Walter Lippmann · Public domain edition · 120 cards · 34 chapters
Walter Lippmann argues that democracy rests on a false picture of citizens forming opinions about a world they cannot directly see. The deck covers his Plato epigraph, his account of stereotypes and pseudo-environments, and his examples of how reports and images distort public judgment.
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Chapter 1 · Question
What image from Plato does Lippmann use as the epigraph to Public Opinion?
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Chapter 1 · Answer
Lippmann opens with a long quotation from Book Seven of Plato's Republic, in the Jowett translation: the allegory of the cave, where prisoners chained from childhood see only shadows cast by a fire and take those shadows for reality. Lippmann presents this image without commentary, letting it frame the book's concern with how people perceive a world they cannot directly see.
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Introduction3 cards
What image from Plato does Lippmann use as the epigraph to Public Opinion?
Lippmann opens with a long quotation from Book Seven of Plato's Republic, in the Jowett translation: the allegory of the cave, where prisoners chained from childhood see only shadows cast by a fire and take those shadows for reality. Lippmann presents this image without commentary, letting it frame the book's concern with how people perceive a world they cannot directly see.
Chapter 1
Who is Public Opinion dedicated to, and where was the dedication written?
The book is dedicated "TO FAYE LIPPMANN," and the dedication is dated "Wading River, Long Island. 1921." This front matter appears before the table of contents and the chapter itself, identifying the book's addressee and the place and year attached to the dedication.
Chapter 1
Which translation of Plato's Republic does Lippmann quote in the epigraph?
Lippmann uses the Jowett translation of Plato's Republic, Book Seven, as the source for the cave allegory quoted at the start of the book. The attribution appears in parentheses directly after the quotation, crediting both the dialogue and its translator rather than Plato alone.
Chapter 1
Part V, "The Making of a Common Will."] These functional4 cards
What problem does Lippmann say functional democracy cannot escape?
Lippmann argues that functional democracy faces the same problem as orthodox democracy: a group or its representative must vote on matters beyond direct experience. The shop's view of its function is not automatic shop-consciousness but a matter of education or propaganda, and the representative must conceive a common interest by judging other groups' views.
Chapter 2
How does Lippmann distinguish the two meanings of 'interested'?
Lippmann says 'interested' can mean involved or mentally occupied. John Smith avidly followed the Stillman divorce case though it did not affect his interests, while young Guy Stillman, whose legitimacy was at stake, was uninterested. Lippmann argues Cole leans toward the John Smith meaning, treating attention as the measure of function.
Chapter 2
What two kinds of uninstructed voter does Lippmann identify?
Lippmann distinguishes the man who does not know and knows it, an enlightened person who waives his vote, from the man who is uninstructed without knowing or caring. The latter can always be brought to the polls if party machinery works, and his vote is the basis of the machine. Lippmann says guild elections would be fought as passionately as ordinary ones.
Chapter 2
Why does Lippmann say Cole inserted his conclusion into his premise?
Lippmann argues Cole assumes a settled scheme of functions exists in every voter's head, so shops voluntarily relate to society. But no such scheme can exist: guilds would judge any scheme differently, by what they learn and imagine. Thus defining the scheme would remain the main business of politics, and Cole has assumed what he wishes guild society to deduce.
Chapter 2
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION4 cards
In Lippmann's island example, how long were the islanders mistaken about the war?
The islanders, cut off from cable and visited by mail steamer only every sixty days, learned in mid-September 1914 that for over six weeks the English and French among them had been fighting the Germans. Lippmann uses this to show there was always an interval—six weeks on the island, perhaps six days or hours on the continent—when their mental picture of Europe no longer matched reality.
Chapter 3
What does Lippmann mean by saying we treat our pictures as the environment itself?
Lippmann argues we know the environment only indirectly, through news that arrives fast or slowly, yet whatever we believe to be a true picture we treat as if it were the environment itself. People planned careers, shipped goods, and wrote books trusting the picture in their heads, then produced results or failed to in the world as it actually was.
Chapter 3
What was Cosmas's flat-earth model in the Christian Topography?
Deputed to write a Christian Topography, Cosmas based all conclusions on Scripture as he read it. He described the world as a flat parallelogram, twice as broad east-west as long north-south, with earth at the center ringed by ocean and another earth, a conical mountain in the north around which sun and moon revolve, and a sky of four walls meeting in a concave roof.
Chapter 3
How does Lippmann describe the public personalities of great men?
Lippmann argues great men are usually known to the public only through a fictitious personality, hence only a modicum of truth in "no man is a hero to his valet," since the valet is often immersed in the fiction too. Royal personages have distinct public and private selves; biographies split accordingly, and some memoirs are self-portraiture revealing how authors like to think of themselves.
Chapter 3
CHAPTER II4 cards
How did the French command edit the Verdun communiqué during the crisis?
At Verdun in February 1916, General Joffre and his cabinet argued over the exact wording of the daily communiqué. Officers chose the simpler text, added the reassuring phrase 'as had been anticipated,' and kept von Deimling's order out of the main report, sending it instead as a separate note. The aim was to prepare the public for possible defeat without causing panic.
Chapter 4
What did the French communiqué falsely report about Fort Douaumont?
After Germany announced the fort's capture, French headquarters, ignorant of what happened, invented a plan of attack with 'a thousand to one chance of being true.' The communiqué claimed the enemy took the position after costly failed assaults and was then pushed back. In reality, troops changing in the line forgot the position; a few Germans walked in through an open door and captured it without a battle.
Chapter 4
What was the 'attrition' thesis the French command promoted?
Until late 1917, the orthodox Allied view held that the war would be decided by attrition, not strategy or diplomacy—simply killing Germans. The command's censors were told Germany's manpower was declining and that exhausted German forces would soon face the coalition. The author argues this view, spread through casualty figures and repeated formulae, led the public to accept a demoralizing defensive strategy.
Chapter 4
What conditions does the author say propaganda requires?
The author argues that without some form of censorship, propaganda in the strict sense is impossible. There must be a barrier between the public and the event, limiting access to the real environment before anyone can construct a pseudo-environment. An army's control is imperfect because the enemy's wireless communiqués and soldiers' talk on leave leak through; naval and diplomatic censorship is more complete because fewer people know what is happening.
