Speaker 1: Chapter twenty six of Public Opinion by Walter Littman. This
Speaker 1: is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the
Speaker 1: public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit
Speaker 1: LibriVox dot org. Recorded by the Progressing America Project. Public Opinion,
Speaker 1: Chapter twenty six. Intelligence work. The practice of democracy has
Speaker 1: been ahead of its theory. For the theory holds that
Speaker 1: the adult electors, taken together, make decisions out of a
Speaker 1: will that is in them. But just as there grew
Speaker 1: up governing hierarchies which were invisible in theory, so there
Speaker 1: has been a large amount of constructive adaptation also unaccounted for.
Speaker 1: In the large image of democracy. Ways have been found
Speaker 1: to represent many interests and functions that are normally out
Speaker 1: of sight. We are most conscious of this in our
Speaker 1: theory of the courts when we explain their legislative powers
Speaker 1: and their vetos on the theory that there are interests
Speaker 1: to be guarded which might be forgotten by the elected
Speaker 1: offas officials. But the Census Bureau, when it counts, classifies,
Speaker 1: and correlates people, things, and changes, is also speaking for
Speaker 1: unseen factors in the environment. The geological survey makes mineral
Speaker 1: resources evident. The Department of Agriculture represents in the Councils
Speaker 1: of the nation factors of which each farmer sees only
Speaker 1: an infinitesimal part. School authorities, the Tariff Commission, the Consular Service,
Speaker 1: the Bureau of Internal Revenue give representation to persons, ideas,
Speaker 1: and objects which would never automatically find themselves represented in
Speaker 1: this perspective by an election. The Children's Bureau is the
Speaker 1: spokesman of a whole complex of interests and functions not
Speaker 1: ordinarily visible to the voter, and therefore incapable of becoming
Speaker 1: spontaneously a part of his public opinions. Thus, the printing
Speaker 1: of comparative statistics of infant mortality is often followed by
Speaker 1: a reduction of the death rate of babies. Municipal officials
Speaker 1: and voters did not have, before publication a place in
Speaker 1: their picture of the environment for those babies. The statistics
Speaker 1: made them visible, as visible as if the babies had
Speaker 1: elected an aldermen to air their grievances in the State Department.
Speaker 1: The government maintains a division of Far Eastern Affairs. What
Speaker 1: is it for The Japanese and the Chinese governments both
Speaker 1: maintain ambassadors in Washington. Are they not qualified to speak
Speaker 1: for the Far East? They are its representatives. Yet nobody
Speaker 1: would argue that the American government could learn all that
Speaker 1: it needed to know about the Far East by consulting
Speaker 1: these ambassadors. Supposing them to be as candidate as they
Speaker 1: know how to be, they are still limited channels of information. Therefore,
Speaker 1: to supplement them, we maintain embassies in Tokyo and Peking
Speaker 1: and consular agents at many points. Also, I assume some
Speaker 1: secret agents. These people are supposed to send reports which
Speaker 1: pass through the Division of Far Eastern Affairs to the
Speaker 1: Secretary of State. Now what does the Secretary expect of
Speaker 1: the division? I know one who expected it to spend
Speaker 1: its appropriation, But there are secretaries to whom special revelation
Speaker 1: is denied, and they turn to their divisions for help.
Speaker 1: The last thing they expect to find is a neat
Speaker 1: argument justifying the American position. What they demand is that
Speaker 1: the experts shall bring the Far East to the Secretary's desk,
Speaker 1: with all the elements in such relation that it is
Speaker 1: as if he were in contact with the Far East itself.
Speaker 1: The expert must translate, simplify, generalize, but the inference from
Speaker 1: the result must apply in the East, not merely on
Speaker 1: the premises of the report. If the Secretary is worth
Speaker 1: his salt, the very last thing he will tolerate in
Speaker 1: his experts is the suspicion that they have a policy.
