that it does not matter if

15,000,000 Chinese die of famine, because in two

generations the birthrate will make up the loss,

has used a time perspective to excuse his inertia.

A person who pauperizes a healthy young man be

cause he is sentimentally overimpressed with an im-

1 In a review of The Salvaging of Civilization, The Literary Review oftheN. Y. EveningPost, June 18, 1921, p. 5·



PUBLIC OPINION

mediate difficulty has lost sight of the duration of

the beggar's life. The people who for the sake of

an i ~ m e d i a t ~ peace. are willing to buy off an ag

gressIve e m ~ I r e by Indulging its appetite have al

lowed .a S P ~ C I O U S present to interfere with the peaceof theIr. children, The people who will not be pa

t I ~ n t WIth a troublesome neighbor, who want tobrIng everything to a "showdown " are no less thevictims of a specious present. '

6

I n ~ o a l m o ~ t every social problem the proper calculation of time enters. Suppose, for example it is

a question of timber. Some trees grow faster' than

others. Then a sound forest policy is one in which

the amoun t each species and of each age cutineach season IS made good by replanting. In so far

as that calculation is correct the truest economy has

?een r e ~ c h e d . To cut less is waste, and to cut more

IS exploitation. But there may come an emergency,

say the need for aeroplane spruce in a war when

the year's allowance must be exceeded. alert

government will recognize that and regard the

restoration of the balance as a charge upon thefuture.

Coal i?volves a different theory of time, becausec o ~ l , unl.Ike a tree, is produced on the scale of geological time, The supply is limited. Therefore a

correct s o ~ i a l policy involves intricate computation

of the available reserves of the world the indicated

possibilities, the present rate of u s ~ , the present

economy of use, and the alternative 'fuels. But


when that computation has been reached it must

finally be squared with an ideal standard involving

time. Suppose, for example, that engineers con

clude that the present fuels are being exhausted at

a certain rate; that barring new discoveries industry

will have to enter a phase of contraction at some

definite time in the future. We have then to de

termine how much thrift and self-denial we will use,

after all feasible economies have been exercised, in

order not to rob posteri ty. But what shall we con

sider posterity? Our grandchildren? Our great

grandchildren? Perhaps we shall decide to calculate

on a hundred years, believing that to be ample

time for the discovery of alternative fuels if the

necessity is made clear at once. The figures are,

of course, hypothetical. But in calculating that waywe shall be employing what reason we have. We

shall be giving social time its place in public opinion.

Let us now imagine a somewhat different case: a

contract between a city and a trolley-car company.

The company says that it will not invest i ts capital

unless it is granted a monopoly of the main highway

for ninety-nine years. In the minds of the men who

make that demand ninety-nine years is so long as

to mean" forever." But suppose there is reason to

think that surface cars, run from a central power

plant on tracks, are going out of fashion in twenty

years. Then it is a most unwise contract to make,

for you are vir tual ly condemning a future genera

tion to inferior transportation. In making such a

contract the city officials lack a realizing sense of

ninety-nine years. Fa r better to give the company



a su?sidy in order to attract capital than

to stimulate Investment by indulging a fallacious

s e n s ~ of eternity. No ci ty official and no company

official has a sense of real t ime when he talks about

ninety-nine years.

. " , P q p _ l ! ! ~ ~ __ ~ ~ . ! . ~ . ~ , ~ : I , , } ~ , ~ . , a happy hunt ing ground of

t f T " " ' ~ J l " ' " ' - " ' - " ~ ' - " ~ - " - " " ' " " - - - " ' - " - " ~ ' - -~ , ! ! E : ~ ~ _ o . q s . g . ~ . , , , ' Y . " ~ ! E ~ , ~ ~ : ....!,,,,.,, 0 teaverage Englishman, for--"

example, the behavior of Cromwell, the corruption

of t he Act of Union, the Famine of 1847 are wrongs

suffered by ~ e o p l e long dead and done by actors

long. de ad w ith whom no living person, Irish or

EnglIsh, . h a ~ any real c o n n e c t i o n . " ' 7 , J ! ! ! . t l t l ~9 ~ ~ , P . ~ . ~ : ~ ? , ~ , ~ E " , ! : ~ ~ ~ ! E _ ~ ~ . ~ . , ! h ~ §_ . , , § , ~ J n ~ " , , ~ e n t s . are almost-'

."... ~ < ? ! l : ! , ~ ! J } E 2 L ~ ! : r : . " , , , . , His memory is I i k e ~ ' - o n - e - " o T t I i o s e~ i s t o r i c a l .paintings, where Virgil and Dante si t

side by s I ~ e conversing. . h ~ s e J ~ m ~ p e c t i v e s andf ? ~ ~ ~ . ~ . ? r t e n i n g s are a great barrier b e t ; e ~ n - ~ e o p r e s : - ! ! , , ! , ~ - , . ~ Y . ~ t ~ ' § Q : : : a i : m : £ i i I r I Q : r = ~ i = I i e r , i o n : g r : Q : D i : i i i C l r l l ~ 1 i " ' t ~ - '

x : ~ . £ 1 . ~ , m Q , ~ r ..... J £ h a t o " , i s " , ~ c Q n t e m p o l : a T a y - , i R - , t , h e , , , , , t t a d . i t i ~ ; ; : ~ ~ fan,g,ether. -

Almost nothing that goes by the name of Historic

R ights o r Hi sto ric Wrongs can be called a truly

objective view of the pas t. Take, for example, the

Franco-German debate about Alsace-Lorraine. I t

all d e p ~ n d s on the o r i ~ i n a l date you select. If you

s ~ a r t ~ l t h the Rauraci and Sequani, the lands are

hIstOrIcally part of . A n c ~ e n t Gaul. If you prefer

!Ienry I, th ey are historically a German territory;

you take 1273 they belong to the House ofAustria;