Chapter 4
CHAPTER III4 cards
Why does Lippmann say even normal channels limit the spread of ideas?
Lippmann argues that if the massive wartime propaganda effort—Creel's division, 75,000 Four Minute Men, 755,190 speeches, 200,000 lantern slides—was needed to reach everyone in a crisis, peacetime channels are far weaker. Nothing like that machinery exists in peace, so whole groups, ghettos, enclaves and classes hear only vaguely about much that happens.
Chapter 5
How do income and communication barriers affect access to information?
Lippmann argues income determines how much communication is possible: money lets a person travel, buy books and periodicals, and bring almost any known fact within reach. But he adds that cost and available supply are barriers even without monopoly, and that people's own ideas determine how income is spent, which in turn shapes future income.
Chapter 5
What is a social set and how does it filter opinion?
Lippmann describes the social set as more like a biological clan than an economic class, tied to love, marriage and children. Within it, ideas from reading, lectures and talk are sorted, accepted or rejected, and authorities judged admissible. Its mark is the presumption that children may intermarry, and it enforces canons of Family Tradition, Respectability, Propriety, Dignity, Taste and Form.
Chapter 5
Who binds the social hierarchy together, and how does imitation spread?
Lippmann argues social leaders act as a ministry of foreign affairs, knowing their own set and its place in the hierarchy. Exceptional, often suspect figures like Beaufort and Olenska move between sets, creating personal channels through which Tarde's laws of imitation operate. Social superiors are imitated by inferiors, the rich by the poor, the city by the country, and imitation crosses frontiers.
Chapter 5
CHAPTER IV4 cards
What did the three time-estimate studies of newspaper reading roughly agree on?
Three estimates made at different times and places agreed tolerably well: about seventy to seventy-five percent of respondents thought they spent a quarter of an hour a day reading newspapers. Lippmann cautions the figures are not literal, since few people judge fifteen minutes accurately and respondents may understate time from a bias against appearing to read too long.
Chapter 6
How did Scott's count of papers read confirm the time estimates?
Scott asked Chicago men how many papers they read daily: fourteen percent read one, forty-six percent two, twenty-one percent three, and smaller shares four to eight. Two- and three-paper readers totaled sixty-seven percent, close to the seventy-one percent who rated themselves at fifteen minutes, while readers of four to eight papers matched the twenty-five percent claiming more time.
Chapter 6
What features most interested the college students surveyed?
Asked to name five most interesting features, just under twenty percent chose general news, under fifteen editorials, under twelve politics, over eight finance, over six foreign news, three and a half local, nearly three business, and a quarter of one percent labor. About sixty-seven and a half percent picked news and opinion on public affairs. Lippmann suspects the replies reflect ideals of culture and gender rather than objectivity.
Chapter 6
How did the Chicago business and professional men justify newspaper preference?
Asked why they preferred one newspaper to another, nearly seventy-one percent based their choice on public-affairs content: local news 17.8%, political 15.8%, financial 11.3%, foreign 9.5%, general 7.2%, editorials 9%. The remaining thirty percent decided on other grounds, ranging from ethical tone down to one twentieth of one percent who cared most about humor.
Chapter 6
IV. Opinion 10.5- {Editorials 5.8-4 cards
What did Lippmann conclude about the time people spend reading newspapers?
Lippmann argues the figures should not support elaborate deductions; they only make concrete how little daily effort goes into acquiring the data of our opinions. Newspapers are the principal but not sole means, supplemented by magazines, public forums, chautauquas, churches, political gatherings, union meetings, women's clubs, and news serials. Even at the most favorable estimate, the time each day any of us is directly exposed to information from the unseen environment is small.
Chapter 7
How did Lippmann compare public-affairs coverage over time?
He notes the proportion of features to news has undoubtedly increased, along with circulation and newspaper size. He expects that with more typical groups than college students or business and professional men, a smaller percentage of time and space would go to public affairs. Yet he also expects the average man spends more than a quarter of an hour on his paper, and that while the percentage of space for public affairs is lower than twenty years earlier, the net amount is greater.
Chapter 7
What did the revised table show about the tastes of business men and college students?
Lippmann reports that items dealing with public affairs—war, foreign, political, miscellaneous, business news, and opinion—totaled 76.5% of edited space in 1900. This corresponded to 70.6% of reasons Chicago business men gave in 1916 for preferring a newspaper, and to the five features that most interested 67.5% of New York college students in 1920. He concludes their tastes still correspond more or less to the averaged judgments of big-city editors twenty years earlier.
Chapter 7
What role did Lippmann assign to newspapers among the sources of opinion?
Lippmann states newspapers are certainly the principal means by which people acquire the data of their opinions, though not the only ones. Magazines, the public forum, the chautauqua, the church, political gatherings, trade union meetings, women's clubs, and news serials in moving picture houses supplement the press. Still, he argues that at the most favorable estimate, the time each day any of us is directly exposed to information from the unseen environment is small.
Chapter 7
CHAPTER V4 cards
How does coded press dispatch language affect the meaning reaching readers?
Lippmann explains that telegraphy is expensive and facilities limited, so press news is usually coded. Dispatches are culled from speeches, translated, coded, and decoded, with a few words standing for whole successions of acts and feelings. He argues language is an imperfect vehicle: words, like currency, evoke different images in different minds, so meaning suffers as it is sluiced into standard speech and distributed among alien minds.
Chapter 8
What does Lippmann say about the word 'alien' versus abstract political terms?
Lippmann notes that 'alien' is an unusually exact legal term, far more exact than words like sovereignty, independence, national honor, rights, defense, aggression, imperialism, capitalism, and socialism, about which people readily take sides 'for' or 'against.' He illustrates confusion by citing New England college students in 1920 who defined an alien as a person hostile to the country, an enemy from a foreign land, and similar vague notions.
Chapter 8
What are Ferenczi's three phases of magical experience in children?
