Walter Lippmann

“ The man who will follow precedent, but never create one, is merely an obvious example of the routineer. You find him desperately numerous in the civil service, in the official bureaus. To him government is something given as unconditionally, as absolutely as ocean or hill. He goes on winding the tape that he finds. His imagination has rarely extricated itself from under the administrative machine to gain any sense of what a human, temporary contraption the whole affair is. What he thinks is the heavens above him is nothing but the roof.
He is the slave of routine. ”

“ Had we protested against the assault on international morality when Belgium was invaded, our faith in public law would have been made somewhat real. For unless someone some time is ready to take some chance for the sake of internationalism, it will remain what it is to-day, an object of derision to aggressive nations. Had the United States, as the courted neutral, stood out for the neutrality of Belgium and the rules of the Hague, would have received the severest jolt it ever imagined. We do not think the United States should have gone to war. We alone cannot undertake to police the world. ”

“ Men organized this superb destruction; they created this force, thought it, dreamed it, planned it. It has got beyond their control. It has got into the service of hidden forces they do not understand. Men can master it only by clarifying their own will to end it, and making a civilization so thoroughly under their control that no machine can turn traitor to it. For while it takes as much skill to make a sword as a ploughshare, it takes a critical understanding of human values to prefer the ploughshare.
That is why civilization seems dull and war romantic to unimaginative people. ”

“ If we range ourselves with Roosevelt on this question, it is because we believe that treaties will never acquire sanctity until nations are ready to seal them with their blood. England may not have been too scrupulous about treaties in the past, but to-day she stands irrevocably committed. If she makes treaties now they may mean something, and that is an incalculable advance for the human race. So with us. It is our business to make no treaties which we are not ready to maintain with all our resources, for every scrap of paper is like a forged check, an assault on our credit in the world. ”

“ If Hull House is unable to civilize Chicago, it at least shows Chicago and America what a civilization might be like. Friendly, where our cities are friendless, beautiful, where they are ugly; sociable and open, where our daily life is furtive; work a craft; art a participation--it is in miniature the goal of statesmanship. If Chicago were like Hull House, we say to ourselves, then vice would be no problem--it would dwindle, what was left would be the Falstaff in us all, and only a spiritual anemia could worry over that jolly and redeeming coarseness. ”

“ A pattern of stereotypes is not neutral. It is not merely a way of substituting order for the great blooming, buzzing confusion of reality. It is not merely a short cut. It is all these things and something more. It is the guarantee of our self-respect; it is the projection upon the world of our own sense of our own value, our own position and our own rights. The stereotypes are, therefore, highly charged with the feelings that are attached to them. They are the fortress of our tradition, and behind its defenses we can continue to feel ourselves safe in the position we occupy. ”

“ To shut the door in the face of such a current of feeling because it is occasionally exasperated into violence would be as futile as locking up children because they get into mischief. The mind which rejects syndicalism entirely because of the by-products of its despair has had pearls cast before it in vain. I know that syndicalism means a revision of some of our plans--that it is an intrusion upon many a glib prejudice. But a human impulse is more important than any existing theory. We must not throw an unexpected guest out of the window because no place is set for him at table. ”

“ It is not enough to say that our side is more right than the enemy's, that our victory will help democracy more than his. One must insist that our victory will end war forever, and make the world safe for democracy. And when the war is over, though we have thwarted a greater evil than those which still afflict us, the relativity of the result fades out, the absoluteness of the present evil overcomes our spirit, and we feel that we are helpless because we have not been irresistible. ”

“ Yet some distinction must be drawn if we are to act at all in politics. With nothing we are for and nothing to oppose, we are merely neutral. This cleavage in public affairs is the most important choice we are called upon to make. In large measure it determines the rest of our thinking. Now some issues are fertile; some are not. Some lead to spacious results; others are blind alleys. With this in mind I wish to suggest that the distinction most worth emphasizing to-day is between those who regard government as a routine to be administered and those who regard it as a problem to be solved. ”

“ A faint recognition of this truth inspires the movement for a shorter work day, for longer vacations, for light, air, order, sunlight and dignity in factories and offices. But if the intellectual quality of our life is to be improved that is only the merest beginning. So long as so many jobs are an endless and, for the worker, an aimless routine, a kind of automatism using one set of muscles in one monotonous pattern, his whole life will tend towards an automatism in which nothing is particularly to be distinguished from anything else unless it is announced with a thunderclap. ”