If you take 1648 and. the Peace of Westphalia, most

of them are French; If you take Louis XIV and the

year 1688 t hey ar e a lmost all French.' If you are,_....,_.... " " " = . _ " ' ~ - - - " " "


using the argument from h i s t Q r ~ ~ ¥ " Q 1 L " a t e . " J a i ! 1 ~ " , , , ~ , ~ ~ t : , " ,t i J i l l ~ ' ~ e I ~ c I ! f i ~ " ~ ~ t P . s - P . ! § L ~ h i ~ h " " , ~ ~ P 1 ~ ~ E ~ wyour ~ i ~ ~ ~ < i L ~ b : . ~ " , ~ ~ ~ 2 , ~ l ~ l } ~ ~ , 4 Q , D ~ ~ ~ r u ? ~ ~ _ M ' ~'---Argliments abo\! C ! ~ S ~ ~ ~ : , . , . e . ! J J I , " l l ~ U I Q ! ! ~ E ! ! , ~ ~ , " , , ? f t e n- ra t l i e - s a m e 7 ~ r b i trar vie. .of time. Duriii""'''' I~ y " . " ~ " " , " " " , , , , , , , , , _ . , , " , , , , , , , , _ . " , , , , , , , . . , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . , . J L , - - , , , , , , , , , l l : L , " , , , , , ~ , , , , , , , , , , , , , . , · ' · , " ~ ~ . c · " " ' " · . " " ' " g J

th e war, under the influence of powerful feeling, th e 1

difference between " Teu tons" on th e one handy]and ((Anglo-Saxons" and French on the other , was ;1'

popularly believed to be an eternal difference. They I

had always been opposing races. Ye t a generation Iago, historians, like Freeman, were emphasizing the I

common Teutonic origin of the West European/,

peoples, and ethnologists would certainly insist that

th e Germans, English, and th e greater part of the

French are branches of what was once a common

stock. The general rule is: if you l ike a people to-dayyou come down the branches to the trunk; if you

dislike them you insist that the separate branches

are separate trunks. In one case you fix your at ten- \

tion on the period before they were distinguishable;in the other on the period after which they became

distinct. And the view which fits the mood is taken

as th e (( tr u th."

An amiable variation is the family tree. Usually

one couple a re appoint ed t he original ancestors, if

possible, a couple associated with an honorific event

like the Norman Conquest. That couple have no

ancestors. They are no t descendan ts. Yet theywere

the descendants of ancestors, and th e expression

that So-and-So was the founder of his house means

no t that he is the Adam of his family, but t ha t he is

the par ti cu la r ances to r from whom it is desirable



PUBLIC OPINION

to start, or perhaps the earliest ancestor of which

there is a record. But genealogical tables exhibit

a deeper prejudice. Unless the female line happens

to be especially remarkable descent is traced down

through the males. The tree is male. A t various

rnomen ts females accrue to it as itineran t bees light

upon an ancient apple tree.

7

But the future is the most illusive time of all. Our"';'_·..,..-"'., ~ ~ , ~ . t : ~ " •.. _ . ~ . , . " . . - , , , ' ~ . : .• , " c . , ~ , , , ~ ' " _ " " " " " " " ' , . •t e ~ p t a t l o n uere IS to Jump over necessary stepsin

: l i j ~ : : : , . ~ . § . q ~ e n c e ' ; · a n d · a s · · · ' \ v e ' ' ' a r e ' ' ' ' g - o v e f ~ ~ ~ l ? y h o p e - ' " O r doubt, t O e x a " ' : " ' : e ' r a f e " o t " ' t o : ~ m T n ' i m l ' z ' e " ' t h ' ~ U F t r m " ~ r e ~ u i r e l i·.·".M.,.,.• ,::,......•:-..>:" •.• JsJ? .,.. .... :.: ..: . :.... '.' ..' . " ' N " " ' ' ' " ' ~ ' ~ ' ' ' ' ' ' ' - ' ' ' ' ' ' " ' ' ' t l ' ' ' C 4 ' ' ' , " , ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' __"",,_9.t Q ~ : £ £ ~ ~ m , p l e i i : . ~ ~ " y ~ r ~ Q i i S . ~ l ; t a . i : t s : : O £ " " , a . , ¥ P , Q G . @ ~ s .. T h ~ ~ · c r r s :cussion of the role to be exercised by wage-earners

in the management of industry is riddled with this

difficulty. For management is a word that covers

many functions.' Some of these require no training;

some require a li tt le training; others can be learned

only in a lifetime. And the truly discriminatingpro

gram ofindustrial democratization would beone based

on the proper time sequence, so that the assumption of

responsibility would run paraIlel to a complementary

program of industr ial training. The proposal for a

sudden dictatorship of the proletariat is an attempt

to do a,:,ay with the intervening time of preparation;the resistance to all sharing of responsibility an

~ t t e m p t to deny the alteration of human capacity

In the course of time. Primit ive notions of democ

racy, such as rotation in office, and contempt for

the expert, are really nothing bu t the 01<;1 myth that

1 Cf, Carter 1. Goodrich, TheFrontt'er of C o ~ t r o l .


the Goddess of Wisdom sprang ma tu re and fully

armed from the brow of Jove. They assume that

what it takes years to learn need not be learned at all.

W ~ ~ £ . ~ ! h ~ .. 2 ! l ~ . ~ ~ _ ~ . ~ ~ ~ ~ . ~ E s l . . ~ 9 p l e ..:::..i § , ~ ~ ~ c : la ~ ~ r w b a ; s i ~ . . 2 . [ ~ R 2 . l L < ; l : , _ . , ! ~ ~ ; £ 9 _ 1 1 ~ .. ~ 9 E , ~ ~ f ...! . ~ ~ ! ~ . " ~ , ~ ~ _ ~ ~ - . .decisive element. The

~ o v t : . ~ ! ~ ! " .. L , , ~ h ~ ~ _ e a g ~ e C!-!

