4.2: What should be the role of public opinion in the political system?

How much Influence should the People have?

Here are five quotations. Consider the message of each quote about how public opinion is depicted. Which one(s) do you agree with?

Quotation One:

“I sometimes wonder whether in this respect a democracy is not uncomfortably similar to one of those prehistoric monsters with a body as long as this room and a brain the size of a pin: he lies there in his comfortable primeval mud and pays little attention to his environment; he is slow to wrath—in fact, you practically have to whack his tail off to make him aware that his interests are being disturbed; but, once he grasps this, he lays about him with such blind determination that he not only destroys his adversary but largely wrecks his native habitat” (Kennan 66).

Quotation Two:

“The voice of the people is the voice of God” (translated from the Latin, Vox Populi, Vox Dei).

Quotation Three:

“The individual is foolish, the multitude, for the moment, is foolish, when they act without deliberation; but the species is wise, and when time is given to it, as a species it always acts right” (Edmund Burke).

Quotation Four:

“Masses are rude, lame, unmade, pernicious in their demands and influence, and need not be flattered but schooled” (Ralph Waldo Emerson).

Quotation Five:

“The masses are absolutely being manipulated by those in power” (Louis Farrakhan, from “Excerpts of Interview…”).

A little background about each quotation may be helpful to consider each quote. The first is by George Kennan, a famous American diplomat stationed in the Soviet Union. In 1946, he warned the Truman Administration that the US must be prepared to “contain” or limit the influence of the Soviet Union. He worried that American democracy was not disciplined enough to sustain a long-term policy because public opinion was so fickle. Kennan wrote many diplomatic histories after he retired from the government. He preferred that foreign policymaking be delegated to diplomats and not be subjected to public consideration.

The second quotation is a famous Latin phrase used many times over the centuries. If you believe the people are like God, the government should closely follow public opinion. The third quotation is from a speech by Edmund Burke to his fellow members of the British Parliament in 1782 expressing his skepticism of democratic reforms. He believed that representatives should act as trustees by deliberating in elected legislatures about what was in the best interest of their constituents rather than simply echoing the demands of the people who often did not know what was best for themselves.

The last two are both very pessimistic. Emerson, an American transcendental poet, believed that an educated elite must teach the public to possess sound opinions. Otherwise, the people cannot be trusted. Finally, Farrakhan is a leader of the Nation of Islam. He argues that public opinion should not be trusted because it simply reflects indoctrination by racist forces.

So, consider your point of view. Do you agree with some of these quotations more than others? What influence does public opinion have on the government now? What influence should it have? Why?