HKB
11 passages · search this phrase →
Often appears with: political legitimacy and consent · justice as a virtue · crowds, mobs, and public opinion · public finance and debt · elections and representation · universal suffrage · tyranny and despotism · trial of slavery · timely combination · strategy and the aims of war · sophists teaching crowd opinion · slavery and bondage
Usually: argument (7) · skepticism (6) · indignation (5) · injustice endured (3) · letter or document (2) · reflection (2) · censure (2) · detachment (2) · confronting death (1) · crisis of belief (1)
“At such a time will not a young man’s heart, as they say, leap within him? Will any private training enable him to stand firm against the overwhelming flood of popular opinion? or will he be carried away by the stream?” Plato, The Republic · observation
“It is evident from these considerations, that the plurality of the Executive tends to deprive the people of the two greatest securities they can have for the faithful exercise of any delegated power, first, the restraints of public opinion, which lose their efficacy, as well on account of the division of the censure attendant on bad measures among a number, as on account of the uncertainty on whom it ought to fall; and, secondly, the opportunity of discovering with facility and clearness the misconduct of the persons they trust, in order either to their removal from office or to their actual punishment in cases which admit of it.” Alexander Hamilton; John Jay; James Madison, The Federalist Papers · insight
“Not only is slavery on trial, but unfortunately, the enslaved people are also on trial.” Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom · insight
“Any facts, either from slaves, slaveholders, or by-standers, calculated to enlighten the public mind, by revealing the true nature, character, and tendency of the slave system, are in order, and can scarcely be innocently withheld.” Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom · precept
“Honey itself is searching in sore and ulcerated parts; and the wisest and most judicious counsels prove provoking to distempered minds.” Plutarch, Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans · observation
“For thus we are taught even God governs the world, not by irresistible force, but persuasive argument and reason, controlling it into compliance with his eternal purposes.” Plutarch, Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans · insight
“Public life is a situation of power and energy; he trespasses against his duty who sleeps upon his watch, as well as he that goes over to the enemy.” Edmund Burke, Thoughts on the Present Discontents, and Speeches · precept
“But of all evil results due to the last contest with France, the most deplorable, perhaps, is that widespread and even universal error of public opinion and of all who think publicly, that German culture was also victorious in the struggle.” Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Thoughts out of Season, Part I · observation
“If however, it be permitted to grow and to spread, if it be spoilt by the flattering and nonsensical assurance that it has been victorious,--then, as I have said, it will have the power to extirpate German mind, and, when that is done, who knows whether there will still be anything to be made out of the surviving German body!” Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Thoughts out of Season, Part I · insight
“Its first care is to urge the scholar to express his opinions; these it proceeds to mix, dilute, and systematise, and then it administers them to the German people in the form of a bottle of medicine.” Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Thoughts out of Season, Part I · observation
“If so, he is no longer a despot, but a constitutional king; an organ or first minister of the people, distinguished only by being irremovable.” John Stuart Mill, Considerations on Representative Government · observation
He argues that plurality in the executive conceals faults and destroys responsibility, making it difficult for the public to detect blame, assign punishment, and hold officeholders accountable, unlike in a system with personal responsibility.
cabal should exist, the mere diversity of views and opinions would alone be sufficient to tincture the exercise of the executive authority with a spirit of habitual feebleness and dilatoriness. But one of the weightiest objections to a plurality in the Executive, and which lies as much against the last as the first plan, is, that it tends to conceal faults and destroy responsibility. Responsibility is of two kinds t…
Frederick Douglass explains in a letter from Rochester, July 2, 1855 that he will publish his own autobiography to reveal slavery’s nature, since enslaved people are also “on trial” and the public needs facts from all sides.
considerations caused me to hesitate, when first you kindly urged me to prepare for publication a full account of my life as a slave, and my life as a freeman. Nevertheless, I see, with you, many reasons for regarding my autobiography as exceptional in its character, and as being, in some sense, naturally beyond the reach of those reproaches which honorable and sensitive minds dislike to incur. It is not to illustra…
Plutarch argues that in public calamity and distress people become touchy and defensive, so even truthful counsel is taken as contempt, making politics hazardous and often destroying those who try to lead.