· - - " ' " · - - a ~ s i t o r ' ' ' ' e x a m ' ' - l e · ' ' · that (( the character oftl ? ~ ~ _ 2 . . . . W , ~ ~ o ' 7 " , " , . , . J L > - d I ; ' t ~ " th;st:teol'tlie

the m ~ l l d a t ~ m u s t " , d i a : e r - a , c , c Q t , .. , " g " " < - , , , , , " , , " , , , , , - , ~ •.,,... ' ~ " " = _ " h _ " __''".- d ~ l o " P E l ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ . ~ , ~ ~ , ~ : ~ "· · " · ~ ; ; : - J l d s . Certain communities, i ~ _ , ~ , ! - ~ ~ ~ _ ! ~ ) ~ ,'navegr < t ~ ~ 1 ! i ( f . ~ J i 1 M " ' t o . ~ ~ 1 ! n : u : " ; ~ ~ 1 J . S ; ' W ' ~ ~ ~ ~ m t : i \ ' l , . " : ! l ~ ~ ' : ~ " > r . ! ! ' ! . ' : % : ~ r ~ , : ' r ~ ~ , " ' , ~ ~ t o = ' : 1 \ " ' l h h .:<';1;'. '1 " ' i t ~ ~ " " W ~ : 3 ' ! ; f ' ' ' ' ' ' ' "00" - ~ " " " " ' T : - - " " c d 1 t ,. t err inuet : ~ , ~ f en Q ~ f l , ! ~ ! & g ~ l r " " , Q J , ~ " . J ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ l l 1 1 ; 1 , e n , ,. ,.,,:w eJ,:e"''".... ~ ~ ' " M . . , . ' ' •.•' ' - " ' ' , . ~ , ' w .:. M_

~ ~ ~ : S ~ , ~ . s & ~ n . " ' J l ~ ~ ~ 1 2 ~ " x i ~ ' " ~ l b : : : = ! ~ ~ , ~ . 9 , g g ~ ~ ~ . g , L , , ~ , ~ ~ J : ~ ~ , ",

to advice and assistance until s ~ S l l _ ..t!.IDe,.. , a s . ~ t i j ~ y " , ~ '.,~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ * l V : ~ ~ ~ ; - : l ~ e ~ : ~ i ·t y ~ ¥ ~ ~ ( P t ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ r ; ~ ~ ~ T h ~ ~ T ~ t h ; ~ ~ ~ - o rI ", , ' . . _:: . ~ s t " " " , , , , - l l l . ; ¥ ' I i $ " - , , , , , , , , , , , , , q , : , , , , , : . ! ! < I " ' ~ ~ " " _ ; W ' " " ' ' ' ' ' ' ~ ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' t : : : . , " c : ~ , , , •' ~ " - C ~ b > a - i l i e j ~ d g m e n t of the American g o v e r n ~ e n tvirtually coincided with that of the Cuban patnots,

and though there has been trouble, there is no finer

page in the history of how s t r o n ~ powers h a v ~ dealt

with the weak. Oftener in that history the estimates

have not coincided. Where the imperial people,

whatever i ts public expressions, has been deeply

convinced that the backwardness of the backward

was so hopeless as not to bew ~ r t h

remedying, orprofitable that it was no t .deslrable to remedy It,

the tie has festered and poisoned the peace of the

world. There have been a few cases, very few, where

backwardness has meant to the ruling power the need

for a program of f o r w a r d n ~ s s , a p r o g r ~ m with definite

standards and definite estimates of time. Far more

1 Article XIX.



PUBLIC OPINION

frequently, so frequently in fact as to seem the rule,

~ ~ J : d n _ ~ ~ § . . . __ . ~ ; L J 2 ~ J ~ n __ ' c i > . n . c c i , ~ intrinsic

~ n d - k t ~ r l 1 ~ L ~ m i ! r k _ , ~ Q . L j n £ e t i Q r i q r . And then every

attempt to be less backward has been frowned upon

as th e sedition, which, under these conditions, it

undoubtedly is. In our own race wars we can seesome of the results of the failure to realize that time

would gradually obliterate the slave morality of the

Negro, and that social adjustment based on this rnor-

ali ty would begin to break down.

1 is ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ . , . ~ ~ J 2 ~ , £ ! - l ! ! : ~ ,. . t ~ ~ " . f ~ , ~ E r e 3 . . ~ if i to ~ ~ y e do U ! : J ~ ~ ~ ~ , ~ ~ ! J . . ! , . , P Y r J 2 , Q ~ ~ ~ ~ , ~ " ! Q , " , , , ! ~ , ! } ! h l J a ! ~ ~ e rde,gt"ys'our desire, or immortalize whatever stands betweenus .... a i i ( : r ; ; o t i ' F " f e ~ r F ' s ~ e",,"",', - " " , " , ~ " ' ~ " " - - ' - - ~ ' - ' - - " ~ " " - - - " - - - -

8In putting together our public opinions, no t only

do we have t o p ic tu re more space than we can see

with our eyes, and more time than we can feel, but

we have to describe and judge more people, more

actions, more things than we can ever count, or

vividly imagine. We have to summarize and general-

ize. We have to pick ou t samples, and treat them as

typical.

, ! 2 - P l ~ _ ~ ~ . , i ~ ~ £ ! y . , ~ _ g ~ C ? ~ , , ~ , ~ ~ E ! < ~ ~ , . 9 (. ~ J ' l r g ~ " £ l a _ ~ ~ § , , " , i s "~ . ! ! Q l ~ ~ . s y . , . . J 2 ~ ( ) ~ 1 ~ m belongs to the science of

s t a t i s t i ~ ~ " - ' a ' n t f l t ' is"'i"most difficult affair for anyone

whose mathematics is primitive, and mine remain

azoic in spite of the half dozen manuals which I

once devoutly imagined that I understood. All

they have done for me is to make me a l i tt le more

conscious o f ~ ? ~ h ' ! r ~ t , ~ t , ! ~ . 1 Q " , . , ~ 1 a _ s s j £ y _ ~ a l i . d . _ t o - s a a l p l e ) " .


how readily we spread a little butter over the whole

universe.Some time ago a group of social workers in Sheffield,

England, started ou t to substitute an accurate PIC-

ture of the mental equipment of the workers of that

city for the impressionistic one they had.'T ~ e y

wished to say, with some decent grounds for sayIng

it how the workers of Sheffield were equipped. They

f ~ u n d as we all find the momen t we refuse to le t

our fi;st notion prevail, that they were beset w.ith

complications. Of the test t h e ~ employed nothing

need be said here except that It was a large ques-

tionnaire. For th e sake of the illustration, assume

that the questions were a fair test of mental equip-

ment for English city life. Theoretically, then, those

questions should have been ~ u t . to every member

of the working class. Bu t It IS no t so easy to

know who are the working class. However, assume

again that the census knows how to classify them.