Ferenczi describes the first phase as 'magical hallucinatory omnipotence,' where the baby gets what it wants by crying. In the second, the child points to desired things and they are given—'omnipotence by the help of magic gestures.' Later the child learns to talk and asks for what it wishes, entering 'the period of magic thoughts and magic words.' Lippmann notes these phases may persist in adults as harmless superstitions, and that many individuals, parties, and nations rarely transcend magical organization of experience.
Chapter 8
What does Lippmann mean by lucidity of mind and its role in public opinion?
Lippmann defines lucidity as the power to dissociate superficial analogies, attend to differences, and appreciate variety—a relative faculty with wide differences between people. He illustrates with a baby seeing little difference between toes, a watch, and the moon, or a Union League Club member lumping Democrats, Socialists, anarchists, and burglars together. He argues such failures of discrimination make sound public opinion difficult, since crude perceptions and vague analogies go undifferentiated.
Chapter 8
CHAPTER VI4 cards
According to Lippmann, what do we do first: see or define?
The author argues that for the most part we do not first see and then define; we define first and then see. In the outer world's confusion, we pick out what our culture has already defined for us, and tend to perceive it in the form stereotyped for us by our culture.
Chapter 9
What did the Göttingen psychology congress experiment reveal about eyewitness reports?
A staged masked-ball brawl was observed by trained psychologists who wrote immediate reports. Of forty reports, only one had under 20% errors on principal facts; fourteen had 20–40%, twelve 40–50%, thirteen over 50%. In twenty-four accounts, 10% of details were pure inventions. Lippmann says they saw their stereotype of such a brawl.
Chapter 9
How does Lippmann describe the role of the observer in a report?
Lippmann argues a report is the joint product of the knower and known, in which the observer's role is always selective and usually creative. Even an eyewitness brings something to the scene and later takes it away; what he imagines to be the account is often a transfiguration. Facts we see depend on placement and habits of our eyes.
Chapter 9
What does Lippmann mean by saying stereotypes intercept information?
The author argues accepted types, current patterns, and standard versions intercept information on its way to consciousness. To judge others fairly, we must appraise not only their information but the minds through which it filtered. He cites Americanization as substituting American for European stereotypes, changing vision, not just opinion.
Chapter 9
CHAPTER VII4 cards
Besides economy of effort, why does Lippmann say we cling to stereotypes?
The author argues stereotypes are the core of personal tradition and defenses of our social position: an ordered picture of a possible world to which our habits, tastes, comforts, and hopes have adjusted. Disturbing them feels like an attack on the foundations of our universe, because they guarantee self-respect and project our own sense of value and rights onto the world.
Chapter 10
How does Lippmann characterize Aristotle's argument for natural slavery?
The author argues Aristotle, facing skepticism when Athenian slaves were largely indistinguishable from citizens, sought to teach Greeks to see slaves in a way that justified slavery. Saying those who are slaves are slaves by nature merely asserts that whoever happens to be a slave is meant to be one; it is a stereotype, not a proposition, and it excludes the fatal question of whether this particular slave was so intended.
Chapter 10
What is the hallmark of the perfect stereotype, according to Lippmann?
It precedes the use of reason; it is a form of perception that imposes a certain character on sensory data before they reach the intelligence. It stamps itself upon the evidence in the very act of securing it, making it obdurate to education or criticism. Thus travelers' accounts often report only what they carried abroad, and stereotypes blend with sensation like looking at red through blue glasses and seeing green.
Chapter 10
What happened when German atrocity tales about Belgian snipers met Catholic resistance?
The tales, spread by press and credulity, blamed Belgian clergy for inciting atrocities, and German anger turned against the Catholic clergy generally, relighting old Protestant-Catholic hatred from Bismarck's Kulturkampf. The Catholic organization Pax contradicted the stories as early as August 16, 1914, but confined itself to acts attributed to priests. Lippmann notes the tales tapped old hatreds by association, creating a synthetic enemy.
Chapter 10
CHAPTER VIII4 cards
According to Lippmann, what actually shapes behavior: systematic ideas or their distorted versions?
Lippmann argues that what operates in history is not the systematic idea as a genius formulated it, but shifting imitations, replicas, counterfeits, analogies, and distortions in individual minds. Marxism is not what Marx wrote but what warring sects believe; the gospels as preached and understood, not the gospels themselves, shape behavior. He notes a reciprocating influence between standard and current versions, but current distributed versions affect behavior.
Chapter 11
What did Lippmann say the American stereotype of progress was composed of, and what did it neglect?
Lippmann says the stereotype of progress was fundamentally composed of mechanical inventions, and in America it suffused the whole moral code. Through it Americans saw expansion of cities but not slums, cheered census statistics but refused to consider overcrowding, and noted growth but not the drift from land or unassimilated immigration. Industry expanded at reckless cost to natural resources, and institutions were unprepared for the end of isolation.
Chapter 11
How did the American progress stereotype affect conduct in the World War, per Lippmann?
Lippmann argues the idea that war could be won by unlimited armies, credits, ships, and munitions fitted the traditional stereotype and produced something like a physical miracle. But among those most affected, there was no place for considering what the fruits of victory were or how to attain them. Aims were ignored or seen as automatic, and victory was conceived as annihilating victory in the field—yet in Paris the pattern did not fit the facts.
Chapter 11
What happens when an uncritically held stereotype is shattered, according to Lippmann?
Lippmann says an uncritically held stereotype not only censors out much that needs to be taken into account, but when the day of reckoning comes and the stereotype is shattered, likely as not what it did wisely take into account is shipwrecked with it. He cites Bernard Shaw's attack on Free Trade, Free Contract, Free Competition, Natural Liberty, Laissez-faire, and Darwinism as the punishment for such doctrines.
Chapter 11
CHAPTER IX3 cards
How does Lippmann describe the way perception combines external reality and expectation?
Lippmann argues that "the way we see things is a combination of what is there and of what we expected to find." Our constellations of imagery vibrate to vaguely similar stimuli, and may even flood consciousness in hallucination. He notes the heavens differ for an astronomer and lovers, and a page of Kant starts different thoughts in a Kantian and a radical empiricist.
Chapter 12
What did Lippmann say the older economists did with their simplified model?
