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Conjectures and Refutations ~ Karl Popper - 17 - Public Opinion and Liberal Principles
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Conjectures and Refutations ~ Karl Popper - 17 - Public Opinion and Liberal Principles | |
The following remarks were designed to provide material for debate at an | |
international conference of liberals (in the English sense of this term: | |
see the end of the Preface). My purpose was simply to lay the | |
foundations for a good general discussion. Because I could assume | |
liberal views in my audience I was largely concerned to challenge, | |
rather than to endorse, popular assumptions favourable to these views. | |
1. The Myth of Public Opinion | |
We should beware of a number of myths concerning ‘public opinion’ which | |
are often accepted uncritically. | |
There is, first, the classical myth, vox populi vox dei, which | |
attributes to the voice of the people a kind of final authority and | |
unlimited wisdom. Its modern equivalent is faith in the ultimate | |
common-sense rightness of that mythical figure, ‘the man in the street’, | |
his vote, and his voice. The avoidance of the plural in both cases is | |
characteristic. Yet people are, thank God, seldom univocal; and the | |
various men in the various streets are as different as any collection of | |
V.I.P.s in a conference-room. And if, on occasion, they do speak more or | |
less in unison, what they say is not necessarily wise. They may be | |
right, or they may be wrong. ‘The voice’ may be very firm on very | |
doubtful issues. (Example: the nearly unanimous and unquestioning | |
acceptance of the demand for ‘unconditional surrender’.) And it may | |
waver on issues over which there is hardly room for doubt. (Example: the | |
question whether to condone political blackmail, and mass-murder.) It | |
may be well-intentioned but imprudent. (Example: the public reaction | |
which destroyed the Hoare-Laval plan.) Or it may be neither | |
well-intentioned nor very prudent. (Example: the approval of the | |
Runciman mission; the approval of the Munich agreement of 1938.) | |
I believe nevertheless that there is a kernel of truth hidden in the vox | |
populi myth. One might put it in this way: In spite of the limited | |
information at their disposal, many simple men are often wiser than | |
their governments; and if not wiser, then inspired by better or more | |
generous intentions. (Examples: the readiness of the people of | |
Czechoslovakia to fight, on the eve of Munich; the Hoare-Laval reaction | |
again.) | |
One form of the myth—or perhaps of the philosophy behind the myth—which | |
seems to me of particular interest and importance is the doctrine that | |
truth is manifest. By this I mean the doctrine that, though error is | |
something that needs to be explained (by lack of good will or by bias or | |
by prejudice), truth will always make itself known, as long as it is not | |
suppressed. Thus arises the belief that liberty, by sweeping away | |
oppression and other obstacles, must of necessity lead to a Reign of | |
Truth and Goodness—to ‘an Elysium created by reason and graced by the | |
purest pleasures known to the love of mankind’, in the words of the | |
concluding sentence of Condorcet’s Sketch for a Historical Picture of | |
the Progress of the Human Mind. | |
I have consciously oversimplified this important myth which also may be | |
formulated: ‘Nobody, if presented with the truth, can fail to recognize | |
it.’ I propose to call this ‘the theory of rationalist optimism’. It is | |
a theory, indeed, which the Enlightenment shares with most of its | |
political offspring and its intellectual forebears. Like the vox populi | |
myth, it is another myth of the univocal voice. If humanity is a Being | |
we ought to worship, then the unanimous voice of mankind ought to be our | |
final authority. But we have learned that this is a myth, and we have | |
learned to distrust unanimity. | |
A reaction to this rationalist and optimistic myth is the romantic | |
version of the vox populi theory—the doctrine of the authority and | |
uniqueness of the popular will, of the ‘volonté generale’, of the spirit | |
of the people, of the genius of the nation, of the group mind, or of the | |
instinct of the blood. I need hardly repeat here the criticism which | |
Kant and others—among them myself—have levelled against these doctrines | |
of the irrational grasp of truth which culminates in the Hegelian | |
doctrine of the cunning of reason which uses our passions as instruments | |
for the instinctive or intuitive grasp of truth; and which makes it | |
impossible for the people to be wrong, especially if they follow their | |
passions rather than their reason. | |
An important and still very influential variant of the myth may be | |
described as the myth of the progress of public opinion, which is the | |
myth of public opinion of the nineteenth-century Liberal. It may be | |
illustrated by quoting a passage from Anthony Trollope’s Phineas Finn, | |
to which Professor E. H. Gombrich has drawn my attention. Trollope | |
describes the fate of a parliamentary motion for Irish tenant rights. | |
The division comes, and the Ministry is beaten by a majority of | |
twenty-three. ‘And now’, says Mr Monk, M.P., ‘the pity is that we are | |
not a bit nearer tenant-rights than we were before.’ | |
‘But we are nearer to it.’ | |
‘In one sense, yes. Such a debate and such a majority will make men | |