Then there were roughly 104,000 men and 107,000

women who ought to have been questioned. They

possessed the answers which would justify or refute

the casual phrase about the "ignorant workers"

or the " intell igent workers." Bu t nobody could

think of questioning the whole two hundred thou-

sand.So the social workers consulted an eminent statis-

tician, Professor Bowley. He advised them that no t

less than 408 men and 408 women would.prove to be

a fair sample. According to mathematical c a ~ c ~ l a t ion this number would no t show a greater deViatIon

1 T . ~ e Equipment of theWorker.



PUBLIC OPINION

from the average than I in 22 . 1 They had, therefore,

to quest ion at least 816 people before they could

pretend to talk about the average workingman.

But which 816 people should they approach? "W e

might have gathered particulars concerning workers

to whom one or another of us had a pre-inquiry

access; we might have worked through philanthropicgentlemen and ladies who were in contact with cer

tain sections of workers at a club, a mission, an

infirmary, a place of worship, a settlement. Bu t

such a method of selection would produce entirely

worthless results. The workers thus selected would

not be in any sense representative of what is popu

larly called' the average run of workers;' they would

represent nothing but the Ii ttle coteries to which theybelonged. .

"The right way of securing' victims,' to which at

immense cost of t ime and labour we rigidly adhered,

is to get hold of your workers by some 'neutral'

or 'accidental' or 'random' method of approach."

This they did. And afte r all these precautions they

came to no more definite conclusion than that on

their classification and according to their question

naire, among 200 ,000 Sheffield workers "about one

quarter" were"well equipped," "approaching three

quarters" were "inadequately equipped" and that

"about one-fifteenth" were" mal-equipped."

Compare this conscientious and almost pedantic

method of arriving at an opinion, with our usual

judgments aboutmasses of people, about the volatile

Irish, and the logical French, and the; disciplined

1 Op. cit., footnote, p. 65.

THE DETECTION OF STEREOTYPES lS I

Germans, and the ignorant Slavs, and the honest

Chinese and the un trustworthy Japanese, and so

on and 'so on. All these are generalizations drawn

from samples, bu t the samples are selected by a

method that statistically is wholly unsound. Thus

the employer will judge labor by the most troublesome employee or the most d?c ile. that he ~ n o w s ,and many a radical group has imagined that It was

a fair sample of the working class.. I!,ow n:any

women's views on the "servant question are lit tle

more than the reflection of their own treatment of

their s ervants? The. t e n d e 1 . ] £ L Q L " J h . e " " . , , £ . ~ § y ~ 1 l 1 1 i n dis to pick out or S h i m b l ; - ~ p o n . _ ~ ~ ~ T . E 1 ~ .. , , ~ h ! . s h . , , § B . l ? ~ , . ~I,_'._" ~.•...... """"". "" .. .,.. ~ . ~ . a· . :. . ' . ". ''''"..."•. . • . . ." ~ . · . :..t.··.-."".n.".".r'. "".e.1ucrrces-·ana t h ~ ! L J Q " . " m a k e ! . l , t · ...'orts or . e es 1. ..J:Z:., ...:J • ".,,,,,,,.•.,, .• ",...,,•,,",,,.. ,,.•."...

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ¥ ; ~ i £ ~ i ~ ~ ~ : W ~ l l f l ~ " P € € } r l l l ' " G l l l ~ .c l l n e ~ i : ~ · · S r ~ £ t F e T ~ ~ l y ~ ~ ! ! .. . l ' : § . " . ~ . _ Q . i l . Y ~ ..•d . ~ s . § i f i e d . " .:1::' ' ' " ~ e - m ' ' " " ' ~ P ; ~ ~ h ~ ~ < " ' < ; ~ ~ I d ~ " ' b e so m t ! c ; l L ~ ~ , ~ l § i e r , , , i L v . , Q P J y : ,t ~ e y ~ ; ; ; c l d ~ a ; - ; r ; : c r e w e - ~ I ~ s ~ ~ m : . J 3 u t , as. a

m a l l : e r o t 4 f a c ~ f ; - " " ~ " p l 1 r a s e " ' T i k e " " t h e working class will

cover only some of the truth for a part of the time.

When you take all the people, below .a certain level

of income and call them the working class, you

cannot help assuming that the people so classified

will behave in accordance with your stereotype. Justwho those people are you are no t ~ u i t e certain. Fac-

tory hands and mine workers fit In more or less, bu t

farm hands, small farmers, peddlers, little shop

keepers, clerks, servants, soldiers, policemen, firemen

slip ou t of the net. The tendency, when you are

appealing to the "working class," is to fix your a t

tent ion on two or three million more or less confirmed



PUBLIC OPINION

trade unionists, and treat them as Labor ; the o ther

seventeen or eighteen million, who might qualify

statistically, are tacitly endowed with the point of

view ascribed to the organized nucleus. How very

misleading it was to impute to the British working

class in 1918-1921 the point of view expressed in

the resolutions of the Trades Union Congress or in

the pamphlets written by intellectuals.