Lippmann argues the older economists, finding the real social system too complicated, constructed a simplified diagram—like a child's cow with legs and head. It assumed a saving capitalist, an entrepreneur, freely contracting workmen, a landlord, and consumers using a pleasure-pain calculus. The model worked in books, then was popularized into an economic mythology.
Chapter 12
How do stereotypes affect what facts we notice and how we judge?
Lippmann argues that when stereotypes are well fixed, attention is drawn to supporting facts and diverted from contradicting ones. We see through rose-colored spectacles or a jaundiced eye. Stereotypes are loaded with preference and sentiment, so judgment often precedes evidence: we see a bad man rather than study and judge him.
Chapter 12
CHAPTER X (part 1)3 cards
What clues does Lippmann offer for detecting a stereotype's false absolutism?
Lippmann suggests that rapid contradiction is one clue: in Ruritanian propaganda, a different absolute principle was invoked for each sector, blanketing the facts that interfered with the claim. He also names inability to take account of space and time as further clues, noting that the series of contradictions showed how the argument had been constructed.
Chapter 13
How did the 'Eastern Front' stereotype distort thinking about Japan and Siberia in 1918?
People demanded reestablishment of an Eastern Front and proposed the Japanese army man it, ignoring that Vladivostok lay five thousand miles from the battleline, spanned by one broken railway. Lippmann says the stereotype of war on two fronts censored out geographical facts; some even imagined a German army in Eastern Siberia. American authorities dealt with the new facts more realistically than the French.
Chapter 13
How does Lippmann argue that practical space differs from geometrical space?
The author argues that a true conception of space is not simple geometry: a straight line on a map tells nothing about an actual voyage, which depends on ships, schedules, speed, and cost. In practical life space is a matter of available transportation. He notes boundary lines drawn under formulas like self-determination sometimes ran through factories, churches, or between a kitchen and bedroom.
Chapter 13
CHAPTER X (part 2)4 cards
In the trolley contract example, why is a 99-year monopoly unwise?
The author argues that officials lack a real sense of ninety-nine years, treating it as "forever." If surface cars are likely to go out of fashion in twenty years, such a contract condemns a future generation to inferior transportation. He suggests a subsidy now to attract capital is far better than stimulating investment through a fallacious sense of eternity.
Chapter 14
How does the author explain conflicting views of historic rights, like Alsace-Lorraine?
The author argues that arguments from history depend on the original date selected. Starting with the Rauraci and Sequani makes the land part of Ancient Gaul; Henry I makes it German; 1273 Austrian; 1648 French; 1688 almost all French. When using the argument from history, one tends to select dates that support what should be done now.
Chapter 14
What rule does the author give for how people view racial branches?
The author argues that if you like a people today you come down the branches to the trunk; if you dislike them you insist the separate branches are separate trunks. In one case you fix attention on the period before they were distinguishable, in the other after they became distinct. The view fitting the mood is taken as "truth."
Chapter 14
What did the Sheffield study find about sampling workers, and what was its conclusion?
Social workers questioned a random sample of 816 Sheffield workers, advised by Professor Bowley as mathematically fair, rather than selecting accessible workers, which would yield worthless results. They concluded about one quarter were "well equipped," approaching three-quarters "inadequately equipped," and about one-fifteenth "mal-equipped"—contrasted with unsound everyday generalizations about nationalities.
Chapter 14
CHAPTER X (part 3)3 cards
What kind of words does Lippmann say people dislike in sentences about public affairs?
Lippmann observes that people dislike qualifying words such as rather, perhaps, if, or, but, toward, not quite, almost, temporarily, and partly, preferring absolutes like most, more, least, and less. He argues that nearly every opinion about public affairs needs to be deflated by such words, yet in free moments everything tends to behave absolutely.
Chapter 15
How does Lippmann describe the swing between omnipotence and impotence?
Lippmann argues that people swing between omnipotence and impotence. During a war they insist victory will end war forever and make the world safe for democracy; afterward, the relativity of the result fades and the absoluteness of present evil overcomes the spirit, leaving people feeling helpless because they were not irresistible.
Chapter 15
What happens to real space, time, numbers, and connections in the stereotype?
Lippmann states that real space, real time, real numbers, real connections, and real weights are lost. The perspective, the background, and the dimensions of action are clipped and frozen in the stereotype, so that opinion loses its sense of proportion and context.
Chapter 15
CHAPTER XI4 cards
According to Lippmann, what is the deepest of all stereotypes?
The author argues the deepest stereotype is the human stereotype, which imputes human nature to inanimate or collective things. Social Movements, Economic Forces, National Interests, and Public Opinion get treated as persons, while figures like the Pope, the President, Lenin, Morgan, or the King become ideas and institutions. This personalizing tendency, he says, is how the mind economically handles a bewildering multitude of impressions.
Chapter 16
What two forms of exercise does Lippmann say most engage an audience?
Lippmann identifies sexual passion and fighting as the two forms of exercise that far transcend all others in how easily they are aroused and how eagerly they are sought. The two blend so intimately that a fight about sex outranks every other theme in breadth of appeal. He notes the sexual motif barely appears in American political imagery, but the fighting motif appears at every turn.
Chapter 16
What does Lippmann say popular taste demands regarding realism and romanticism?
The author argues popular taste wants drama to begin in a setting realistic enough to make identification plausible and end in a setting romantic enough to be desirable but not so romantic as to be inconceivable. The true beginning and happy ending are landmarks, with liberal canons in between. Audiences reject logically developed fantasy for lacking a familiar foothold, and reject relentless realism because they dislike defeat in a struggle that has become their own.
Chapter 16
Why does Lippmann say stereotypes cannot easily be altered in films?
Lippmann argues that because financial investment in each film and popular magazine is exorbitant, instant and widespread popularity is required. Filmmakers, like church and court painters of other ages, must adhere to existing stereotypes or pay the price of frustrating expectation. Stereotypes can be altered, but not in time to guarantee success when a film is released six months later.
Chapter 16
CHAPTER XII3 cards
Why does the same story differ for each person who hears it?
