The article is here; the Introduction:
In the last months of 1919, a year in which a pandemic had killed hundreds of thousands and the nation's cities had been marred by racial pogroms and mob violence, Walter Lippmann reflected on the state of the American public sphere. "[A] nation," he complained, "easily acts like a crowd. Under the influence of headlines and panicky print, the contagion of unreason can easily spread through a settled community." The press was awash in fictions and propaganda; Americans had "cease[d] to respond to truths, and respond simply to opinions." There wasn't even a way to make sure people didn't deliberately and cynically lie to the public: "[If] I lie to a million readers in a matter involving war and peace, I can lie my head off, and, if I choose the right series of lies, be entirely irresponsible." The public was acting not in response to its objective social reality, but to what Lippmann dubbed a "pseudo-environment of reports, rumors and guesses." How, he wondered, could democracy function in such an environment?
Over the coming years, as Lippmann sought to answer this question, he produced a series of books that constitute perhaps the most serious effort to think through the problems, possibilities, and limits of public opinion in modern American democracy. In particular, he developed two key insights about democratic theory that can help us today, as another generation of Americans looks on their public sphere—awash in fake news, rumor, and cynical lying—with disdain and despair.
The first was his rejection of what he dubbed the myth of the "omnicompetent citizen." Americans, Lippmann argued, cling to "the intolerable and unworkable fiction that each of us must acquire a competent opinion about all public affairs." That simply wasn't possible. American society was too complex, too vast, too differentiated. The divisions of labor were too deep, social life too confusing—a kaleidoscope of shifting experiences. And the tempo and sweep of political life, sliding from crisis to crisis, from issue to issue, made it impossible for the citizen to catch their breath. How could anyone, in the spare moments between work and leisure and family, be expected to come to a considered understanding of international trade policy one night, a labor strike the next, and a public health scandal the day after?
