Chapter 12: Force and Opinion Segment 3/20 |Previous segment
|Next segment | Contents | Overview || 2. The Bewildered Herd
and its Shepherds In the contemporary period, Hume's insight has
been revived and elaborated, but with a crucial innovation:
control of thought is more important for governments that are
free and popular than for despotic and military states. The
logic is straightforward. A despotic state can control its
domestic enemy by force, but as the state loses this weapon,
other devices are required to prevent the ignorant masses from
interfering with public affairs, which are none of their
business. These prominent features of modern political and
intellectual culture merit a closer look. The problem of
"putting the public in its place" came to the fore with what one
historian calls "the first great outburst of democratic thought
in history," the English revolution of the 17th century.11 This
awakening of the general populace raised the problem of how to
contain the threat. The libertarian ideas