The author argues that no two experiences are alike, so each person enters a story at a different point, reenacts it in his own way, and transfuses it with his own feelings. The original theme is stressed, twisted, and embroidered by every mind it passes through, much as a Shakespeare play is altered by actors and audience at each performance.
Chapter 17
What does Lippmann mean by saying there is no one self always at work?
The author argues that nobody confronts every situation with the same character; the self engaged varies with circumstance, mood, and career. He notes that what self is engaged matters greatly in forming public opinion, since the private feeling entering an opinion may be tepid in one framing and red hot in another.
Chapter 17
How does war change which selves control a person's impulses?
The author argues that murderous hate is controlled in civil life, but when war breaks out, people begin to feel killing and hating are justified. At first the vent is narrow and the selves attuned to love of country come forward; gradually the impulse to kill becomes the main business and the characters that might modify it disintegrate, becoming central and sanctified.
Chapter 17
CHAPTER XIII1 cards
How does Lippmann explain a candidate uniting voters with conflicting opinions?
The author argues that a leader secures a homogeneous vote from heterogeneous opinion by using ambiguous formulas and 'binders'—stereotyped words like 'Lincoln' that transfer sentiment without committing to specifics. Hughes blurred 'Huerta' and 'intervention' so the words meant all things to all men, pairing 'friendship' for non-interventionists with 'new policy' and 'firmness' for interventionists.
Chapter 18
CHAPTER XIV4 cards
According to Lippmann, where does a symbol get its power?
Lippmann argues that no symbol has independent energy; its power comes only from association in the human mind. Dead emblems in museums and folklore show that symbols which once provoked ecstasy can lose all effect. Symbols must also be spoken by strategically placed people at the opportune moment, otherwise they are mere wind, since the choice of possible symbols is so great.
Chapter 19
Why do people accept certain symbols and reporters as trustworthy?
Lippmann argues that symbols take root because they are introduced by congenial and important people we recognize as authoritative. Since we are not born independent adults, we connect with the unknown outer world through beloved authorities like parents and teachers. Where facts are out of sight, true reports and plausible errors sound alike, so we choose between trustworthy and untrustworthy reporters rather than between truth and falsehood.
Chapter 19
What holds a political machine together, according to Lippmann?
Lippmann argues the machine is held together not by shared conviction but by a system of privileges, ranging from nepotism and patronage to clannishness, hero-worship, or a fixed idea. Subordinates are tied to superiors through dependence rather than independent judgment. Abolishing privileges can break up a particular machine, but Lippmann believes the machine will reappear in any coherent group, because privilege is relative and uniformity impossible.
Chapter 19
How does Lippmann contrast the leaders of a machine with the rank and file?
Lippmann argues that leaders and inner circles are in direct contact with their environment, dealing with particular candidates, balance sheets, and concrete objectives, though they may still hold stereotypes. Subordinates are not tied to them by common conviction. A group trying to think in concert can only assent or dissent, while one mind or a few can pursue a train of thought; corporate tradition is passed down through apprenticeship.
Chapter 19
CHAPTER XV3 cards
Why do leaders cultivate symbols, according to Lippmann?
The author argues leaders cherish symbols because they conserve unity and serve as focal points where differences merge. In the symbol, emotion is discharged at a common target and individual idiosyncrasy is blotted out. Only after symbols do their work does a leader gain a handle to move a crowd, which is why leaders hate destructive criticism that pokes about and breaks the transference of emotion to the symbol.
Chapter 20
How does Lippmann describe the symbol's dual role?
Lippmann calls the symbol both a mechanism of solidarity and a mechanism of exploitation. It enables people to work for a common end, but because the few strategically placed choose the concrete objectives, it also lets a few fatten on many, deflect criticism, and seduce men into facing agony for objects they do not understand. In science and contemplation symbols are the tempter; in the world of action they may be beneficent and sometimes necessary.
Chapter 20
What is Lippmann's point about the incidence of policy?
Lippmann argues the incidence of policy determines the leader-following relation. When results are remote, hidden, or postponed, and assent is a pleasurable emotion, leaders get a free hand. This explains why governments have latitude in foreign affairs, where nothing out there feels wholly real, and why leaders prefer indirect costs like long-term debts over direct taxation.
Chapter 20
CHAPTER XVI4 cards
What does Lippmann say is missing from political literature on public opinion?
Lippmann argues that while there are excellent books on government and parties—the machinery that registers opinions after formation—there is relatively little on the sources and processes from which public opinions arise. The existence of a force called Public Opinion is largely taken for granted, and writers focus instead on making government express or restrain the common will.
Chapter 21
Why did early democrats insist that reasoned righteousness welled up spontaneously from the masses?
Lippmann argues democrats could not admit aristocratic arguments about human fallibility without opening a breach in their defenses, since critics were exploiting such observations relentlessly. So they insisted the free man was a legislator by nature, just as Aristotle insisted the slave was a slave by nature. Jefferson and others held private reservations, but all agreed that if public opinion did not arise spontaneously, it would not arise at all.
Chapter 21
What was the shared major premise of democratic and aristocratic political science?
Lippmann argues both assumed the art of government to be a natural endowment. They differed only over who possessed it: royalists said kings were born to govern, Hamilton favored landholders, merchants, and learned professionals, and Jefferson located political faculties in farmers and planters. Whether one man, a few, or all males, the premise was the same—and how to bring knowledge to the ruler was never examined.
Chapter 21
Why did Lippmann say spontaneous politics required a limited environment?
Lippmann argues men could effortlessly know only the customs and obvious character of the place where they lived and worked; the outer world had to be conceived, not absorbed instinctively. Citing Aristotle, he notes citizens judging offices by merit must know each other's characters. So the only environment where spontaneous politics was possible was one confined within the ruler's direct and certain knowledge—a problem for democrats with an immense electorate.
Chapter 21
CHAPTER XVII4 cards
What does Lippmann say all schemes of pre-established harmony assume?
Lippmann argues that a broad branch of thought conceived an ideally just pattern of human relations in which each person has defined functions and rights; if each conscientiously fills that role, it does not matter whether his opinions are right or wrong. He finds this principle in caste systems, Plato, Aristotle, the feudal ideal, Dante, bureaucratic socialism, laissez-faire, syndicalism, guild socialism, anarchism, and international law.
