How Public Opinion Shapes American Politics - Essay Example

‘Critique Essay’ James Stimson believed that the Americans of today are not attentive to public affairs and they contribute very little to the politics. They are neither much aware about the political movements nor they feel interested in it anymore. They are more ignorant and they are satisfied with what they are and do not want to be bothered or interfered and they do not feel embarrassed at this inattentive behaviour and ignorant attitude. Some contribute to politics but not with much involvement and knowledge and cancelling out with the completely uninvolved Americans who will never change. So there are always a few who are free to make knowledgeable opinions and pay attention and cause change, James Stimson further explained this dilemma that politics or political change is exerted at the margins only. Very few people or only limited group of people brings about a political change. The history has shown that the leaders have never repented on their mistakes. Therefore if a dramatic critical change is subdued then it’s a game play of very few numbers of people who are knowledgeable and contribute to the change through order, systematically (Stimson, pp. 158-159). He explained his points through a mathematical formula of aggregate gain. Here he contrasted this mathematic term with politics as the real probability of change and effect lies at the centre and the middle. These small scale shifts clustering around the middle cause change. The two extreme sides if treated equally then this 50-50 situation is broken when these very few people that accounts for one or two percent of the electorate and thus cause a change and winning position for either of the party. James stressed on the fact that the 50-50 line is the decisive part which is the median and constitutes of one or two percent of the electorate if the elections is divided closely. To address this point that how very few people can bring about such drastic outcomes then there is a concept of self alike biased people. According to this we feel and even see others like us more than they really are. The people on the political stage of drama share same literacy, views and political involvement. The liberals and conservatives have strong bias of their struggles and they agree to each other on this, Americans don’t buy this. If two out of every 100 Americans change uniformly then the 98% stood still from either democratic or republican and the 2% is the product of change (Stimson, p. 162). James Stimson classified citizens on three segments. The first being the Passionate, these are the most involved people and make lifetime commitments adhering strictly to one side / one political party only. Their ideologue of commitment continues to remain the same over the lifetime acquiring a small portion of the American public. The third group is the Uninvolved people who lacks interest and doesn’t pay attention to movements at all and cancels the Passionate in the aggregate. The second group of people is the Scorekeepers, who are the most dedicated, knowledgeable persons and lies in the centre of both the extremes constituting the non-ideologists pragmatists. They don’t focus on who is correct or incorrect but focus on the outcomes doing a good job or not. These three categories change in sizes over time, but the middle group is responsible for producing the change. Moreover the individual movements on random basis cancel out itself in the aggregate (Stimson, pp. 163-164). Two important points are recognized here where a change is a resultant of responses of those people who pay enough attention to the movements but not being judgemental and adhered to a single party as the passionate, calling for a systematic change. Those people who are really uninvolved don’t participate in surveys; those who do might be ignorant but politically active. He further briefed that the scorekeepers of the middle group are dispassionate but are well informed. All the people cannot be knowledgeable in the same way all the people can never be ignorant. The change comers are the ones who don’t pay attention on the policies but rather the performance of policies and the final outcomes. They are committed to peace prosperity integrity and good outcomes. People hold opinions that they are unaware and the motive force is unknown. Out of the operational and symbolic ideology only the scorekeepers are the contradictory conflictions. Furthermore he classified the less attentive segment as the intelligent money makers who take part and vote on the winning horse by projective assessments or simple rule of thumb- right is the winner. The others fixed their votes right in the beginning and the finalizing change comers – the scorekeepers make the right votes after assessing both parties and are pure independents. Scorekeepers are unlike partisans and ideologists but are performance based individuals seeking change. They want the government to perform good and exhibit good outcomes being attentive and uncommitted. He favours democratic movements when the people are given equal chances to act and live. One size fits all – his democratic view. The public opinions leading to change through democracy – the scorekeepers follow two ways communicate with the government and the government in turn responds and their preferences are systematically asserted which drives Americans political change (Stimson, P. 170). On the other hand, Walter Lipmann views political changes and drafting laws as people who have their own limited areas of thinking tanks and social set ups and they are bound innately by behaviour to share and act within those social gatherings precisely. Therefore, he considers lawful bodies as a part from those people and they make laws workable with reference to those limited think tanks of their own. Therefore our values, ideas and opinions have differing boundaries and cannot be directly observed. All these diverse thoughts