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Public Opinion and the Intellectuals*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 September 2013

Francis G. Wilson
Francis G. Wilson
Affiliation:
University of Illinois
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Extract

A study of the relation of intellectuals to public opinion suggests the outlines of a sociology of the intellectuals as a functioning social group. The libertas philosophandi has long been asserted by the educated elite, and in pre-democratic days the theoretical relation to public opinion was quite clear. Philosophers have had the civil liberty to criticize government, but the same right was not generously extended to the vulgar conscience, or the common men who composed the “open public.” Actually, the rise of democracy has not really clarified the issue, though the mass or Gnostic movements of modern times have asserted the right to judge the government, the intellectuals, and any other group that might stand in the way of political victory. The democratic intellectual can hardly say that the revolting mass does not have the right to judge him, but he can and does say that public opinion must be reformed, purified, educated, or directed by the latest in scientific hypothesis. More especially, however, the modern selfconscious intellectuals have directed their fire against other groups or elites who have a following and who in fact provide a pluralistic leadership of public opinion.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 48 , Issue 2 , June 1954 , pp. 321 - 339
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1954

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References

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2 See, for example, y Gasset, José Ortega, The Revolt of the Masses, trans. from the Spanish (New York, 1932)Google Scholar. Or, in contrast, Benda, Julien, The Treason of the Intellectuals [La Trahison des Clercs], trans. Aldington, Richard (New York, 1928)Google Scholar.

3 Brinton, Crane, “Something Went Wrong: Three Views of the Heritage of the Early Nineteenth Century,” Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 14, pp. 457–62 (June, 1953)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, deals with this issue by being sharply critical of Peter Viereck, who had offered criticism of the contemporary intellectuals.

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17 Contemporary American philosophy, especially Pragmatism and Positivism, may illustrate this point. There is much valuable material on this issue in Schneider, H. W., A History of American Philosophy (New York, 1946)Google Scholar, Ch. 39.

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25 See Mornet, Daniel, Les Origines Intellectuelles de la Révolution Française (Paris, 1933)Google Scholar, passim.

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