Speaker 1: He does not want to know from them whether they
Speaker 1: like Japanese policy in China. He wants to know what
Speaker 1: different classes of Chinese and Japanese, English, Frenchmen, Germans and
Speaker 1: Russians think about it, and what they are likely to
Speaker 1: do because of what they think. He wants all that
Speaker 1: represented to him as the basis of his decision. The
Speaker 1: more faithfully the division represents what is not otherwise represented
Speaker 1: either by the Japanese or American ambassadors or the senators
Speaker 1: in congressmen from the Pacific coast, the better secretary of
Speaker 1: State he will be. He may decide to take his
Speaker 1: policy from the Pacific Coast, but he will take his
Speaker 1: view of Japan from Japan. It is no accident that
Speaker 1: the best diplomatic service in the world is the one
Speaker 1: in which the divorce between the assembling of knowledge and
Speaker 1: the control of policy is most perfect. During the war,
Speaker 1: in many British embassies and in the British Foreign Office,
Speaker 1: there were nearly always men permanent officials or else special appointees,
Speaker 1: who quite successfully discounted the prevailing war mind. They discarded
Speaker 1: the regamarole of being pro and khan of having favorite
Speaker 1: nationalities and pet aversions and undelivered perorations in their bosoms.
Speaker 1: They left that to the political chiefs. But in an
Speaker 1: America an embassy, I once heard an ambassador say that
Speaker 1: he never reported anything to Washington which would not cheer
Speaker 1: up the folks at home. He charmed all those who
Speaker 1: met him, helped many a stranded war worker, and was
Speaker 1: superb when he unveiled a monument. He did not understand
Speaker 1: that the power of the expert depends upon separating himself
Speaker 1: from those who make the decisions, upon not caring in
Speaker 1: his expert self what decision is made. The man who,
Speaker 1: like the ambassador, takes a line and meddles with the
Speaker 1: decision is soon discounted. There He is just one more
Speaker 1: on that side of the question. For when he begins
Speaker 1: to care too much, he begins to see what he
Speaker 1: wishes to see, and by that fact, ceases to see
Speaker 1: what he is there to see. He is there to
Speaker 1: represent the unseen. He represents people who are not voters,
Speaker 1: functions of voters that are not evident. Events that are
Speaker 1: out of sight, mute people, unborn people, relations between things
Speaker 1: and people. He has a constituency of intangibles, and intangibles
Speaker 1: cannot be used to form a political majority, because voting is,
Speaker 1: in the last analysis, a test of strength, a sublimated battle,
Speaker 1: and the expert represents no strength available in the immediate
Speaker 1: But he can exercise force by disturbing the line up
Speaker 1: of the forces. By making the invisible visible, he confronts
Speaker 1: the people who exercise material force with a new environment,
Speaker 1: sets ideas and feelings at work in them, throws them
Speaker 1: out of position, and so in the profoundest way, affects
Speaker 1: the decision. Men cannot long act in a way that
Speaker 1: they know is a contradiction of the environment as they
Speaker 1: conceive it. If they are bent on acting in a
Speaker 1: certain way, they have to reconceive the environment. They have
Speaker 1: to censor out to rationalize. But if in their presence
Speaker 1: there is an inconsistent fact which is so obtrusive that
Speaker 1: they cannot explain it away, one of three courses is open.
Speaker 1: They can perversely ignore it, though they will cripple themselves
Speaker 1: in the process, will overreact their part and come to grief.
Speaker 1: They can take it into account, but refuse to act.
Speaker 1: They pay an internal discomfort and frustration, or, and I
Speaker 1: believe this to be the most frequent case, they adjust
Speaker 1: their whole behavior to the enlarged environment. The idea that
Speaker 1: the expert is an ineffectual person because he lets others
Speaker 1: make the decisions is quite contrary to experience. The more
Speaker 1: subtle the elements that enter into the decision, the more
Speaker 1: irresponsible power the expert wields. He is certain moreover to
Speaker 1: exercise more power in the future than ever he did before,
Speaker 1: because increasingly the relevant facts will elude the voter and
Speaker 1: the administrator. All governing agencies will tend to organize bodies
Speaker 1: of research and information which will throw out tentacles and expand,
Speaker 1: as have the intelligence departments of all the armies in
Speaker 1: the world. But the experts will remain human beings. They
Speaker 1: will enjoy power, and their temptation will be to appoint
Speaker 1: themselves censors and so absorb the real function of decision.