The stereotype of Labor as Emancipator selects

the evidence which supports itself and rejects the

other. And so paral le l with the real movements of

working men there exists a fiction of the Labor

Movemen t, in which an idealized mass moves to

wards an ideal goal. The fiction deals with the

future. In ... t h ~ . J g 1 ! J r ~ ' i , 1 ? Q § § i . b i U t i ~ , § . " " , , ~ r e .al,most. indis

t i f l g ~ , ~ , ~ h ~ I ~ ~ : ' : : } i 9 m probabilities a n d ~ p ; ~ b a b i l i t ies" l r ; i i 1 " ' c e r t i l n t : i e s ~ " " " r r " t l i e " f ~ r u t u r e " ' T s l o n ' ' ' " ' ' ' ' ' e n o u " - f i ~ ~ t l i e"f",.",., ".".,.' '.',... . ,•.... f.·'."'.·j,.·•• , ' . " " " ~ · M , ' ' ' ' ' ' ' c ; r ' ' , ' · · - " , ' ' ' ' ' " ' ' ' ' " . , , · " , , , , , , , , , , , , , . 4 ' > " - " ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' f ' ' ' ' ' ' f ' ' ' ' i , , , . , , , ' ' ' ' ' ' , , , , " ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' R ' , , , , , , , , , , . , , , a , J , - , , , , , , , , , " " " ' ~ " ~human will might turn what is J' ust conceivable

." • ; . ; _ ~ _ : ; , - ; ' , . ' ;' ,' : 7',";'- '- '.- ' ,<. _ A ~ ' - ' :;''':'.:<.OJ(';,'::','-;-:' ;_ ' " .( · " ' . j i ' f ' > : ' _ f ' : i ; -_ ; " ' ' ' . . ; j : o ~ _ ' 'i ' ' , , _ ; , " , , : , ; ! - "; ~ " " ~ : ' O ; ' t , : , · ,.. , ' · ~ ? , , . - . , , , , i ' ; g ~ ~ ~ ~ : ~ ; ' ; i W ' ~ ' I ; ! : i ' i : ' " < % " / . ' : ; h " ' t ~ t " l - - . . : ' ...O:l l

l . ! 1 : . , t 2 ~ . , ••• ~ . h ~ " S ' I , . ; . , ~ . ~ , ....,, . Y ~ r x , . , . " , . ! i . ~ , ~ . ~ . r ? _ , ; ; , : , ~ , ; ~ , . · . , ~ , ~ , ~ ~ ~ , , , , , , , ! , ~ , , , , J i ~ , s I Y " , , J c ! ) J Qw ~ ~ t i s ~ ~ ~ : .. .. . ~ ~ p r ; ! ; ~ .•.. , J ~ m ~ , § s i ~ I l ~ ~ ~ ; " , , ! : h ~ ~ t h e f a i thJ ~ " ~ 1 4 ~ r , ' a n a "sai'cf'fllat"'CCTt is a slope of g ~ ~ d ~ i : r r - ' o n ' ' " ~which in the larger questions of life men habitually

I, " 1rve,

"1 . There is nothing absurd in a certain view of the

world being true, nothing contradictory;2. It might have been true under certain conditions;

3. It may be true even now;

4. It is fit to be true;

5. It ought to be true;

6. It must be true;

7. It shall be true, at any rate true for me."

1William James, Some Problemsof Philosophy, p. 224.


And, as he added in another place,' "your acting

thus may in certain special cases be a means of

making it securely true in the end." Yet no one

would have insisted more than he, that, so far as

we know how, we must avoid substitut ing the

goal for the s tarting point, must avoid reading

back into the present what courage, effort and

skill might c reate in the future. Yet this tru ism

is inordinat ely difficult to live by, because every

one of us is so little trained in the selection of our

samples.

If we believe that a certain thing ought to be

tr;ie, ~ ' w e ' c ' i n ~ : i l l i i o s - r " " i r W g ~ ' ~ ~ " " n n ( r " ' e r t n e F ' a i r ' ' i n s t a . ·n . .·e~ _ l f u f ~ » < = , t J _ .. . , ~ ¢ l A A ' ! i l . ... .- - - ~ , J : ~ . 3 1 V ; ~ , ' : t " . ~ . , , ~ ' i ' K , , ; I ; ' t t ; ' ~ ~ ..~ ( , X f , . l , ' \ j ~ ~ i ' - " : < ~ t ~ ~ ; ; : : ~ ~ l : - c " ' g » / ; . " ' ~ : " ---", "" ' " , ' --

' £ h ~ r . . e - i t l s " " ' t t , u . @ , } " ~ @ p ; " c s 6 m @ @ f l · e " ) , w h @ " , J ; ~ . @ l i ; e , ~ e · ~ " , t t ; , , ~ ' l ] ; g h ..~ ; , . ~ ( )be true. I t is ever so hard when a concrete fact il-

' ' \ : ~ ~ & 9 # i t 4 ; ~ ~ '

lustrates a hope to weigh that fact properly. Whenthe first six people we meet agree with us, it is no t

easy to remember that they may all have read the

same newspaper at breakfast. And yet we cannot

send ou t a questionnaire to 816 random samples

every time we wish to estimate a probability. In

dealing with any large mass of facts, the presumption

is against our having picked true samples, if we are

acting on a casual impression.

9

And when we tr y to go one step further in order

to seek the causes and effects of unseen and com

plicated affairs, haphazard opinion is very tricky.

There are few big issues in public life where cause

and effect are obvious at once. They are no t obvious

1 A Pluralistic Universe, p. 329-



to scholars who have devoted years, let us say, to

studying business cycles, or price and wage move

ments, or the migration and the assimilation of

peoples, or the diplomatic purposes of foreign powers.

Yet somehow we are all supposed to have opinions

on these matters, and it is not surprising that the

commonest form of reasoning is the intui tive, post

hoc ergo propter hoc.

The more untrained a mind, the more readily it

works out a theory that two things which catch

its attention at the same time are causally connected.