“ Such men are the sparkling streams that flow through the dusty stretches of a nation. They invigorate and emphasize those times in your own life when each day is new. Then you are alive, then you drive the world before you. The business, however difficult, shapes itself to your effort; you seem to manage detail with an inferior part of yourself, while the real soul of you is active, planning, light. "I wanted thought like an edge of steel and desire like a flame." Eager with sympathy, you and your work are reflected from many angles. ”

“ So where two factions see vividly each its own aspect, and contrive their own explanations of what they see, it is almost impossible for them to credit each other with honesty. If the pattern fits their experience at a crucial point, they no longer look upon it as an interpretation. They look upon it as "reality." It may not resemble the reality, except that it culminates in a conclusion which fits a real experience. I may represent my trip from New York to Boston by a straight line on a map, just as a man may regard his triumph as the end of a straight and narrow path. ”

“ Every time Tammany Hall sets off fireworks and oratory on the Fourth of July; every time the picture of Lincoln is displayed at a political convention; every red bandanna of the Progressives and red flag of the socialists; every song from "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" to the "International"; every metrical conclusion to a great speech--whether we stand at Armageddon, refuse to press upon the brow of labor another crown of thorns, or call upon the workers of the world to unite--every one of these slogans is an incitement of the will--an effort to energize politics. ”

“ Within the life of the generation now in control of affairs, persuasion has become a self-conscious art and a regular organ of popular government. None of us begins to understand the consequences, but it is no daring prophecy to say that the knowledge of how to create consent will alter every political calculation and modify every political premise. Under the impact of propaganda, not necessarily in the sinister meaning of the word alone, the old constants of our thinking have become variables. It is no longer possible, for example, to believe in the original dogma of democracy ”

“ Why should not the Social Revolution mean the victory of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie? That may be true, but it is no reason for being bullied by it into a tame admission that what has always been must always be. I see no reason for exalting the unconscious failures of other revolutions into deliberate models for the next one. Just because the capacity of aggression in the middle class ran away with things, and failed to fuse into any decent social ideal, is not ground for trying as earnestly as possible to repeat the mistake. ”

“ Only by remembering his absolute conviction that this was the map of the universe can we begin to understand how he would have dreaded Magellan or Peary or the aviator who risked a collision with the angels and the vault of heaven by flying seven miles up in the air. In the same way we can best understand the furies of war and politics by remembering that almost the whole of each party believes absolutely in its picture of the opposition, that it takes as fact, not what is, but what it supposes to be the fact. ”

“ Democracy, because it registers popular feeling, is at least trying to build truly, and is for that reason an enlightened form of government. So we who are democrats need not believe that the people are necessarily right in their choice: some of us are always in the minority, and not a little proud of the distinction. Voting does not extract wisdom from multitudes: its real value is to furnish wisdom about multitudes. Our faith in democracy has this very solid foundation: that no leader's wisdom can be applied unless the democracy comes to approve of it. ”

“ What privileges do within the hierarchy, symbols do for the rank and file. They conserve unity. From the totem pole to the national flag, from the wooden idol to God the Invisible King, from the magic word to some diluted version of Adam Smith or Bentham, symbols have been cherished by leaders, many of whom were themselves unbelievers, because they were focal points where differences merged. The detached observer may scorn the "star-spangled" ritual which hedges the symbol, perhaps as much as the king who told himself that Paris was worth a few masses. ”

“ Much of the horror of socialism comes from a belief that by increasing the functions of government its regulating power over our daily lives will grow into a tyranny. I share this horror when certain socialists begin to propound their schemes. There is a dreadful amount of forcible scrubbing and arranging and pocketing implied in some socialisms. There is a wish to have the state use its position as general employer to become a censor of morals and arbiter of elegance, like the benevolent employers of the day who take an impertinent interest in the private lives of their workers. ”

“ He was absorbed by one interest: self-government. Mankind was interested in all kinds of other things, in order, in its rights, in prosperity, in sights and sounds and in not being bored. In so far as spontaneous democracy does not satisfy their other interests, it seems to most men most of the time to be an empty thing. Because the art of successful self-government is not instinctive, men do not long desire self-government for its own sake. They desire it for the sake of the results. That is why the impulse to self-government is always strongest as a protest against bad conditions. ”