Speaker 1: Unless their function is correctly defined. They will tend to
Speaker 1: pass on the facts they think appropriate and to pass
Speaker 1: down the decisions they approve. They will tend, in short
Speaker 1: to become a bureaucracy. The only institutional safeguard is to
Speaker 1: separate as absolutely as it is possible to do so,
Speaker 1: the staff which executes from the staff which investigates. The
Speaker 1: two should be parallel, but quite distinct bodies of men,
Speaker 1: recruited differently paid, if possible, from separate funds, responsible to
Speaker 1: different heads, intrinsically uninterested in each other's personal success. In industry,
Speaker 1: the auditors, accountants and inspectors should be independent of the manager,
Speaker 1: the superintendents foreman, and in time, I believe we shall
Speaker 1: come to see that, in order to bring industry under
Speaker 1: social control, the machinery of record will have to be
Speaker 1: independent of the boards of directors and the shareholders. But
Speaker 1: in building the intelligence sections of industry and politics, we
Speaker 1: do not start on cleared ground, And apart from insisting
Speaker 1: on this basic separation of function, it would be cumbersome
Speaker 1: to insist too precisely on the form which, in any
Speaker 1: particular instance the principle shall take. There are men who
Speaker 1: believe in intelligence work and will adopt it. There are
Speaker 1: men who do not understand it but cannot do their
Speaker 1: work without it. And there are men who will resist,
Speaker 1: but provided the principle has a foothold somewhere in every
Speaker 1: social agency, it will make progress. And the way to
Speaker 1: begin is to begin in the federal government. For example,
Speaker 1: it is not necessary to straighten out the administrative tangle
Speaker 1: and the illogical duplications of a century's growth in order
Speaker 1: to find a neat place for the intelligence bureaus, which
Speaker 1: Washington so badly needs. Before election, you can promise to
Speaker 1: rush bravely into the breach. But when you arrive there,
Speaker 1: all out of breath, you find that each absurdity is
Speaker 1: invested with habits, strong interests, and chummy congressmen attack all
Speaker 1: along the line, and you engage every force of reaction.
Speaker 1: You go forth to battle, as the poet said, and
Speaker 1: you always fall. You can lop off an antiquated bureau here,
Speaker 1: a covey of clerks. There, you can combine two bureaus,
Speaker 1: and by that time you are busy with the tariff
Speaker 1: in the railroads, and the era of reform is over. Besides,
Speaker 1: in order to effect a truly logical reorganization of the government,
Speaker 1: such as all candidates always promise, you would have to
Speaker 1: disturb more passions than you have time to quell. And
Speaker 1: any new scheme supposing you had one ready, would require
Speaker 1: officials to man it. Say what one will about office holders.
Speaker 1: Even Soviet Russia was glad to get many of the
Speaker 1: old ones back. And these old officials, if they are
Speaker 1: too ruthlessly treated, will sabotage utopia itself. No administrative scheme
Speaker 1: is workable without good will, and good will about strange
Speaker 1: practices is impossible without education. The better way is to
Speaker 1: introduce into the existing machinery wherever you can find an opening,
Speaker 1: agencies that will hold up a mirror week by week,
Speaker 1: month by month. You can hope then to make them
Speaker 1: Miss Machen visible to those who work it, as well
Speaker 1: as to the chiefs who are responsible, and to the
Speaker 1: public outside. When the office holders begin to see themselves,
Speaker 1: or rather when the outsiders, the chiefs, and the subordinates
Speaker 1: all begin to see the same facts, the same damning facts,
Speaker 1: if you like, the obstruction will diminish. The reformer's opinion
Speaker 1: that a certain bureau is inefficient is just his opinion,
Speaker 1: not so good, an opinion in the eyes of the
Speaker 1: bureau as its own. But let the work of that
Speaker 1: bureau be analyzed and recorded, and then compared with other
Speaker 1: bureaus and with private corporations. And the argument moves to
Speaker 1: another plane. There are ten departments at Washington represented in
Speaker 1: the cabinet. Suppose then there was a permanent intelligence section
Speaker 1: for each. What would be some of the conditions of
Speaker 1: effectiveness beyond all others, That the intelligence officials should be
Speaker 1: independent both of the congressional committees dealing with the department
Speaker 1: and the secretary at the head of it. That they
Speaker 1: should not be entangled, either in decision or in action.
Speaker 1: Independence then would turn mainly on three points on funds, tenure,
Speaker 1: and access to the facts. For clearly, if a particular
Speaker 1: congress or departmental official can deprive them of money, dismiss them,
Speaker 1: or close the files, the staff becomes its creature. The
Speaker 1: question of funds is both important and difficult. No agency
Speaker 1: of research can be really free if it depends upon
Speaker 1: annual doles from what may be a jealous or a
Speaker 1: parsimonious Congress. Yet the ultimate control of funds cannot be
Speaker 1: removed from the legislature. The financial arrangement should insure the
Speaker 1: staff against left handed joker and writer attack against slight destruction,
Speaker 1: and should at the same time provide for growth. The
Speaker 1: staff should be so well entrenched that an attack on
Speaker 1: its existence would have to be made in the open.
