Public Opinion

Public opinion is like a proverb, fake news, a joke and a riddle: no one invented it, and no one knows how it started. It is the result of the uncoordinated efforts of many agents, that is, of what many people do without having previously agreed on anything with each other. When they see these results, many people recognise their efforts and feel comforted by the fact that more people have opinions similar to theirs: and they may even set up a small auction in which they try to improve them. But the result of this auction is precarious, and only fortunately does it correspond to the previous intentions of the participants.

Those who study proverbs, rumours, jokes and riddles are intrigued by the idea of ​​an uncoordinated effort by many agents; this is why we speak of popular wisdom, national consciousness or the collective unconscious; and public opinion is often explained with the help of the generic notion 'what people think at home'. But none of the entities that occur in these explanations exist: no one has ever found them, or explained well how they are formed. The most likely scenario is that 'people at home' is just a way of explaining the uncoordinated actions of many people.

Public opinion often changes its appearance: sometimes it seems as old as a riddle; sometimes as new as something that has just happened. It is no more reliable than its older cousins; and the knowledge it displays is no more up-to-date or, indeed, less important than that of our comedies and proverbs. Just as we do not invent new proverbs to replace inadequate ones, so we cannot invent public opinions that are better than those we have. Public opinion changes like a wall that changes colour in the sun, not like a wall that is painted a different colour by someone's decision.

On the contrary, a proverb, a fake news story, a riddle or an anecdote are like great art. Their durability and persistence are linked to the repeated verdict of people with delicate feelings, that is, to the continued consensus of those who appreciate certain products, their habits and decisions. The cultivators of these gnomic forms create societies of people who repeat them and who recognize each other through them, and who together remember them as if they were recalling passages from the Iliad or whistling musical hits.

Public opinion, which seems to be old-fashioned, has too short a shelf life to be explained as one might explain the endurance of the classics. What people think at home is like an instant proverb, which changes with its own success in esteem. In fact, members of the public, but not joke-tellers or art lovers, end up losing their sense of self in their opinions when they realize that they coincide with the opinions of many people. Basically, the public has never liked public opinion; and public opinion changes because of this public displeasure.