We have already dwelt at some length on the way

things reach our at tention. We have seen t h a t ~access to information,...,is. 0bstrllcted and uncertain"~ d t h ; t ~ ~ ~ ~ - ' ~ p p r e h e n s i ~ " ' - i ~ ~ ~ ~ I ~ e p l y ' c o ~ t r o l l e d ~ _ ~ _ y -

o u r ~ ' s i ~ r e o t ~ w " " ' ~ e s ~ " t h a t " O t T i e ~ ~ e v l c r e i 1 ~ c e ~ avairaole LQ=O\If~ , " , 4 ~ ~ = . , r R ~ " o " " , · ~ ~ · , " " ~ · " · " ' " ' ~ " - ~ ~ ; f ~ ' ~ ~ ~ .:: ~ - d ' f u ~ ~ ; ' ~ - ; e s t i .er e ~ s o n ..' l § , k ' " , § ! i l i J , e , c , t ~ , J { ) ~ , " " t l L . = ..".Jl."',"",_H__ " ~ ' ' - L " " , , ~ ~ , = , ~ ~ , , 1 2 _ .__,g . "r i 1 ( ) ' f ~ 1 1 ~ ' · r ~ ' s J 2 ~ : . : , . t ! r n _ ~ , , , , f . l t u l , , § , ~ m , 1 1 1 i l l g ~ - J Y £ _ m l 1 S ! , E o ~ ..

- O Q i : ~ i . J i ~ ' t ~ . i i i l t , i ' h i s - - i l l , i J : i ~ L ~ , ! , e i E : ! } , , ~ , E , ~ £ - 2 ~ n i o n s .arestill further beset, because in a series o ~ e n . t s - s e e n - - ..-

~ t l i : I I 1 i : Q g g [ = T I ~ e £ ~ i f ~ ~ ~ ~ Y e - r ~ y accept se:

quenc:or p a E ~ l ! e l i s ~ ~ ~ . ~ ' 9 u i v ' a l ' e J f f " t : 0 - ~ c a u s e ande i f - e c t ~ - ' - " ' " ' ' ' ' ' - ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ~ ' - ' ' ' ' '....,... ""'--.. ','...... ", ,,_"-'w,-.,·,'=.. =·. " " ' ' ' - ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' · ~ ~ · ...........-'''

- ~ " ~ T h l ~ I ~ m o s t l ikely to happen when two ideas that

come together arouse the same feeling.Ifthey cometogether they are likely to arouse the same feeling;

and even when they do not arrive together a powerful feeling attached to one is likely to suck out

of all the corners of memory any .idea that feels

about the same. Thus everything painful tends

to collect into one system of cause and effect, and

likewise everything pleasant.


"lId I rrn (1675) This day I hear that G[od] has shot

arrow into the midst of this Town. The small poxan d' K. in an ordinary yesign of the Swan, th e or mary eepersIS . . k f h d'name is Windsor. His daughter IS SIC 0 t e isease.

It is observable that this disease begins at an alehouse,

to tes ti fy God's displeasure ag" the sin of drunkenness

& yt of multiplying alehouses!"1

Thus Increase Mather, and thus in the year 1919

a distinguished Professor of Celestial Mechanics dis

cussing the Einstein theory:

"I t may well be that. . . . Bolshevist u p r i s ~ n g s are inreality the visible objec ts of some underly ing , d e e ~ ,mental disturbance, world-wide in character . . • . ThIS

h . d d sci " 2 1t'same spirit of unrest as mva e SCIence. ,,,;,

In ha tin&"one thing v i o l ~ . n e ~ ! Y . ' . " " ~ . " f " , . w . ' ' ' ' ' . ' ; . ' N . E ' ~ f i ~ i.}X}-h,. ?"c .

ia t,,.e" ' ' ".~ = - - - > - ~ , , - . r · " · ' ' ' ' ' " ' l t · ' · ' · ~ · ' · · t · til ' t er t Ings we- l ~ ~ r ; t : L ! ! f ~ ~ · J } , · ; ~ ~ · ~ k ~ ~ ~ i t ~ · · · ~ o r ~ ....., ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ; t a ~ alehouses, or Rela-

tivity and Bolshevism, but they ?ound ~ o g e t ~ e rin the same emotion. In a superstrtious mind, like

that of th e Professor of Celestial Mechanics, emotion

is a stream of molten lava which catches and im

beds whatever it touches. When you excavate !n it

you find, as in a buried city, all sorts of .objects

ludicrously entangled in each o t ~ e r . ~ ~ n y . ! h , H ! ; g . S ~ t : l : ...b e . r e l ~ t e d to, ~ ! l ~ . ~ ~ ~ . t E ~ ! : ~ ~ $ ~ t J ! ' ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ : ; i : · = .Not has .(1. m ~ n d ! x L s , l J ~ I i . ~ a , v s t a t . e " J u l , ¥ , ~ ; w a y o g

1 i ' ( ) \ , : V · I ? f e i 2 Q s · t : ~ ; ~ ~ . ~ ~ : . i l t w i s . , , . i l p . c i e n t . , J ~ a r s J . ~ r , . @ i . n , £ o t , G e d ~ . h ¥ , -m o r ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ t .. E : . ~ ~ s ~ .... c ? ~ & ~ 1 ~ ~ ~ j ~ ! 2 .. .. §!1<lrLQLfeal:s."....

Tit;· · i i ~ = ; ; ; · · ..~ " i " ' ~ h e P ~ ~ i ~ · ~ : ' : ' ~ ; : " ' · ~ ~ ~ , edited by Eli zabeth Deering

Hanscom.2 Cited in The New Republic, Dec. 24, 1919 , p. 120.



PUBLIC' OPINION

where anything ~ ~ ~ } ~ , # Q r ~ " ~ ~ £ l ~ = ~ L j ~ ~ " , . t h s - s. ~ ~ . , , . ~ . f anything"'e'tse-ftiitt--iSdreaded."·"",,·-----·

. " " " " " " " i ; " " " " " ' ' ' ' ' J e " i ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ; ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' & . ' ~ f m " f ! ' ' ' ' ' < ' " ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ~ : : ; ' ; ~ ~ ' ' ' ' '

j ' i ;"

, " ~ ~ ~ l l L L ~ _ , , ~ , g , . , E ~ , ! . , " ~ ~ ~ , t ~ , § " j . u " " " , t h ~ , , , , J ~ ~ ! . ~ 9 i o ~ _ ofe . ~ Y s tern of all e v i ~ ~ . " . \ , : ! l " ~ " ; " , £ L " " ~ J 1 Q . t h e h , , , , , , " w h i c . h , ~ - t l i es