Speaker 1: It might perhaps work behind a federal charter, creating a
Speaker 1: trust fund and a sliding scale over a period of
Speaker 1: years based on the appropriation for the department to which
Speaker 1: the Intelli Diligence Bureau belonged. No great sums of money
Speaker 1: are involved anyway. The trust fund might cover the overhead
Speaker 1: and capital charges for a certain minimum staff. The sliding
Speaker 1: scale might cover the enlargements at any rate. The appropriation
Speaker 1: should be put beyond accident, like the payment of any
Speaker 1: long term obligation. This is a much less serious way
Speaker 1: of tying the hands of Congress than is the passage
Speaker 1: of a constitutional amendment or the issuance of government bonds.
Speaker 1: Congress could repeal the charter, but it would have to
Speaker 1: repeal it, not throw monkey wrenches into it. Tenure should
Speaker 1: be for life, with provision for retirement on a liberal pension,
Speaker 1: with sabbatical years set aside for advanced study and training,
Speaker 1: and with dismissal only after a trial by professional colleagues.
Speaker 1: The conditions which apply to any non profit making intellectual
Speaker 1: career should apply here. If the work is to be salient,
Speaker 1: the men who do it must have dignity, security, and
Speaker 1: in the upper ranks at least that freedom of mind
Speaker 1: which you find only where men are not too immediately
Speaker 1: concerned in practical decision. Access to the materials should be
Speaker 1: established in the organic Act. The Bureau should have the
Speaker 1: right to examine all papers and to question any official
Speaker 1: or any outsider. Continuous investigation of this sort would not
Speaker 1: at all resemble the sensational legislative inquiry and the spasmodic
Speaker 1: fishing expedition which are now a common feature of our government.
Speaker 1: The Bureau should have the right to propose accounting methods
Speaker 1: to the Department, and if the proposals rejected or violated
Speaker 1: after it has been accepted, to appeal under its charter
Speaker 1: to Congress. In the first instance, each intelligence Bureau would
Speaker 1: be the connecting link between Congress and the Department, a
Speaker 1: better link, in my judgment, than the appearance of Cabinet
Speaker 1: officers on the floor of both House and Senate, though
Speaker 1: the one proposal in no way excludes the other. The
Speaker 1: Bureau would be the congressional eye on the execution of
Speaker 1: its policy. It would be the departmental answer to Congressional criticism,
Speaker 1: and then, since operation of the department would be permanently visible.
Speaker 1: Perhaps Congress would cease to feel the need of that
Speaker 1: minute legislation born of distrust and a false doctrine of
Speaker 1: the separation of powers, which does so much to make
Speaker 1: efficient administration difficult. But of course, each of the ten
Speaker 1: bureaus could not work in a watertight compartment. In their
Speaker 1: relation to one another lies the best chance for that
Speaker 1: co ordination in which so much is heard and so
Speaker 1: little seen. Clearly, the various staffs would need to adopt,
Speaker 1: wherever possible, standards of measurement that were comparable. They would
Speaker 1: exchange their records. Then, if the War Department and the
Speaker 1: Post Office both by lumber higher carpenters or construct brick walls,
Speaker 1: they need not necessarily do them through the same agency,
Speaker 1: for that might mean cumbersome overcentralization. But they would be
Speaker 1: able to use the same measure for the same things,
Speaker 1: be conscious of the comparisons, and be treated as competitors.
Speaker 1: And the more competition of this sort the better, for
Speaker 1: the value of competition is determined by the value of
Speaker 1: the standards used to measure it. Instead, then of asking
Speaker 1: ourselves whether we believe in competition, we should ask ourselves
Speaker 1: whether we believe in that for which the competitors compete.
Speaker 1: No one in his senses expects to abolish competition, For
Speaker 1: when the last vestige of emulation had disappeared, social effort
Speaker 1: would consist in mechanical obedience to a routine, tempered in
Speaker 1: a minority by native inspiration. Yet no one expects to
Speaker 1: work out competition to its logical conclusion, in a murderous
Speaker 1: struggle of each against all. The problem is to select
Speaker 1: the goals of competition and the rules of the game.
