Sublime

to participate in the great decisions of government. There was, Lippmann brooded, no “intrinsic moral and intellectual virtue to majority rule.” Lippmann’s disenchantment with democracy anticipated the mood of today’s elites. From the top, the public, and the swings of public opinion, appeared irrational and uninformed. The human material out of wh

In considering the tendency of objective knowledge to excite tyrannical tendencies, and ‘self-knowledge’ to require the surrender of the hero, we turn up a seeming paradox. The tyrant’s attention is self-focused.

Quels que soient les sentiments, bons ou mauvais, manifestés par une foule, ils présentent ce double caractère d'être très simples et très exagérés. Sur ce point, comme sur tant d'autres, l'individu en foule se rapproche des êtres primitifs. Inaccessible aux nuances, il voit les choses en bloc et ne connaît pas les transitions. Dans la foule, l'exa

Put simply, the masses hate experts. If forced to choose between the advice of the learned and the vague impressions of other people just like themselves , the masses invariably turn to the latter.

he explores this psychology The True Believer (1951). It might seem from that title that Hoffer is talking about something quite similar, if not identical, to the kind of delusion Marian Keech’s followers suffered from. But it is not so dramatic; it is perhaps even less dramatic than the sort of thing that prompts a South Sea Bubble, most participa

Le meneur peut être quelquefois intelligent et instruit ; mais cela lui est généralement plus nuisible qu'utile. En montrant la complexité des choses, en permettant d'expliquer et de comprendre, l'intelligence rend toujours indulgent, et émousse fortement l'intensité et la violence des convictions nécessaires aux apôtres. Les grands meneurs de tous

In his 1922 opus, Public Opinion, Lippmann poses a straightforward question: Can citizens achieve a basic knowledge of public affairs and then make reasonable choices about what to do? If the answer is no, then the entire democratic project is at best a folly.