" ' ~ ~ ' t e " m ~ " " o r " ' a I r " " " ' j " o o a : , m , , "Then ou r love of the absolute~ ' ~ ~ ~ ~ 1 ~ t s e 1 r : ~ , , ~ r ~ ' o ' r " " w e '' ( f o " ' i i ' o ; t " ' r i ' k ' ~ " " " ' ~ ' ; I i ' f : " ' T ~ ' - ' a ( l v e r b ' s - ~ - f ' ~ '. > " ' ; ' n i ~ ' ' ' ' ' ~ W ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ~ ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' '_ _ ~ ~ ' _ ' ' ~ " ' " ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' ' . , . " , ••"",.,.••.,." .. . " " " " , , , , q . , , , , t , , . / . , , , , . , , , , x . " = g _ " , , " , , , _ . _ ~

They clutter up sentences, and interfere with irre-

sist ible feeling. We prefer most to more, least to

less, we dislike the words rather, perhaps, if, or, but,

toward, no t quite, almost, temporarily, partly. Yet

. ~ ~ 1 1 # ~ ~ 7 · : ~ a ~ " h ~ T i ~ c ~ ~ u ~ e ~ ~ s : ;f ~ ~ e ' ' ' - ' m ~ ' n ; e n t s ' ' ' ' ' e v ' e ' r y I l i i n g ' ' ' · ' ' t e i i d s ' ' ' ' ' ' t o ' " = 1 5 e h a v e abso-Iutely,-one hundred percent, everywhere, forever.

It is no t enouzh to sax that our side is more rivht~ l ! - ' # > t i l ~ . ~ ' ~ ~ ~ ' . ' ~ - ' : " : : : " : ; ; ; " ' ; ; : " " ' ~ i ' ' : ; . ' . ' 1 . ' ' ' : " d 7 ; ~ , ~ ' j c ' ' ; ; ? , ~ , , , , · , : . ' ; , ; . , { , . : , · ~ · . , : . ; ' i ; : ' ; ; i ) · , : ; , · , , , · , . : : - , ; r ' ~ · ; ' . ' i " , ~ C ' : ' _ ' : · " ' ~ : ; ( · ; _ , ~ i O : ; . " i ' j " ) : . _ ' : " , . _ . ' . j , ' . . ; . t . . . . . . w ;~ .. " " " ~ " " , , . ,__ ~ - ~ _ , ~t ~ ~ ? : , . , ! . ~ ~ ? " , ~ , ! ! ~ . ~ , I : ~ 1 " ~ h e i t Q M r " Y i £ . t 2 I Y " , , 1 Y g L % h ~ p d ~ m o c - .

' ~ ~ ~ " ~ ~ ~ i ~ r a ~ ~ ~ ; ; ~ " ~ ~ ~ ~ * e ~ 6 r r ~ ; ; ~ t ~ Z -" " a . ~ m Q ~ ~ ' , ~ · £ Y · : ' = " ' " " ' A D a " : . · ; h ~ ~ · · · · . t · h e . · ···war·• · · i s . · · · · . o v ~ r ; : : : , : l h ! ! ! ! g b - ~ ~ ~ ~.have . ! h ~ ~ r t s ; s i . ..~ . ~ g ! ~ . ~ ! ~ ! . / ~ , ~ i L . !h'-tD . J h Q , § , . ~ " " ~ h i ~ J l . , , s tilL.

~ . f ! 1 i ~ t . ~ ~ ? ... . r ~ l a t i ~ i ~ y . . r e s u 1 ~ . ~ : . ~ : ~ ~ u t , thei 9 S 9 ! ~ . i ~ n . ~ ~ . ~ ..::2f ..· . ~ . ~ ~ ~ ' . p r ~ s , ~ . ~ , ~ ~ ~ i . ! -, ~ y ~ E ~ . ~ , ~ . ~ ~ " ' o u F · s p i ' r i l ; · · ·andwefeel that we are helplessbecause w e ~ f i a v e not"

been' 'irresi'SfibTe: 'Befweenomni" ' o t e n c e ' ~ " a r r a · = ~ / i m : " '.. , ';8,"",···,"',·'·'··"1l'····'·,",·"··,·r".'v.,"'r·""""",··""",·,;,,,·,,,,,·,,,,n.,...,,,,.•.,E,,...,,,,. '-- ..,. ' .....' _k , ....

potence . ~ H ~ 1 l . q . ~ , . " y m , § : W : J . n g l ? ~ , , , . , , ,Real space, real t ime, real numbers, real connec-

t r o ~ · s ; ~ " ~ ~ ~ ~ t : : 5 ~ ~ ~ § r g ~ : ~ ' ~ : · ~ ' ~ " r ~ " ' ' ' ~ t ( ) ~ ' ' t · ~ , , : , : , : ~ ~ ~ : ' : ~ ~ F £ E ~ P · ~ ~ . t i Y e ~t ~ e ~ : ' · } ) ' ~ ~ ~ g r ~ ~ ~ d . > ~ ~ 5 ! ., ! . ~ ~ : ' ~ i · ~ ~ g § ! 9 n § .. 2 f ' : v ~ i c ' f i " ( Y n - ' a r e

c I i p p , e d s , c ~ n : s t : " , [ r . Q i ~ ! l , # l ! i : I h i , ~ " t ~ i ~ . Q i i p , ~ , ~ . " , . , : ~ ' " . " ..1 Cf. Freud's discussion of absolut ism in dreams, Interpretation of

Dreams, Chapter VI, especially pp. 288, et seq.

PART IV

INTERESTS

CHAPTER I I . THE ENLISTING OF INTEREST

" 12 . SELF-INTEREST RECONSIDERED



CHAPTER XI

THE ENLISTING OF INTEREST

IBUT the human mind is no t a film which registers

once and for all each impression that comes through

its shutters and lenses. The human mind is end-

lessly and persistently creative. The pictures fade

or combine, are sharpened here, condensed there,

as we make them more completely our own. They

do no t lie inert upon the surface of the mind, bu t

are reworked by the poetic facul ty into a personalexpression of ourselves. We distribute the emphasis

and participate in the action.

