PUBLIC OPINION
### I. CONCEPT
Public opinion is not simply the sum of individual opinions, but rather a complex of ideas, sentiments, judgments, and practical stances that, at a given time, represents and expresses a collective attitude conforming to the psychology of individuals and arising from an inner persuasion—more or less spontaneously produced—by which a rather large number of people think and feel uniformly about some current fact or issue.
In the case of public opinion, the term "opinion" does not have exactly the same value as when it is contrasted with "certainty" (v.) and "doubt" (v.), as a secondary degree of knowledge consisting in an imperfect assent that oscillates between doubt (the first degree), which is indecision between two opposing theses, and certainty (the third degree), which is a firm and secure adherence to one side. Individual opinion is adherence to a thesis, but with a fear of error due to the lack of intrinsic objective evidence (certainty of reason) or based on other certainties (certainty of faith; cf. Summa Theologiae, II-II, q. 2, art. 1; De Veritate, q. 1, art. 4).
Public opinion, however, can result from acts of assent that are subjectively certain, and in any case from more or less spontaneous and rational adhesions by many to ideas that, through collective communication or under the influence of more powerful personalities, propaganda centers, political and social organizations, etc., have succeeded in winning over thought or sentiment. A phenomenon similar to the formation of practical conscience thus occurs. In practical life, in fact, the judgments of many about action do not surpass the level of opinion, given the complexity of circumstances in human acts and the difficulties arising from an often disordered or confused inner state. To move to action, one then resorts to some reflected principle that helps form a practical judgment of prudence, i.e., one conforming to right reason, so that the transition to action is legitimate (cf. R. Garrigou-Lagrange, *De Beatitudine, "de actibus humanis et habitibus"*, Turin 1951, pp. 384, 389). The advice of a wise and prudent person can assist in such a pronouncement of conscience and sometimes even, by its authority, replaces personal considerations regarding the reasons for a choice and the legitimacy of a stance.
Thus it is in the realm of public opinion: since one generally deals with knowing and judging contingent and complex facts or with choosing a line of action based on motives not always fully convincing, or even with acting according to dictates of conscience often undermined by passions and interests, it is difficult—and for many nearly impossible—to form personal certainty. Many others do not engage in the work of inquiry and judgment out of laziness, skepticism, or other reasons. The thought or authority of some then intervenes, and through the skillful presentation of ideas (whether true or false in themselves), accompanied by psychological motives and emotional charges (popular themes), they determine a current in a certain direction, which many follow with secure assent. This is one of the modes of psychological interaction, as sociologists say, which essentially consists in persuading others to embrace one’s own points of view and to follow one’s own practical directions. The importance and dangers of this phenomenon are evident.
### II. IMPORTANCE
Already Machiavelli had noted (and Locke later demonstrated in *An Essay Concerning Human Understanding*, London 1690) the enormous importance, for public life, of knowing and arousing opinions in others. G. B. Vico emphasized that the renewal of these ideas and institutions is the result of transformations in what Montesquieu would later call the "general spirit" and Rousseau the "general will." According to Vico, public opinion governs customs and law, just as it commands language. The people give laws the meaning they wish, and rulers must more or less willingly adapt to the people’s sense, just as they must recognize the people’s sovereignty over language (cf. *Scienza Nuova*, IV, 6).
Already among the Romans, one speaks of *communis opinio*, *vox populi*, *fama popularis*, and *rumores*, and the phenomenon was known even to the Greeks, especially in Athens. In the Middle Ages, jurists also considered it as *consensus generalis*, which could provide arguments, indications, or testimonies. It has always influenced the development of public life, the political configuration of society, the establishment and fall of public powers. Although it does not pertain exclusively to political and social reality (as it can have other objects, such as fashion, sports, works of art, etc.), its greatest importance is manifested especially in that field, since public opinion undoubtedly exerts the most effective influence in determining choices and rejections in public life; and it is difficult, and in the long run impossible, to govern without it or against it, at least in modern democratic society, in which the people hold instruments capable of determining and influencing public powers—so much so that one can say with William Temple that public opinion is the foundation upon which the authority of rulers rests (*Essay upon the Origin and Nature of Government*, London 1672).
Especially with the French Revolution, public opinion has taken hold as an operative force in society and has increasingly asserted and organized itself, up to constituting, with journalism (v.), the so-called "fourth estate." The encyclopedists left a vast literature on the subject. Especially Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Spencer highlighted the importance of this kind of "social consensus." Today, moreover, the influence of public opinion—especially through the mass media and propaganda—is decisive in all fields, from the commercial to the cultural. After the people, through free suffrage, have expressed a parliamentary majority based on a preference largely determined by public opinion, this opinion remains the means by which the people can influence Parliament and the government. In this sense, sociologists usually distinguish between "dynamic" public opinion (leavened by rational values, progressive, operative) and "static" public opinion, passively accepted and automatically imposed, especially in absolutist regimes or in masses cleverly worked upon and reduced to blind conformity.
### III. DANGERS
The dangers that public opinion can represent for individuals and society are therefore evident. In reality, today powerful organizations often transgress the spontaneity of public opinion, reducing it to an irrational conformism that negates spontaneous reason and lowers the intellectual and ethical level of man. Unfortunately, this often occurs even around religious and moral questions, which cannot be the object of public opinion but require personally matured adherence or faith, so that one witnesses phenomena of collective deception on a colossal scale and often finds the saying *vox populi, vox Dei* to be baseless. In this field, grave problems of a moral, pastoral, and pedagogical nature arise, demanding careful study of the phenomena of public opinion and of the means to form, correct, and guide it according to truth and honesty.
IV. STUDY OF PUBLIC OPINION — In more recent times, public opinion has been subjected to scientific study from various perspectives: historical, philosophical, psychological, sociological, and ethical. Attempts have also been made to establish a special science, demodossology, i.e., the science of public opinion. According to others, public opinion can be studied as a special part of sociology. To conduct this scientific study of public opinion and its means, special schools have been established, generally incorporated as institutes or specializations within university faculties. The United States of America began this practice in the second half of the last century, followed subsequently by the principal countries. In the Catholic world, special mention may be made of the journalism schools established at the Catholic Faculty of Lille (where journalism had been taught since 1866), at the Catholic University of Louvain, the Associations of Catholic Publicists in Madrid, various American universities, the University of Santo Tomás in Manila, and the International Pro Deo Institute in Rome.