and opinions must be stacked together in to a synchronized output. He further stresses on the fact that whatever is heard and not witnessed, is subjective leading to personal observation of events. Furthermore even the visual happening may contain sustainable errors of viewing and presenting the truth. This largely depends on the size of crowd as the number of persons increase, the actual event or word will be displaced as many times as the number of people passing and commenting on it increases. Its accuracy and reliability decreases. Moreover the facts are actually the happenings that what we want to see and are largely dependent on our emotional, psychological and situational implications (Lippmann, p. 53). Mr. John Dewey says that every single thing striking an adult lasts as long as it is novel and bizarre. A very interesting example supporting his saying is the reporting of similarity among all the strangers belonging to different races to the visiting stranger. Thus definiteness and distinction and consistency or stability is what blurs the differences among all making them vague and unsteady. Another example he has quoted is that differing views of a chemist definition of a metal from an experienced layman. Here the layman describes the physical properties whereas the chemist sees metal as an element and describes it in context to chemical reactions and states. A fact is that prior to seeing something we start defining it, most of the time. Contrasting this to the outside world we select what has already defined to us by our culture and we perceive it as stereotypically defined to us by culture. One of the experiments also includes the reporting of incidents seen by the people that remarkably differ from the actual incident that took place. So here is a supposition that coming up with what you have not seen is difficult whereas reporting the truth is easy. The reason behind seeing the same incident differently was due the images the observers had been having as stereotypes. These images are averaged to displace the actual scene by 20 percent. Mr. Berenson exclaimed the displeasure we feel when the painter does not see what we observe in the picture. His visualization differ from ours where ours have been changed by thousands ways. Moreover Humanists of the past had never existed, those human beings that are the winners, the perfect ideals, the combating powers. No person sustains such power. More over the European thinks all American as substitution for Americanization that makes the employer see his leader through American standards only. This constitutes change of vision and mind (Lippmann, p. 56). According to an example (pageant) the Japanese and painter saw what they had already learned at the sunset and most of the times the identifiable signs of environment are picked up in untrained observations. These signs are actually our ideas that we have stocked our minds along with images. It is extremely difficult and exhausting to view things and objects in detail and cut short they are categorized as types and generalized. He stressed on the fact that we all feel intuitively that the happening of events and classification is driven by some person not by our own opinions. We don’t have much time for strengthened relations and we complete the images driven by stereotypes of our own. We see the world as the world has trained us to see it and prior to experience (Lippmann, Pp. 58-59 ). He pointed out in his work the basic motives of how and why the dealings of men in the outside world are changed from the picture inside and the cause of these misleading. He discussed the prime most factors that are the ones for limiting access to the reality. These critical factors include censorships artificially marked, imposed social contact limitation, insufficient for attending to public affairs daily, the compressing of events into mere short messages causing distortion and last but not the least the fear of accepting and confronting all those facts that would have changed a men’s life affecting its pre-set routine. All these external limitation are thus developed into questions as to how all these critical factors operate the measure and development of preconceptions and the vision changes etc. Furthermore he extended this point as to how these limited external factors transform individuals into stereotypes with their own interests and beliefs. Moreover he examined how these opinions are clustered into Public Opinion and form the national will, social purpose or group mind. Throughout his book he simply refused to buy the idea of democracy and stressed on the fact that there must be either Yes or No decision or no intermediate unlike the study of James Stimson who focused on the middle. He further said that the representatives of winners’ party of elections must devise hierarchies which in turn will shape public opinion. Symbols will be used by the leaders to reach the public distorting the reality again. According to him democratic man who is a free man is a legislator by nature as Aristotle’s slave is a slave. According to Walter, the authority does not die out under democracy rather it is reached to new heights of perfection and solidified. According to him US constitution was never as democratic as it is now made by Jefferson. According to Walter, only a specialized class of individuals can act as consultants who are to resolve many of the problems whereas the representative government has nothing to do with it. The government if it has to operate set standards for providing basic necessities and draws a border line standard limit to access its performance which according to him is a concern of very few people (Public Opinion by Walter Lippmann, 1922). Works cited Lippmann, Walter. Public Opinion. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co, 1922. Print. Stimson, James A. Tides of Consent: How Public Opinion Shapes American Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Print. Read More