Chapter 22
Why does Lippmann call Machiavelli a realist with disciples and a bad name?
Lippmann argues Machiavelli was the first naturalist to use plain language in a field preempted by supernaturalists, truly describing the technic of existence for the self-contained state—hence his disciples. His bad name comes partly because he courted the Medici, dreamed himself the Prince, and turned a pungent description of how things are done into a eulogy on that way of doing them.
Chapter 22
What did Jefferson's image of democracy require, according to Lippmann?
Lippmann argues Jefferson's democratic ideal combined an ideal environment with a selected class: small landowning farmers, whom he cherished almost exclusively as God's chosen people. To preserve it, Jefferson drew logical conclusions—disapproving of manufacture, foreign commerce, a navy, intangible property, and any government not centered in the small self-governing group. Lippmann notes the ideal conflicted with realities, not with the political science of the time.
Chapter 22
Why has democratic theory feared the unseen environment, and what foreign policy results?
Lippmann argues democratic theory tries to minimize the unseen environment because spontaneous democracy needs simple, intelligible interests and conditions like an isolated rural township. Hence democrats feared foreign trade, distrusted manufactures, sought self-sufficiency, and founded Utopian communities. In foreign policy, democracies have generally chosen between splendid isolation and diplomacy that violated their ideals; the most successful—Switzerland, Denmark, Australia, New Zealand, and America until recently—had no European-style foreign policy.
Chapter 22
CHAPTER XVIII2 cards
How did Jefferson change how Americans understood the Constitution?
The author argues Jefferson taught Americans to regard the Constitution as an instrument of democracy, supplying the images and phrases later used to describe politics. Though the document frankly limited popular rule, Jefferson's election was a revolution in the mind: the oligarchic facade was expunged and the Constitution was, in spirit, rewritten. Lippmann calls this a great conservative fiction, since without it loyalty to the Constitution and to democracy might have seemed incompatible.
Chapter 23
What did Jackson's revolution change about public office?
The founders treated public office as a species of property meant to stay within their social class. But democratic theory held the omnicompetent citizen, so permanence in office came to seem undemocratic. Jefferson popularized the idea but made few removals on party grounds; Jackson founded the practice of turning public office into patronage. Rotation with short terms was seen as a reform opening careers to talent and ending a class monopoly.
Chapter 23
CHAPTER XIX4 cards
What two alternatives did past reformers face when group quarrels became unbearable?
Lippmann says reformers chose between imposing a Roman peace (centralized empire) and withdrawing into isolation, autonomy, and self-sufficiency. They usually took whichever path they had least recently traveled: those weary of imperial monotony cherished local community freedom, while those who saw that freedom squandered in parochial jealousies longed for the spacious order of a great and powerful state.
Chapter 24
What did Lippmann say about coercion in social theory?
The author argues that individualists, socialists, and the new pluralists all promise a world free of Machiavelli's necessity, yet each is established by coercion, maintained by coercion, and discarded through coercion, while refusing to accept coercion as part of its ideal. He calls coercion the surd in almost all social theory except the Machiavellian, and says the temptation to ignore it becomes overwhelming for anyone trying to rationalize human life.
Chapter 24
What powers does Cole assign to the Commune despite calling it non-coercive?
Lippmann lists the Commune's powers: settling and fixing prices, allocating surplus or loss, allocating natural resources, controlling credit and communal labor-power, ratifying guild budgets, levying taxes, allocating income, arbitrating disputes between guilds, passing constitutional laws, appointing judges, conferring coercive powers on guilds, declaring war and peace, controlling armed forces, running police, and regulating personal conduct and property. Lippmann says he cannot think of a coercive power of modern government Cole forgot.
Chapter 24
What natural unit does the new democrat turn to instead of the rural township?
Lippmann says the center of interest shifted from country to city, so the new democrat turns to the workshop: the factory, meaning mines, shipyards, docks, and stations, as the natural and fundamental unit of industrial democracy. Cole insists this democracy must be exercisable directly by every member, which Lippmann notes really means the shop, since a large plant or railway system is only an inferred environment.
Chapter 24
CHAPTER XX4 cards
According to Lippmann, what happens to common interests without reliable institutions and education?
The author argues that absent institutions and education that report the environment so public realities stand out against self-centered opinion, common interests largely elude public opinion entirely. They can then be managed only by a specialized class whose personal interests reach beyond the locality. This class is irresponsible because it acts on information that is not common property, in situations the public does not conceive, and can be held to account only on the accomplished fact.
Chapter 25
What does Lippmann identify as the central fallacy of democratic theory?
The author argues democracy's fallacy is its preoccupation with the origin of government rather than its processes and results. Democrats assume that if political power is derived in the right way it will be beneficent, focusing on the source of power. Lippmann counters that no regulation at a river's source fully controls its behavior; what determines the quality of civilization is the use made of power, which cannot be controlled at the source.
Chapter 25
Why does Lippmann say the desire for self-government is not instinctive?
The author argues self-determination is only one of many interests of a human personality, adjusting itself to equally strong desires for a good life, peace, and relief from burdens. Because the art of successful self-government is not instinctive, men do not long desire self-government for its own sake but for its results. That is why the impulse to self-government is strongest as a protest against bad conditions.
Chapter 25
What alternative standard does Lippmann propose for judging government instead of the expression of will?
The author argues that instead of tying human dignity to the assumption of instinctive self-government, one should require a standard of living in which capacities are properly exercised. Government should be judged by whether it produces a minimum of health, decent housing, material necessities, education, freedom, pleasures, and beauty. Insofar as these criteria become exact and objective, political decision is brought into relation with men's interests.
Chapter 25
CHAPTER XXI4 cards
According to Lippmann, why does civil liberty not guarantee public opinion?
The author argues civil liberty assumes truth is either spontaneous or that means for securing it exist without interference. But for an invisible environment this is false: truth about distant or complex matters is not self-evident, and the machinery for assembling information is technical and expensive. Civil liberties remain fundamentally important, yet they do not by themselves supply the information citizens need.