In order to do this we tend to personalize quanti-

ties, and to dramatize relations. As some sort of

allegory, except in acutely sophisticated minds, the

affairs of the world are represented. Social Move-

ments, Economic Forces, National Interests, Public

Opinion are treated as persons, or persons like the

Pope, the President, Lenin, Morgan or the King be-

come ideas and institutions. The deepest of all thestereotypes is the human stereotype which imputes

human nature to inanimate or collective things.

The bewildering variety of our impressions, even

after they have been censored in all k inds of ways,

tends to force us to adopt the greater economy of

the allegory. So great is the multitude of things

159



160 PUBLIC OPINION THE ENLISTING OF INTEREST 16 1

that we cannot keep them vividly in mind. Usually,

t hen, we name them, and let the name stand for

the whole impression. But a name is porous. Old

meanings slip out and new ones slip in, and the

attempt to retain the full meaning of the name is

almost as fatiguing as t rying to recall t he originalimpressions. Yet names are a poor currency for

thought. They are too empty, too abstract, too in

human. And so we begin to see the name through

some personal stereotype, to r ead into i t, finally to

see in it the incarnation of some human quality.

Yet human quali ties are themselves vague and

fluctuating. They are best remembered by a physi

cal sign. And therefore, the human qualities we

tend to ascribe to the names of our impressions,

themselves tend to be visualized in physical meta-

phors. The people of England, the history of Eng

land, condense into England, and England becomes

John Bull, who is jovial and fat, not too clever, but

well able to take care of himself. The migration of

a people may appear to some as the meandering of a

river, and to others like a devastating flood. The

courage people display may be objectified as a rock;

their purpose as a road, thei r doubts as forks of the

road, their difficulties as ruts and rocks, their progre_ssas a fertile valley. If they mobilize their dread

naughts they unsheath a sword. If their army sur

renders they are thrown to earth. I f they are op

pressed they are on the rack or under the harrow.

When public affairs are popularized in speeches,

headlines, plays, moving pictures, cartoons, novels,

statues or paintings, their transformadon into a

human interest requires first abstraction from the

original, and then animation of what has been ab

st ract ed. We cannot be much interested in, or much

moved by, the things we do no t see. Of public af

fairs each of us sees very little, and therefore, they

remain dull and unappetizing, until somebody, with

the makings of an art ist , has t rans la ted them into a

moving picture. Thus the abst ract ion, imposed

upon our knowledge of reali ty by all the l imitat ions

of our access and of our prejudices, is compensated.

Not being omnipresent and omniscient we cannot

see much of wha t we have to think and talk about.

Being flesh and blood we will no t feed on words and

names and gray theory. Being art is ts of a sort we

paint pictures, stage dramas and draw cartoons ou t

of the abstractions.Or, if possible, we find gi fted men who can visu-

alize for us. For people are no t all endowed to the

same degree with the pictoria l faculty. Yet one

may, I imagine, asser t with Bergson that the prac

tical intelligence is most closely adapted to spatial

qualities.' A (( clear" thinker is almost always a goo.d

visualizer. But for that same reason, because he IS

"cinematographic," he is often by that much external

and insensitive. For the people who have intuition,

which is probably another name for musical or mus

cular perception, often appreciate the quaE ty of an

event and the inwardness of an act far better than

the visualizer. They have more understanding when

the crucial element is a desire that is never crudely

overt, and appears on the surface only in a veiled

1 Creative Evolution, Chs.III, IV.



16 2 PUBLIC OPINION THE ENLISTING OF INTEREST

ges tu re , or in a rhythm of speech. Visualization may

catch the stimulus and the result. But the inter

mediate and interna l is often as bad ly carica tu red

by a visualizer, as is the int ent ion of the composer

by an enormous soprano in the sweet maiden's

part.

Nevertheless, though they have often a peculiar

justice, intuitions remain highly private and largely

incommunicable. But social intercourse depends on

communication, and while a person can often st eer

his own life with the utmos t grace by virtue of his

intui tions, he usually has great difficulty in making

them real to others. When he talks about them they

sound like a sheaf of mist. For while intuition does

give a fairer perception of human feeling, the reason

wi th its spatial and tactile prejudice can do l it tlewith that perception. Therefore , where action de

pends on whether a number of people are of one

mind, it is p robably t rue that in the first instance

no idea is lucid for practical decision until it has

visual or tactile value. But it is also t rue , that no

visual idea is signif icant to us until it has enveloped

some stress of our own personali ty . Until it releases

or resists, depresses or enhances, some craving of our

own, it remains one of the objec ts which do not

matter.

2

Pictures have always been the surest way of con

veying an idea, and next in order, words that call

up pictures in memory. But the idea conveyed is not

fully our own unt il we have identified ourselves with

some aspect of the picture. The identification, or

what Vernon Lee has called empathy;' may be almost

infinitely subtle and symbolic. The mimicry may

be performedwithout our being aware of it, and some

times in a way that would horrify those sections of

our personality which support our self-respect.

In sophisticated people the participation may not

be in the fate of the hero, bu t in the fate of the whole

idea to which both hero and villain are essential.

But these are refinements.

In popular representation the handles for iden tifi

cation are almost always marked. You know who

the hero is at once. And no work promises to be

easily popular where the marking is not definite and

the choice clear." But that is not enough. The

audience must have something to do, and the contemplation of the true, the good and the beautiful

is no t something to do. In order not to s it ine rt ly

in the presence of the picture, and thi s applies as

much to newspaper stories as to fiction and the

cinema, the audience must be exercised by the image.

Now there are two forms of exercise which far

transcend all others, both as to ease with which they

are aroused, and eagerness with which stimuli for

them are sought. They are sexual passion and

fighting, and the two have so many associations with

each other , blend into each other so int imately, that

a fight about sex outranks every other theme in the

breadth of i ts appeal. There is none so engrossing or

so careless of all distinctions of culture and frontiers.

1 Beauty and Ugliness.2 A fact which bears heavilyon the character of news. Cf. Part VII.

82 pdfsam public opinion

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