Speaker 1: Almost always, the most visible and obvious standard of measurement
Speaker 1: will determine the rules of the game, such as money, power, popularity,
Speaker 1: applause or mister Veblin's conspicuous waste. What other standards of
Speaker 1: measurement does our civilization normally provide? How does it measure efficiency, productivity, service,
Speaker 1: for which we are always clamoring. By and large, there
Speaker 1: are no measures, and there is therefore not so much
Speaker 1: competition to achieve these ideals. For the difference between the
Speaker 1: higher and the lower motives is not as men often assert,
Speaker 1: a difference between altruism and selfishness footnote c. Chapter twelve.
Speaker 1: It is a difference between acting for easily understood aims
Speaker 1: and for aims that are obscure and vague. Exhort a
Speaker 1: man to make more profit than his neighbor, and he
Speaker 1: knows that what to aim? Exhort him to render more
Speaker 1: social service? And how is he to be certain? What
Speaker 1: service is social? What is the test? What is the measure?
Speaker 1: A subjective feeling, somebody's opinion. Tell a man in time
Speaker 1: of peace that he ought to serve his country, and
Speaker 1: you have uttered a pious platitude. Tell him in time
Speaker 1: of war, and the word service has a meaning. It
Speaker 1: is a number of concrete acts enlistment or buying bonds,
Speaker 1: or saving food, or working for a dollar a year.
Speaker 1: And each one of these services he sees definitely as
Speaker 1: part of a concrete purpose to put at the front
Speaker 1: an army larger and better armed than the enemies. So
Speaker 1: the more you are able to analyze administration and work
Speaker 1: out elements that can be compared, the more you invent
Speaker 1: quantitative measures for the qualities you wish to promote, The
Speaker 1: more you can turn competition to ideal ends. If you
Speaker 1: can contrive the right index numbers. Footnote I am not
Speaker 1: using the term index numbers in its purely technical meaning,
Speaker 1: but to cover any device for the comparative measurement of
Speaker 1: social phenomenon. You can set up a competition between individual
Speaker 1: workers in a shop, between shops, between factories, between schools.
Speaker 1: Footnote see for example, an index number for state school
Speaker 1: systems by Leonard p Ayres russell Sage Foundation, nineteen twenty.
Speaker 1: The principle of the quota was very successfully applied in
Speaker 1: the Liberty loan campaigns, and under very much more difficult
Speaker 1: circumstances by the Allied Maritime Transport Council, between government departments,
Speaker 1: between regiments, between divisions, between ships, between states, counties, cities,
Speaker 1: and the better you index numbers, the more useful to competition.
Speaker 1: The possibilities that lie in the exchange of material are evident.
Speaker 1: Each department of government is all the time asking for
Speaker 1: information that may already have been obtained by another department,
Speaker 1: though perhaps in a somewhat different form. The state department
Speaker 1: needs to know let us say, the extent of the
Speaker 1: Mexican oil reserves, their relation to the rest of the
Speaker 1: world's supply, the present ownership of Mexican oil lands, the
Speaker 1: importance of oil to warships now under construction or planned,
Speaker 1: the comparative costs in different fields. How does it secure
Speaker 1: such information. Today, the information is probably scattered through the
Speaker 1: departments of Interior, Justice, Commerce, Labor, and Navy. Either a
Speaker 1: clerk in the State department looks up Mexican oil in
Speaker 1: a book of reference, which may or may not be accurate,
Speaker 1: or somebody's private secretary telephones some way body else's private
Speaker 1: secretary asks for a memorandum, and in the course of
Speaker 1: time a darky messenger arrives with an armful of unintelligible reports.
Speaker 1: The department should be able to call on its own
Speaker 1: intelligence bureau to assemble the facts in a way suited
Speaker 1: to the diplomatic problem up for decision. In these facts,
Speaker 1: the Diplomatic Intelligence Bureau would obtain from the Central Clearinghouse. Footnote.