Chapter 26
How does Lippmann describe the reader's economic relationship to the newspaper?
The author argues readers expect truth supplied gratis, paying only a nominal price or nothing, and will switch papers whenever it suits them. He notes the product is regularly sold below cost, and that a free press, judged by readers' attitudes, means newspapers virtually given away. Critics who expect the press to live like a church or school are merely voicing community moral standards.
Chapter 26
What kind of circulation do advertisers value, and why?
Advertisers buy circulation that reaches future customers, favoring papers read by the fairly prosperous who have surplus for discretionary buying. The author argues a newspaper alienating the buying public loses its one indispensable asset, since without that support it cannot live. It may attack advertisers or powerful interests, but not the buying public.
Chapter 26
Where does economic support for general news gathering come from, per Lippmann?
The author argues it comes roughly from the price paid for advertised goods by fairly prosperous sections of cities over one hundred thousand inhabitants. These buying publics are families whose income depends chiefly on trade, merchandising, manufacture, and finance. About one hundred seventy-five dailies in such cities form the key press that gathers general news for the whole nation.
Chapter 26
CHAPTER XXII2 cards
According to Lippmann, by what do readers most often judge a newspaper?
Lippmann argues that readers tend to judge a newspaper by its treatment of the part of the news in which they feel personally involved. If the paper gives a satisfactory account of what they think they know—their business, church, or party—it is fairly certain to be immune from their violent criticism. Most men hold the newspaper accountable as special pleaders on matters of their own experience, not as general readers.
Chapter 27
What did Horace Greeley advise a country editor to prioritize in 1860?
In a letter to "Friend Fletcher," Greeley advised beginning with the clear conception that the subject of deepest interest to an average human being is himself, and next his neighbors, with Asia and the Tongo Islands standing far behind. He urged chronicling every church event, farm sale, new house, mill, or store, and concisely noting big trees, mammoth beets, and bounteous harvests.
Chapter 27
CHAPTER XXIII4 cards
According to Lippmann, what must happen before a series of events becomes news?
Lippmann argues events must usually make themselves noticeable in some more or less overt, crudely overt act—such as a bankruptcy, fire, arrest, speech, or vote—before they become news. Until the course of events assumes a definable shape and some aspect is an accomplished fact, news does not separate itself from the ocean of possible truth.
Chapter 28
What does Lippmann say the relationship is between certainty of news and systems of record?
Lippmann argues there is a very direct relation between the certainty of news and the system of record. Where good machinery of record exists—stock exchange tickers, election returns, birth and death records, customs data—news is precise and dependable. Where data are unrecorded or spasmodically recorded, news is debatable or neglected.
Chapter 28
Why does Lippmann say the press agent exists?
Lippmann argues the press agent exists because reporters cannot give shape to facts daily, and facts of modern life do not spontaneously take a knowable shape. Groups hire publicity men to shape what gets reported. The press agent is censor and propagandist, responsible to employers, and to the whole truth only as it accords with the employers' interests.
Chapter 28
How did the suffragists keep suffrage in the news, according to Lippmann?
Lippmann says the suffragists knew that virtues are not news unless they jut out of routine, so they acted on it: they arranged stunts, obstructed traffic, and teased the police, entangling their cause with events already news. This kept suffrage in the news long after the arguments pro and con had become stale.
Chapter 28
CHAPTER XXIV3 cards
How does Lippmann distinguish the function of news from the function of truth?
The author argues news and truth are not the same and must be clearly distinguished. News signalizes an event; truth brings hidden facts to light, relates them, and builds a picture of reality on which men can act. The body of truth and body of news coincide only where social conditions take recognizable, measurable shape—a comparatively small part of human interest.
Chapter 29
What example does Lippmann give of a newspaper's responsibility for judging source reliability?
Lippmann says there is no excuse for stating six times that Lenin is dead when the paper's only information is a report from a repeatedly unreliable source. The news should read 'Helsingfors Says Lenin is Dead,' not 'Lenin Dead.' Editors bear most responsibility for judging source reliability, though no such exact test exists for stories of what the Russian people want.
Chapter 29
What remedy does Lippmann propose for the troubles of the press?
Lippmann says the remedy lies deeper than the press: in social organization based on a system of analysis and record, abandonment of the omnicompetent citizen, decentralization of decision, and coordination by comparable record and analysis. A running audit at centers of management makes work intelligible and uncovers news for the press through a system of intelligence that also checks the press.
Chapter 29
CHAPTER XXV3 cards
Why does Lippmann say reform measures like budgets and research bureaus are 'ugly ducklings'?
The author argues such remedies reverse how interesting public opinions are built: instead of a casual fact, a large screen of stereotypes, and a dramatic identification, they break down the drama, break through stereotypes, and offer an unfamiliar, impersonal picture of facts. This is dull or painful, and trading politicians and partisans with much to conceal exploit the public's dullness to remove their own pain.
Chapter 30
What dilemma does Lippmann say traps the social scientist between library and world?
If he stays in his library for leisure to think, he relies on casual, meager printed records from official reports, newspapers, and interviews. If he goes out where things happen, he serves a long, often wasteful apprenticeship before being admitted to the sanctum where decisions are made. He cannot dip into action and out again at will; there are no privileged listeners.
Chapter 30
What change in strategic position does Lippmann propose for the social scientist?
The author argues the expert should prepare facts for men of action rather than generalize from facts dropped to him afterward. Today the man of affairs finds facts and decides, then the social scientist deduces reasons later — an ex post facto, academic relationship. The real sequence should be: the disinterested expert first formulates facts for the decision, then compares the decision he understands with the facts he organized.
Chapter 30
CHAPTER XXVI3 cards
What is the key institutional safeguard for intelligence work?
Lippmann argues the only safeguard is to separate as absolutely as possible the staff that executes from the staff that investigates. The two should be parallel but distinct bodies, recruited differently, paid from separate funds if possible, responsible to different heads, and intrinsically uninterested in each other's success. Otherwise experts will appoint themselves censors and become a bureaucracy.
Chapter 31
What three conditions make an intelligence bureau independent?