“ What the methodically-minded do not see is that the sterility of a routine is far more appalling. Not everyone may feel that to push out into the untried, and take risks for big prizes, is worth while. Men will tell you that government has no business to undertake an adventure, to make experiments. They think that safety lies in repetition, that if you do nothing, nothing will be done to you. It's a mistake due to poverty of imagination and inability to learn from experience. Even the timidest soul dare not "stand pat." The indictment against mere routine in government is a staggering one. ”

“ But nowhere does the machine disappear. Nowhere is the idyllic theory of democracy realized. Certainly not in trades unions, nor in socialist parties, nor in communist governments. There is an inner circle, surrounded by concentric circles which fade out gradually into the disinterested or uninterested rank and file.
Democrats have never come to terms with this commonplace of group life. They have invariably regarded it as perverse. For there are two visions of democracy: one presupposes the self-sufficient individual; the other an Oversoul regulating everything. ”

“ Thus feminism, arising out of a crisis in sexual conditions, has liberated energies that are themselves the motors of any reform. In England and America voting has become the symbol of an aspiration as yet half-conscious and undefined. What women want is surely something a great deal deeper than the privilege of taking part in elections. They are looking for a readjustment of their relations to the home, to work, to children, to men, to the interests of civilized life. The vote has become a convenient peg upon which to hang aspirations that are not at all sure of their own meaning. ”

“ The press is no substitute for institutions. It is like the beam of a searchlight that moves restlessly about, bringing one episode and then another out of darkness into vision. Men cannot do the work of the world by this light alone. They cannot govern society by episodes, incidents, and eruptions. It is only when they work by a steady light of their own, that the press, when it is turned upon them, reveals a situation intelligible enough for a popular decision. ”

“ It seems as if a theory were never so active as when the reality behind it has disappeared. The empty name, the ghostly phrase, exercise an authority that is appalling. When you think of the blood that has been shed in the name of Jesus, when you think of the Holy Roman Empire, "neither holy nor Roman nor imperial," of the constitutional phrases that cloak all sorts of thievery, of the common law precedents that tyrannize over us, history begins to look almost like the struggle of man to emancipate himself from phrase-worship. ”

“ And if you lack such a pattern, the end of the war is to you what it was to so many good people, an anticlimax in a dreary and savorless world.
This marks the point where the stereotype and the facts, that cannot be ignored, definitely part company. There is always such a point, because our images of how things behave are simpler and more fixed than the ebb and flow of affairs. There comes a time, therefore, when the blind spots come from the edge of vision into the center. ”

“ Classicalism and invention are irreconcilable enemies. Let it be understood that I am not decrying the great nourishment which a living tradition offers. The criticism I am making is of those who try to feed upon the husks alone. Without the slightest paradox one may say that the classicalist is most foreign to the classics. He does not put himself within the creative impulses of the past: he is blinded by their manifestations. It is perhaps no accident that two of the greatest classical scholars in England--Gilbert Murray and Alfred Zimmern--are political radicals. ”

“ At the moment, I should like to think only about the world-wide spectacle of men acting upon their environment, moved by stimuli from their pseudo-environments. For when full allowance has been made for deliberate fraud, political science has still to account for such facts as two nations attacking one another, each convinced that it is acting in self-defense, or two classes at war each certain that it speaks for the common interest. They live, we are likely to say, in different worlds. More accurately, they live in the same world, but they think and feel in different ones. ”

“ To the politician whose daily life consists in dodging the thousand and one conflicting prejudices of his constituents, in bickering with committees, intriguing and playing for the vote; to the business man harassed on four sides by the trust, the union, the law, and public opinion,--distrustful of any wide scheme because the stupidity of his shipping clerk is the most vivid item in his mind, all this discussion about politics and the inner life will sound like so much fine-spun nonsense. ”

“ But if, instead of hanging human dignity on the one assumption about self-government, you insist that man's dignity requires a standard of living, in which his capacities are properly exercised, the whole problem changes. The criteria which you then apply to government are whether it is producing a certain minimum of health, of decent housing, of material necessities, of education, of freedom, of pleasures, of beauty, not simply whether at the sacrifice of all these things, it vibrates to the self-centered opinions that happen to be floating around in men's minds. ”

“ We cannot wait in politics for any completed theoretical discussion of its method: it is a monstrous demand. There is no pausing until political psychology is more certain. We have to act on what we believe, on half-knowledge, illusion and error. Experience itself will reveal our mistakes; research and criticism may convert them into wisdom. But act we must, and act as if we knew the nature of man and proposed to satisfy his needs.
In other words, we must put man at the center of politics, even though we are densely ignorant both of man and of politics. ”