think. But no;—think is too high a word; as a rule men don’t think. But | |
it will make them believe that there is something in it. Many who before | |
regarded legislation on the subject as chimerical, will now fancy that | |
it is only dangerous, or perhaps not more than difficult. And so in time | |
it will come to be looked on as among the things possible, then among | |
the things probable;—and so at last it will be ranged in the list of | |
those few measures which the country requires as being absolutely | |
needed. That is the way in which public opinion is made.’ | |
‘It is not loss of time,’ said Phineas, ‘to have taken the first great | |
step in making it.’ | |
‘The first great step was taken long ago,’ said Mr Monk,—‘taken by men | |
who were looked upon as revolutionary demagogues, almost as traitors, | |
because they took it. But it is a great thing to take any step that | |
leads us onwards.’ | |
The theory here expounded by the radical-liberal Member of Parliament, | |
Mr Monk, may be perhaps called the ‘avant-garde theory of public | |
opinion’, or the theory of the leadership of the advanced. It is the | |
theory that there are some leaders or creators of public opinion who, by | |
books and pamphlets and letters to The Times, or by parliamentary | |
speeches and motions, manage to get some ideas first rejected and later | |
debated and finally accepted. Public opinion is here conceived as a kind | |
of public response to the thoughts and efforts of those aristocrats of | |
the mind who produce new thoughts, new ideas, new arguments. It is | |
conceived as slow, as somewhat passive and by nature conservative, but | |
nevertheless as capable, in the end, of intuitively discerning the truth | |
of the claims of the reformers—as the slow-moving but final and | |
authoritative umpire of the debates of the elite. This, no doubt, is | |
again another form of our myth, however much of the English reality may | |
at first sight appear to conform to it. No doubt, the claims of | |
reformers have often succeeded in exactly this way. But did only the | |
valid claims succeed? I am inclined to believe that, in Great Britain, | |
it is not so much the truth of an assertion or the wisdom of a proposal | |
that is likely to win for a policy the support of public opinion, as the | |
feeling that injustice is being done which can and must be rectified. It | |
is the characteristic moral sensitivity of public opinion, and the way | |
in which it has often been roused, at least in the past, which is | |
described by Trollope; its intuition of injustice rather than its | |
intuition of factual truth. It is debatable how far Trollope’s | |
description is applicable to other countries; and it would be dangerous | |
to assume that even in Great Britain public opinion will remain as | |
sensitive as in the past. | |
2. The Dangers of Public Opinion | |
Public opinion (whatever it may be) is very powerful. It may change | |
governments, even non-democratic governments. Liberals ought to regard | |
any such power with some degree of suspicion. | |
Owing to its anonymity, public opinion is an irresponsible form of | |
power, and therefore particularly dangerous from the liberal point of | |
view. (Example: colour bars and other racial questions.) The remedy in | |
one direction is obvious: by minimizing the power of the state, the | |
danger of the influence of public opinion, exerted through the agency of | |
the state, will be reduced. But this does not secure the freedom of the | |
individual’s behaviour and thought from the direct pressure of public | |
opinion. Here, the individual needs the powerful protection of the | |
state. These conflicting requirements can be at least partly met by a | |
certain kind of tradition—of which more below. | |
The doctrine that public opinion is not irresponsible, but somehow | |
‘responsible to itself’—in the sense that its mistakes will rebound upon | |
the public who held the mistaken opinion—is another form of the | |
collectivist myth of public opinion: the mistaken propaganda of one | |
group of citizens may easily harm a very different group. | |
3. Liberal Principles: A Group of Theses | |
(1) The state is a necessary evil: its powers are not to be multiplied | |
beyond what is necessary. One might call this principle the ‘Liberal | |
Razor’. (In analogy to Ockham’s Razor, i.e. the famous principle that | |
entities or essences must not be multiplied beyond what is necessary.) | |
In order to show the necessity of the state I do not appeal to Hobbes’ | |
homo-homini-lupus view of man. On the contrary, its necessity can be | |
shown even if we assume that homo homini felis, or even that homo homini | |
angelus—in other words, even if we assume that, because of their | |
gentleness, or angelic goodness, nobody ever harms anybody else. In such | |
a world there would still be weaker and stronger men, and the weaker | |
ones would have no legal right to be tolerated by the stronger ones, but | |
would owe them gratitude for their being so kind as to tolerate them. | |
Those (whether strong or weak) who think this an unsatisfactory state of | |
affairs, and who think that every person should have a right to live, | |
and that every person should have a legal claim to be protected against | |
the power of the strong, will agree that we need a state that protects | |
the rights of all. | |
It is easy to see that the state must be a constant danger, or (as I | |
have ventured to call it) an evil, though a necessary one. For if the | |