Independence turns on three points: funds, tenure, and access to the facts. If a Congress or departmental official can cut their money, dismiss them, or close the files, the staff becomes its creature. Funds should be entrenched against sly attack, tenure should be for life with liberal retirement and dismissal only by professional peers, and access to materials should be established in the organic act.
Chapter 31
Why does Lippmann prefer gradual intelligence agencies over wholesale reorganization?
The author argues attacking all administrative absurdities at once engages every force of reaction, and reform eras end before the work is done. Each absurdity has habits, strong interests, and chummy Congressmen. Instead, introduce agencies wherever an opening exists that hold up a mirror week by week, making the machine visible to workers, chiefs, and public, so obstruction diminishes as all see the same facts.
Chapter 31
CHAPTER XXVII4 cards
According to Lippmann, what is the primary purpose of an intelligence bureau?
Lippmann argues the intelligence bureau is primarily an instrument of the man of action—the representative charged with decision and the worker at his work—not a means to burden every citizen with expert opinions. Its real use is aiding representative government and administration in politics and industry. By helping decision-makers understand their environment, it makes their actions visible and thereby makes them more responsible to the general public.
Chapter 32
On what can the general public's continuous judgment rest, according to Lippmann?
The author argues the outsider can judge only results after the event and procedure before it. Broad principles on which public opinion can be continuous are essentially principles of procedure. The outsider may ask experts whether relevant facts were duly considered, whether interested groups were heard, and whether ballots were honestly taken and accepted. He cannot usually decide for himself what is relevant or what counts as due consideration.
Chapter 32
What does Lippmann say appealing to the public on intricate matters usually means?
Lippmann argues such appeals almost always mean a desire to escape criticism from those who know by enlisting a large majority with no chance to know. The verdict then depends on who has the loudest voice, the most skilful or brazen publicity man, or the best access to newspaper space. Even a scrupulously fair editor is insufficient, since several other sides may go unmentioned by organized partisans.
Chapter 32
In Lippmann's steel industry example, what does the neutral chairman's use of experts accomplish?
The chairman calls for wage tables and government budgets and price statistics to replace words like 'well paid' and 'exploited' with specific figures, ruling which groups fall below the official minimum living wage. Lippmann says the value of expert mediation is not that it coerces partisans but that it disintegrates partisanship, untangling the stereotypes and slogans to which outsiders' reflexes readily respond.
Chapter 32
CHAPTER XXVIII4 cards
Why does Lippmann say reason cannot guide action during a sudden political crisis?
The author argues education takes years while an emergency takes hours, so there is no time to make each sailor an expert judge of experts or to consult the crew. In a crisis the only practical advice is to use a gun, make a speech, utter a slogan, or offer a compromise. Long-term education about evidence can only be addressed on shore, where men plan for many voyages.
Chapter 33
What does Lippmann identify as the time-differential in politics?
The author argues that reason advances more slowly than action must be taken, so one situation changes into another before the first is clearly understood, making much political criticism mere hindsight. This differential exists both in discovering the unknown and in propagating what has been proved. He credits Mr. Graham Wallas with inspiring examination of the invisible environment's effect on opinion, and notes we understand the element of time only by rule of thumb.
Chapter 33
How does Plato's pilot parable end, and what does Lippmann draw from it?
Plato has the true pilot called a prater and star-gazer; he warns Adeimantus to blame those who will not use philosophers, then retreats to the Academy, leaving the world to Machiavelli. Lippmann argues the strategy of reason was to retire in anger. He notes that today a pilot cannot dismiss mutineers, since he must handle a ship full of sailors, not just navigate by the stars.
Chapter 33
What does Lippmann say about despair over human possibility after the war?
The author argues there is no ground for despair, because all the ifs on which destiny hangs are as pregnant as ever. The brutality seen was only Berlin, Moscow, and Versailles from 1914 to 1919, not Armageddon. Great as the horror was, it was not universal: there were corrupt and incorruptible, muddle and miracles. You cannot despair of possibilities any human quality has exhibited.
Chapter 33
M. Jean de Pierrefeu [Footnote: Jean de Pierrefeu, _G. Q…4 cards
What did de Pierrefeu observe about the gifts and letters sent to Joffre?
De Pierrefeu, an officer on Joffre's staff, described two years of near-divine homage to the victor of the Marne. Unknown people sent boxes of candy, champagne, wines, fruit, game, clothes, and ornaments from every territory. Letters came in all scripts and dialects, calling him Savior of the World, Father of his Country, and Agent of God. Even children wrote without their parents' knowledge, most calling him 'Our Father.'
Chapter 34
According to Lippmann, how are heroes and devils made by the same mechanism?
Lippmann argues that by the same mechanism through which heroes are incarnated, devils are made. If all good was thought to come from Joffre, Foch, Wilson, or Roosevelt, all evil was attributed to Kaiser Wilhelm, Lenin, and Trotsky. To simple and frightened minds, no political reverse, strike, obstruction, or mysterious death occurred whose causes did not trace back to these personal sources of evil.
Chapter 34
When is symbolic concentration on a single personality most complete, per Lippmann?
Lippmann argues such worldwide concentration is rare and remarkable. In normal public life, symbols are checked, compared, and argued, and each represents only part of the population. The one activity where whole populations achieve the union sacrée is the middle phases of war, when fear, pugnacity, and hatred dominate the spirit, before weariness sets in. After the armistice, Allied Unity and leaders' symbols quickly faded.
Chapter 34
What does Lippmann mean by a pseudo-environment and fictions?
Lippmann says a pseudo-environment is inserted between man and his environment, and behavior responds to it, though consequences land in the real environment. By fictions he does not mean lies, but representations of the environment made by man, ranging from hallucination to the scientist's self-conscious schematic model. The real environment is too big and complex for direct acquaintance, so people must reconstruct it on a simpler model, like maps of the world.
Chapter 34
Source and licence
Text used: Project Gutenberg eBook #6456 (Public domain in the United States). Generated from the full text; cards paraphrase the source.
Version: Public domain edition. Retrieved 2026-10-31. Cards reviewed 2026-10-31.
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