and ill fortune, that instead of due returns of honor and gratitude, obloquy and unjust surmises may often prevail, to weaken, in a considerable degree, the credit of their virtue. It is commonly said that public bodies are most insulting and contumelious to a good man, when they are puffed up with prosperity and success. But the contrary often happens; afflictions and public calamities naturally embittering and so…
Burke warns that failing timely public combination can force honest men into conspiratorial guilt; he argues the “faction” undermines freedom and executory government, so restore public men’s attention to public opinion and keep the House of Commons independent.
use. Public life is a situation of power and energy; he trespasses against his duty who sleeps upon his watch, as well as he that goes over to the enemy. There is, however, a time for all things. It is not every conjuncture which calls with equal force upon the activity of honest men; but critical exigences now and then arise, and I am mistaken if this be not one of them. Men will see the necessity of honest combi…
He argues despotic government has no real escape except if it ceases to be despotism, since allowing independent public opinion forces either constitutional monarchy or civil antagonism ending in political reversal.
being overrun, conquered, and reduced to domestic slavery either by a stronger despot, or by the nearest barbarous people who retain along with their savage rudeness the energies of freedom. Such are not merely the natural tendencies, but the inherent necessities of despotic government; from which there is no outlet, unless in so far as the despotism consents not to be despotism; in so far as the supposed good despo…
He rejects the idea that the opinions of non-electors should guide ballot policy, arguing that public opinion matters most for those dissenting, and publicity restrains power even when the public can’t perfectly judge.
and, being such, should have the safeguard of the ballot, to shield them from the undue influence of powerful individuals or classes to whom they ought not to be responsible. "This argument is specious, and I once thought it conclusive. It now appears to me fallacious. All who are fit to influence electors are not, for that reason, fit to be themselves electors. This last is a much greater power than the former, and…
Mill argues that even under universal suffrage and universal education, secret ballots would be unnecessary yet publicity would still matter because personal interest and prejudice can defeat public duty.
and as there will then be no non-electors to whom they ought to be responsible, the effect of the ballot, excluding none but the sinister influences, will be wholly beneficial. "Even in this I do not agree. I can not think that even if the people were fit for, and had obtained universal suffrage, the ballot would be desirable. First, because it could not, in such circumstances, be supposed to be needful. Let us only…
James Madison continues quoting a July 3 letter from Alexander Hamilton, warning that the Convention must act decisively to avoid disunion and misery, and predicting Hamilton will remain in New York for days if needed.
with you, my anxiety for the event of the deliberations of the Convention induces me to make this communication of what appears to be the tendency of the public mind. "I own to you, sir, that I am seriously and deeply distressed at the aspect of the counsels which prevailed when I left Philadelphia. I fear we shall let slip the golden opportunity of rescuing the American empire from d…
He argues that public opinion, amplified by assemblies and backed by threats like confiscation or death, overwhelms youth, and that “mercenary” sophists teach only the crowd’s judgments of good and evil.
who say these things the greatest of all Sophists? And do they not educate to perfection young and old, men and women alike, and fashion them after their own hearts? When is this accomplished? he said. When they meet together, and the world sits down at an assembly, or in a court of law, or a theatre, or a camp, or in any other popular resort, and there is a great uproar, and they praise some things which are being…
In Nietzsche’s own essay, the author says Germany’s public opinion forbids discussion of war’s evil effects and criticizes triumphant claims that German culture also “won,” warning victory may uproot the German mind for the empire.
it threatens to convert our victory into a signal defeat. A defeat? --I should say rather, into the uprooting of the "German Mind" for the benefit of the "German Empire." Even supposing that the fight had been between the two cultures, the standard for the value of the victor would still be a very relative one, and, in any case, would certainly not justify such exaggerated triumph or self-glorification. For, in the …
Nietzsche explains how culture-philistinism grows by praising German institutions, deferring taste-judgment to scholars, and treating scholarly opinions as medicine, creating public opinion that rejects genuine cultural change.
which binds the learned working-classes to Culture-Philistinism, we shall discover the road leading to Strauss the Writer, who has been acknowledged classical, and tihence to our last and principal theme. To begin with, that culture has contentment written in its every feature, and will allow of no important changes being introduced into the present state of German education. It is above all convinced of the origina…