Speaker 1: There has been a vast development of such services among
Speaker 1: the trade associations. The possibilities of a perverted use were
Speaker 1: revealed by the New York Building Trades Investigation of nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty one. This establishment would pretty soon become a focus
Speaker 1: of information of the most extraordinary kind, and the men
Speaker 1: in it would be made aware of what the problems
Speaker 1: of government really are. They would deal with problems of definition,
Speaker 1: of terminology, of statistical technique of logic. They would traverse
Speaker 1: concretely the whole gamut of the social sciences. It is
Speaker 1: difficult to see why all this material, except a few
Speaker 1: diplomatic and military secrets, should not be opened to the
Speaker 1: scholars of the country. It is there that the political
Speaker 1: scientists would find the real nuts to crack and the
Speaker 1: real researches for his students to make. The work need
Speaker 1: not all be done in Washington, but it could be
Speaker 1: done in reference to Washington. The Central Agency would thus
Speaker 1: have in it the makings of a national university. The
Speaker 1: staff could be recruited there for the bureaus from among
Speaker 1: college graduates. They would be working on thesies selected after
Speaker 1: consultation between the curators of the National University and teachers
Speaker 1: scattered over the country. If the Association was as flexible
Speaker 1: as it ought to be, there would be, as a
Speaker 1: supplement to the permanent staff, a steady turnover of temporary
Speaker 1: and specialist appointments from the universities and exchange lectures called
Speaker 1: out from Washington. Thus, the training and the recruiting of
Speaker 1: the staff would go together. A part of the research
Speaker 1: itself would be done by students, and political science in
Speaker 1: the universities would be associated with politics and in America in
Speaker 1: its main outlines. The principle is equally applicable to state governments,
Speaker 1: to cities, and to rural counties. The work of comparison
Speaker 1: and interchange could take place by federations of state, city
Speaker 1: and county bureaus, and within those federations any desirable regional
Speaker 1: combination could be organized. So long as the accounting systems
Speaker 1: were comparable, a great deal of duplication would be avoided.
Speaker 1: Regional coordination is especially desirable for legal frontiers often do
Speaker 1: not coincide with the effective environments, yet they have a
Speaker 1: certain basis and custom that it would be costly to disturb.
Speaker 1: By co ordinating their information, Several administrative areas could reconcile
Speaker 1: autonomy of decision with co operation. New York City, for example,
Speaker 1: is already an unwieldy unit for good government from the
Speaker 1: city Hall, yet for many purposes such as health and transportation,
Speaker 1: the metropolitan district is the true unit of administration in
Speaker 1: that district. However, there are large cities like Yonkers, Jersey City, Patterson, Elizabeth, Hoboken, Bayon.
Speaker 1: They could not all be managed from one center, and
Speaker 1: yet they should act together for many functions. Ultimately, perhaps
Speaker 1: some such flexible scheme of local government, as Sydney and
Speaker 1: Beatrice Webb have suggested, may be the proper solution footnote
Speaker 1: the Reorganization of local government Chapter four in a Constitution
Speaker 1: for the Socialist Commonwealth of Great Britain. But the first
Speaker 1: step would be a co ordination, not a decision in action,
Speaker 1: but of information and research. Let the officials of the
Speaker 1: various municipalities see their common problems in the light of
Speaker 1: the same facts. It would be idle to deny that
Speaker 1: such a network of intelligence bureaus in politics and industry
Speaker 1: might become a dead weight and a perpetual irritation. One
Speaker 1: can easily imagine its attraction for men in search of
Speaker 1: soft jobs, for pedants, for mettlers. One can see red tape,
Speaker 1: mountains of papers, questionnaires, ad nauseum, seven copies of every document, endorsements, delays,
Speaker 1: lost papers, the use of Form one thirty six instead
Speaker 1: of Form two g B, the return of the document
Speaker 1: because pencil was used instead of ink, or black ink
Speaker 1: instead of red ink. The work could be done very badly.
Speaker 1: There are no fool proof institutions. But if one could
Speaker 1: assume that there was circulation through the whole system between
Speaker 1: government departments, factories, offices, and the universities. A circulation of men,
Speaker 1: a circulation of data and of criticism. The risks of
Speaker 1: dry rot would not be so great, Nor would it
Speaker 1: be true to say that these intelligence bureaus will complicate life.
Speaker 1: They will tend, on the contrary, to simplify by revealing
Speaker 1: a complexity now so great as to be humanly unmanageable.
Speaker 1: The present, fundamentally invisible system of government is so intricate
Speaker 1: that most people have given up trying to follow it,
Speaker 1: and because they do not try, they are tempted to
Speaker 1: think it comparatively simple. It is, on the contrary, elusive, concealed, opaque.
Speaker 1: The employment of an intelligence system would mean a reduction
Speaker 1: of personnel per unit of result, because by making available
Speaker 1: to all the experience of each it would reduce the
Speaker 1: amount of trial and error, and because by making the
Speaker 1: social process visible, it would assist the personnel to self criticism.