state is to fulfil its function, it must have more power at any rate | |
than any single private citizen or public corporation; and although we | |
might design institutions to minimize the danger that these powers will | |
be misused, we can never eliminate the danger completely. On the | |
contrary, it seems that most men will always have to pay for the | |
protection of the state, not only in the form of taxes but even in the | |
form of humiliation suffered, for example, at the hands of bullying | |
officials. The thing is not to pay too heavily for it. | |
(2) The difference between a democracy and a tyranny is that under a | |
democracy the government can be got rid of without bloodshed; under a | |
tyranny it cannot. | |
(3) Democracy as such cannot confer any benefits upon the citizen and it | |
should not be expected to do so. In fact democracy can do nothing—only | |
the citizens of the democracy can act (including, of course, those | |
citizens who comprise the government). Democracy provides no more than a | |
framework within which the citizens may act in a more or less organized | |
and coherent way. | |
(4) We are democrats, not because the majority is always right, but | |
because democratic traditions are the least evil ones of which we know. | |
If the majority (or ‘public opinion’) decides in favour of tyranny, a | |
democrat need not therefore suppose that some fatal inconsistency in his | |
views has been revealed. He will realize, rather, that the democratic | |
tradition in his country was not strong enough. | |
(5) Institutions alone are never sufficient if not tempered by | |
traditions. Institutions are always ambivalent in the sense that, in the | |
absence of a strong tradition, they also may serve the opposite purpose | |
to the one intended. For example, a parliamentary opposition is, roughly | |
speaking, supposed to prevent the majority from stealing the taxpayer’s | |
money. But I well remember an affair in a south-eastern European country | |
which illustrates the ambivalence of this institution. There, the | |
opposition shared the spoils with the majority. | |
To sum up: Traditions are needed to form a kind of link between | |
institutions and the intentions and valuations of individual men. | |
(6) A Liberal Utopia—that is, a state rationally designed on a | |
traditionless tabula rasa—is an impossibility. For the Liberal principle | |
demands that the limitations to the freedom of each which are made | |
necessary by social life should be minimized and equalized as much as | |
possible (Kant). But how can we apply such an a priori principle in real | |
life? Should we prevent a pianist from practising, or prevent his | |
neighbour from enjoying a quiet afternoon? All such problems can be | |
solved in practice only by an appeal to existing traditions and customs | |
and to a traditional sense of justice; to common law, as it is called in | |
Britain, and to an impartial judge’s appreciation of equity. All laws, | |
being universal principles, have to be interpreted in order to be | |
applied; and an interpretation needs some principles of concrete | |
practice, which can be supplied only by a living tradition. And this | |
holds more especially for the highly abstract and universal principles | |
of Liberalism. | |
(7) Principles of Liberalism may be described (at least today) as | |
principles of assessing, and if necessary of modifying or changing, | |
existing institutions, rather than of replacing existing institutions. | |
One can express this also by saying that Liberalism is an evolutionary | |
rather than a revolutionary creed (unless it is confronted by a | |
tyrannical regime). | |
(8) Among the traditions we must count as the most important is what we | |
may call the ‘moral framework’ (corresponding to the institutional | |
‘legal framework’) of a society. This incorporates the society’s | |
traditional sense of justice or fairness, or the degree of moral | |
sensitivity it has reached. This moral framework serves as the basis | |
which makes it possible to reach a fair or equitable compromise between | |
conflicting interests where this is necessary. It is, of course, itself | |
not unchangeable, but it changes comparatively slowly. Nothing could be | |
more dangerous than the destruction of this traditional framework, as it | |
was consciously aimed at by Nazism. In the end its destruction will lead | |
to cynicism and nihilism, i.e. to the disregard and the dissolution of | |
all human values. | |
4. The Liberal Theory of Free Discussion | |
Freedom of thought, and free discussion, are ultimate Liberal values | |
which do not really need any further justification. Nevertheless, they | |
can also be justified pragmatically in terms of the part they play in | |
the search for truth. | |
Truth is not manifest; and it is not easy to come by. The search for | |
truth demands at least | |
- (a) imagination | |
- (b) trial and error | |
- (c) the gradual discovery of our prejudices by way of (a), of (b), | |
and of critical discussion. | |
The Western rationalist tradition, which derives from the Greeks, is the | |
tradition of critical discussion—of examining and testing propositions | |
or theories by attempting to refute them. This critical rational method | |
must not be mistaken for a method of proof, that is to say, for a method | |
of finally establishing truth; nor is it a method which always secures | |
agreement. Its value lies, rather, in the fact that participants in a | |
discussion will, to some extent, change their minds, and part as wiser | |
