It does not
involve a great additional band of officials, if you take into account
the time now spent vainly by special investigating committees, grand
juries, district attorneys, reform organizations, and bewildered
office holders, in trying to find their way through a dark muddle.
If the analysis of public opinion and of the democratic theories in
relation to the modern environment is sound in principle, then I do
not see how one can escape the conclusion that such intelligence work
is the clue to betterment. I am not referring to the few suggestions
contained in this chapter. They are merely illustrations. The task of
working out the technic is in the hands of men trained to do it, and
not even they can to-day completely foresee the form, much less the
details. The number of social phenomena which are now recorded is
small, the instruments of analysis are very crude, the concepts often
vague and uncriticized. But enough has been done to demonstrate, I
think, that unseen environments can be reported effectively, that they
can be reported to divergent groups of people in a way which is
neutral to their prejudice, and capable of overcoming their
subjectivism.
If that is true, then in working out the intelligence principle men
will find the way to overcome the central difficulty of
self-government, the difficulty of dealing with an unseen reality.
Because of that difficulty, it has been impossible for any
self-governing community to reconcile its need for isolation with the
necessity for wide contact, to reconcile the dignity and individuality
of local decision with security and wide coordination, to secure
effective leaders without sacrificing responsibility, to have useful
public opinions without attempting universal public opinions on all
subjects.
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