“ But a politician with some imaginative interest in genuine affairs need not be seduced into the learned folly of pretending that reality is something else than it is. If he is to influence life he must deal with it. A deep respect is due the Schopenhauerian philosopher who looks upon the world, finds that its essence is evil, and turns towards insensitive calm. But no respect is due to anyone who sets out to reform the world by ignoring its quality. Whoever is bent upon shaping politics to better human uses must accept freely as his starting point the impulses that agitate human beings. ”

“ Nobody need waste his time debating whether or not there are to be great changes. That is settled for us whether we like it or not. What is worth debating is the method by which change is to come about. Our choice, it seems to me, lies between a blind push and a deliberate leadership, between thwarting movements until they master us, and domesticating them until they are answered.
When Roosevelt formed the Progressive Party on a platform of social reform he crystallized a deep unrest, brought it out of the cellars of resentment into the agora of political discussion. ”

“ Every sanction that mankind respects has been grouped about this one purpose--the control of capital. It is as if all history converged upon the issue, and the workers in the cause feel that they carry within them the destiny of the race. Start anywhere, with an orthodox socialist and he will lead you to this supreme economic situation. Tyrannies and race hatred, national rivalries, sex problems, the difficulties of artistic endeavor, all failures, crimes, vices--there is not one which he will not relate to private capitalism. ”

“ What looks to us like an incredible rush of events sloping towards a great historical crisis was to our ancestors little else than the occasional punctuation of daily life with an exciting incident. Even to-day when we have begun to speak of our age as a transition, there are millions of people who live in an undisturbed routine. Even those of us who regard ourselves as active in mothering the process and alert in detecting its growth are by no means constantly aware of any great change. For even the fondest mother cannot watch her child grow. ”

“ Between ourselves and our real natures we interpose that wax figure of idealizations and selections which we call our character. We extend this into all our thinking. Between us and the realities of social life we build up a mass of generalizations, abstract ideas, ancient glories, and personal wishes. They simplify and soften experience. It is so much easier to talk of poverty than to think of the poor, to argue the rights of capital than to see its results. ”

“ The problem of a human politics is not solved by a catch phrase. Criticism, of which these essays are a piece, can give the direction we must travel. But for the rest there is no smooth road built, no swift and sure conveyance at the door. We set out as if we knew; we act on the notions of man that we possess. Literature refines, science deepens, various devices extend it. Those who act on the knowledge at hand are the men of affairs. And all the while, research studies their results, artists express subtler perceptions, critics refine and adapt the general culture of the times. ”

“ The nature of political power we shall not change. If that is the way human societies organize sovereignty, the sooner we face that fact the better. For the object of democracy is not to imitate the rhythm of the stars but to harness political power to the nation's need. If corporations and governments have indeed gone on a joy ride the business of reform is not to set up fences, Sherman Acts and injunctions into which they can bump, but to take the wheel and to steer.
The corruption of which we hear so much is certainly not accounted for when you have called it dishonesty. ”

“ Having seen the evil results we have come to detest a conscious choice of issues, to feel that it smacks of sinister plotting. The vile practice of yellow newspapers and chauvinistic politicians is almost the only experience of it we have. Religion, patriotism, race, and sex are the favorite red herrings of foul political method--they are the most successful because they explode so easily and flood the mind with those unconscious prejudices which make critical thinking difficult. Yet for all its abuse the deliberate choice of issues is one of the high selective arts of the statesman. ”

“ It is only a few years since we began to center our politics upon human beings. We have no training in that kind of thought. Our schools and colleges have helped us hardly at all. We still talk about "humanity" as if it were some strange and mystical creature which could not possibly be composed of the grocer, the street-car conductor and our aunts.
That the opinion-making people of America are more interested in human welfare than in empire or abstract prosperity is an item that no statesman can disregard in his thinking. ”

“ If tradition were a reverent record of those crucial moments when men burst through their habits, a love of the past would not be the butt on which every sophomoric radical can practice his wit. But almost always tradition is nothing but a record and a machine-made imitation of the habits that our ancestors created. The average conservative is a slave to the most incidental and trivial part of his forefathers' glory--to the archaic formula which happened to express their genius or the eighteenth century contrivance by which for a time it was served. ”