men. | |
It is often asserted that discussion is only possible between people who | |
have a common language and accept common basic assumptions. I think that | |
this is a mistake. All that is needed is a readiness to learn from one’s | |
partner in the discussion, which includes a genuine wish to understand | |
what he intends to say. If this readiness is there, the discussion will | |
be the more fruitful the more the partners’ backgrounds differ. Thus the | |
value of a discussion depends largely upon the variety of the competing | |
views. Had there been no Tower of Babel, we should invent it. The | |
liberal does not dream of a perfect consensus of opinion; he only hopes | |
for the mutual fertilization of opinions, and the consequent growth of | |
ideas. Even when we solve a problem to universal satisfaction, we | |
create, in solving it, many new problems over which we are bound to | |
disagree. This is not to be regretted. | |
Although the search for truth through free rational discussion is a | |
public affair, it is not public opinion (whatever this may be) which | |
results from it. Though public opinion may be influenced by science and | |
may judge science, it is not the product of scientific discussion. | |
But the tradition of rational discussion creates, in the political | |
field, the tradition of government by discussion, and with it the habit | |
of listening to another point of view; the growth of a sense of justice; | |
and the readiness to compromise. | |
Our hope is thus that traditions, changing and developing under the | |
influence of critical discussion and in response to the challenge of new | |
problems, may replace much of what is usually called ‘public opinion’, | |
and take over the functions which public opinion is supposed to fulfil. | |
5. The Forms of Public Opinion | |
There are two main forms of public opinion; institutionalized and | |
non-institutionalized. | |
Examples of institutions serving or influencing public opinion: the | |
press (including Letters to the Editor); political parties; societies | |
like the Mont Pèlerin Society; Universities; book-publishing; | |
broadcasting; theatre; cinema; television. | |
Examples of non-institutionalized public opinion: what people say in | |
railway carriages and other public places about the latest news, or | |
about foreigners, or about ‘coloured men’; or what they say about one | |
another across the dinner table. (This may even become | |
institutionalized.) | |
6. Some Practical Problems: Censorship and Monopolies of Publicity | |
No theses are offered in this section—only problems. | |
How far does the case against censorship depend upon a tradition of | |
self-imposed censorship? | |
How far do publishers’ monopolies establish a kind of censorship? How | |
far are thinkers free to publish their ideas? Can there be complete | |
freedom to publish? And ought there to be complete freedom to publish | |
anything? | |
The influence and responsibility of the intelligentsia: (a) upon the | |
spread of ideas (example: socialism); (b) upon the acceptance of often | |
tyrannical fashions (example: abstract art). | |
The freedom of the Universities: (a) state interference; (b) private | |
interference; (c) interference in the name of public opinion. | |
The management of (or planning for) public opinion. ‘Public relations | |
officers.’ | |
The problem of the propaganda for cruelty in newspapers (especially in | |
‘comics’), cinema, etc. | |
The problem of taste. Standardization and levelling. | |
The problem of propaganda and advertisement versus the spread of | |
information. | |
7. A Short List of Political Illustrations | |
This is a list containing cases which should be worthy of careful | |
analysis. | |
- (1) The Hoare-Laval Plan and its defeat by the unreasonable moral | |
enthusiasm of public opinion. | |
- (2) The Abdication of Edward VIII. | |
- (3) Munich. | |
- (4) Unconditional surrender. | |
- (5) The Crichel-Down case. | |
- (6) The British habit of accepting hardship without grumbling. | |
8. Summary | |
That intangible and vague entity called public opinion sometimes reveals | |
an unsophisticated shrewdness or, more typically, a moral sensitivity | |
superior to that of the government in power. Nevertheless, it is a | |
danger to freedom if it is not moderated by a strong liberal tradition. | |
It is dangerous as an arbiter of taste, and unacceptable as an arbiter | |
of truth. But it may sometimes assume the role of an enlightened arbiter | |
of justice. (Example: The liberation of slaves in the British colonies.) | |
Unfortunately it can be ‘managed’. These dangers can be counteracted | |
only by strengthening the liberal tradition. | |
Public opinion should be distinguished from the publicity of free and | |
critical discussion which is (or should be) the rule in science, and | |
which includes the discussion of questions of justice and other moral | |
issues. Public opinion is influenced by, but neither the result of, nor | |
under the control of, discussions of this kind. Their beneficial | |
influence will be the greater the more honestly, simply and clearly, | |
these discussions are conducted. | |
Note | |
This paper was read before the Sixth Meeting of the Mont Pèlerin | |
Society at their Conference in Venice, September 1954; it was published | |
(in Italian) in Il Politico, 20, 1955, and (in German) in Ordo, 8, 1956; | |
it has not been previously published in English. | |
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