Chapter IX

THE TWO QUESTIONS BEFORE THE PUBLIC

The multitude of untroubled rules that men live by are of no concern to the public. It has to deal only with the failures. Customs that are accepted by all who are expected to follow them, contracts that are carried out peaceably, promises that are kept, expectations fulfilled, raise no issue. Even when there has been a breach of the rule, there is no public question if the breach is clearly established, the aggression clearly identified, the penalty determined and imposed. The aggressor may be identified because he pleads guilty. He may be identified by some due process though he denies his guilt. The rule, a term under which I mean to include the method of detection, interpretation and enforcement, as well as the precept, is in either case intact. The force of the public can be aligned without hesitation on behalf of the authorities who administer the rule.

There is no question for the public unless there is doubt as to the validity of the rule,—doubt, that is to say, about its meaning, its soundness or the method of its application. When there is doubt the public requires simple, objective tests to help it decide where it will enlist. These tests must, therefore, answer two questions:

First, Is the rule defective?

Second, How shall the agency be recognized which is most likely to mend it?

These are, I should maintain, the only two questions which the public needs to answer in order to exert the greatest influence it is capable of exerting toward the solution of public problems. They are not, please note, the only questions which anybody has to answer to solve a problem. They are the only questions which a member of the public can usefully concern himself with if he wishes to avoid ignorant meddling.

How then shall he know the rule is defective? How shall he recognize the reformer? If he is to answer those questions at all, he must be able to answer them quickly and without real understanding of the problem. Is it possible for him to do that? Can he act intelligently but in ignorance?

I think this apparently paradoxical thing can be done in some such way as the next four chapters describe.