Speaker 1: It does not involve a great additional band of officials
Speaker 1: if you take into account the time now spent vainly
Speaker 1: by special investigating committees, grand juries, district attorneys, reform organizations,
Speaker 1: and bewildered officeholders in trying to find their way through
Speaker 1: a dark muddle. If the analysis of public opinion and
Speaker 1: of the democratic theories in relation to the modern environment
Speaker 1: is sound and principle, then I do not see how
Speaker 1: one can escape the conclusion that such intelligence work is
Speaker 1: the clue to betterment. I am not referring to the
Speaker 1: few suggestions contained in this chapter. They are merely illustrations.
Speaker 1: The task of working out the technique is in the
Speaker 1: hands of men trained to do it, and not even
Speaker 1: they can today completely foresee the form, much less the details.
Speaker 1: The number of social phenomena which are now recorded is small.
Speaker 1: The instruments of analysis are very crude, the concepts are
Speaker 1: often vague and uncriticized. But enough has been done to demonstrate.
Speaker 1: I think that unseen environments can be reported effectively, that
Speaker 1: they can be reported to divergent groups of people in
Speaker 1: a way which is neutral to their prejudice and capable
Speaker 1: of overcoming their subjectivism. If that is true, then in
Speaker 1: working out the intelligence principle, men will find the way
Speaker 1: to overcome the central difficulty of self government, the difficulty
Speaker 1: of dealing with an unseen reality. Because of that difficulty,
Speaker 1: it has been impossible for any self governing community to
Speaker 1: reconcile its need for isolation with the necessity for wide contact,
Speaker 1: to reconcile the dignity and individuality of local decision with
Speaker 1: security and wide coordination, to secure effective leaders without sacrificing responsibility,
Speaker 1: to have useful public opinions, without attempting universal public opinions
Speaker 1: on all subjects. As long as there was no way
Speaker 1: of establishing common versions of unseen events, common measures for
Speaker 1: separate actions, the only image of democracy that would work,
Speaker 1: even in theory was one based on an isolated community
Speaker 1: of people whose political faculties were limited, according to Aristotle's
Speaker 1: famous maxim by the range of their vision. But now
Speaker 1: there is a way out, a long one, to be sure,
Speaker 1: but a way. It is fundamentally the same way that
Speaker 1: which has enabled a citizen of Chicago, with no better
Speaker 1: eyes or ears than an Athenian to see and hear
Speaker 1: over great distances. It is possible today, it will become
Speaker 1: more possible when more labor has gone into it to
Speaker 1: reduce the discrepancies between the conceived environment and the effective environment.
Speaker 1: As that is done, federalism will work more and more
Speaker 1: by consent less and less by coercion. For while federalism
Speaker 1: is the only possible method of union among self governing groups.
Speaker 1: Footnote see Herald J. Laski, The Foundations of Sovereignty and
Speaker 1: other essays, particularly the essay of this name, as well
Speaker 1: as the problems of administrative areas, the theory of popular
Speaker 1: sovereignty and the pluralistic state. Federalism swings either towards imperial
Speaker 1: centralization or towards parochial anarchy wherever the union is not
Speaker 1: based on correct and commonly accepted ideas of federal matters.
Speaker 1: These ideas do not arise spontaneously. They have to be
Speaker 1: pieced together by generalization based on analysis, and the instruments
Speaker 1: for that analysis have to be invented and tested by research.
Speaker 1: No electoral device, no manipulation of areas, no change in
Speaker 1: the system of property, goes to the root of the matter.
Speaker 1: You cannot take more political wisdom out of human beings
Speaker 1: than there is in them, and no reform. However, sensational
Speaker 1: is truly radical, which does not consciously provide a way
Speaker 1: of overcoming the subjectivism of human opinion based on the
Speaker 1: limitation of individual experience. There are systems of government, of voting,
Speaker 1: of representation which extract more than others, but in the end,
Speaker 1: knowledge must come not from the conscience, but from the
Speaker 1: environment with which the conscience deals. When men act on
Speaker 1: the principle of intelligence, they go out to find the
Speaker 1: facts and to make their wisdom. When they ignore it,
Speaker 1: they go inside themselves and find only what is there.
Speaker 1: They elaborate their prejudice instead of increasing their knowledge. End
Speaker 1: of Chapter twenty six