Walter Lippmann and George

Santayana: A Shared Vision of

Society and Public OpinionCesar Garcıa

The philosopher and journalist WalterLippmann and his Harvard professor GeorgeSantayana hold a privileged position among twen-tieth century American thinkers, particularly with-in the tradition of questioning the role of themajority in democracy. While Lippmann is con-sidered one of the fathers of the modern study ofpublic opinion, the influence Santayana had in theshaping of Lippmann’s ideas is often overlooked.The distinct and at times even antagonistic publicpersonalities of the two men have worked to ob-scure the many convictions they in fact shared. Thisarticle investigates the influence Santayana hadover Lippmann at Harvard between 1906 and 1910and, more specifically, how Santayana’s writingand thinking helped mold Lippmann’s own no-tions of public opinion and society, ideas as per-tinent today as they were almost a century ago.

At first glance, the very different life choices ofthe two men could appear to contradict this the-sis. The New York-born Lippmann (1889–1974)preferred a much more worldly lifestyle, pursuingsocial prominence through close relationshipswith politicians and the mass media. For decadeshe published a closely followed newspaper col-umn called ‘‘Today and Tomorrow’’ in the HeraldTribune. The Spanish-American Santayana (1863–1952), in turn, lived an almost marginal existence

at Harvard, embarking on few real friendshipsduring his life and retiring early to travel andeventually settle in a Roman convent. Santayana’sworks are as difficult to classify as the man him-self. A philosopher first and foremost, he alsowrote poetry and novels, although he was notconsidered a master of either genre. His greatesttalents lay precisely in those hard-to-categorizearts of the short essay, the critical review, and thepurely theoretical digressions which pepper hiswriting (Savater 70).

Nonetheless, the two men were both charac-terized by a deep-felt detachment from the world,an attitude seen in their self-defensive intellectu-alism, a tendency to distance themselves fromthose they disliked, and a manner of looking atthe world without taking into account individualcircumstances. This detachment was rooted in theinverted values of the historical times in which thetwo men lived, an era when productivity andquantity had replaced the once dominant culturalauthority and values of the learned elite. In eco-nomics, commercialism had evolved into indus-trialism; in politics, direct democracy had beenreplaced by representative democracy; and in so-ciety, a mass culture had emerged.

The irruption of the mass media at the end ofthe nineteenth century established new channels

Cesar Garcıa is assistant professor in the department of English and communication at Saint Louis University (Madrid Campus). Thisarticle is extracted from his dissertation, ‘‘Public Opinion and Press in the United States: The View of Spanish Intellectuals from 1885to 1936.’’

183Shared Vision of Society and Public Opinion � Cesar Garcıa

The Journal of American Culture, 29:2r2006, Copyright the AuthorsJournal compilation r2006, Blackwell Publishing, Inc.

for the formation of public opinion beyond directinteraction. This led some thinkers, particularly inthe burgeoning schools of social psychology andsociology, to begin conceiving the ‘‘voice of thepeople’’ not as a morally rigid, rationally maturedcollective opinion but rather as a more randomand individual phenomenon worthy of study viathe newly crafted tool of polls. Lippmann was atthe fore of this thinking as the first to questionthe Enlightenment belief that public opinion isbased on a rational evaluation of public matters.Famously, in his 1922 tome Public Opinion,Lippmann coined the term ‘‘stereotype’’ to refer tothe preconceptions, based on unexamined and a pri-ori opinions, on which people base their judgments.

Santayana’s writing on the concept of publicopinion is considerably less abundant and well-known than that of Lippmann, yet here we willdraw direct comparisons between Santayana’sideas on the subject and those of Lippmann.More generally speaking, the influence Santayanahad on Lippmann was evident from their veryfirst meeting in 1907, when the latter enrolled inan introductory Greek philosophy course taughtby the Madrid-born professor. That same yearLippmann read Santayana’s five-volume Life ofReason. Volume two of the series lays outSantayana’s elitist ideas on good government,notions that coincide with the later thinking ofthe mature Lippmann.

Santayana’s influence led Lippmann to studyphilosophy, abandoning the art history careerwhich had originally brought him to Harvard.Over the course of Lippmann’s remaining years atthe university he took all of the philosophycourses offered by Santayana—some of them be-coming almost private lessons—and received amasters degree in philosophy under Santayana’stutelage. It can be said that during these yearsthere was a mutual fascination: the professor, too,was intrigued by the intellect of his young stu-dent. In 1910 Santayana nominated Lippmannas assistant professor in philosophy, a positionLippmann relinquished in 1911.

However, Santayana’s influence over Lippmannwas shared by that of another philosopher, Will-iam James, in many ways Santayana’s intellectual

opposite. The father of pragmatism, James wasone of the leading figures of American philosophyof his era and among the most respected and vet-eran professors at Harvard. He also maintained amarked intellectual rivalry with Santayana, whohad once been his student, going so far as todescribe Santayana’s doctoral dissertation onLotze as ‘‘the perfection of rottenness’’ (qtd. inSteel 20). Lippmann adopted the Jamesian idealsof social justice, egalitarianism, respect for all ide-as, and contempt for cultural absolutism. It waseverything that Santayana, whose values werefounded on Neo-Platonism, idealism, eternal val-ues, a search for the reality beyond experience,and the rejection of cultural relativism, opposed.

Yet if we consider the whole of Lippmann’slong career, it becomes clear that those Jamesianideals began to fade as he grew older. After WorldWar I, Lippmann’s Jamesian optimism gave wayto a feeling of skepticism about mankind, an at-titude he maintained for the rest of his life. In-deed, one of Santayana’s favorite topics—the fearthat an excessive democratization of society wouldculminate in a tyranny of the majority—provedmuch longer lasting in Lippmann’s thinking. AsLippmann himself wrote to his friend BernardBerenson in 1921, ‘‘I love James more than anyvery great man I ever saw but increasingly I findSantayana inescapable’’ (qtd. in Steel 21).

Santayana, Alexis de Tocqueville and JamesBryce paved the way for what Robert Dawidoffhas called the ‘‘critical canon of American culture’’(160). In his classic work Democracy In America(1835), Tocqueville employed a similar concept ofpublic opinion as a tool for social control. TheFrench aristocrat was a pioneer in the criticalconsideration of public opinion, which, based onthe premises of political philosophy and socialpsychology, he famously called the ‘‘tyranny ofthe majority.’’ Other authors, including John Stu-art Mill, James Bryce, Gustave Le Bon, and Gab-riel Tarde, would join in this school of thought,which reigned until the triumph in the earlytwentieth century of the positivism and empiri-cism of the social sciences.

Santayana, too, harked back to Tocquevillewhen he wrote about true culture belonging to a

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deserving few. In his writing, Santayana makesnumerous references to his lack of faith in de-mocracy’s potential as a social equalizer by ex-tending aristocratic privileges to all citizens. ForSantayana, the ideal form of government wastimocracy—a government of men of merit, and amore liberal form than social democracy.

Such a timocracy (of which the RomanChurch is a good example) would differfrom the social aristocracy that now existsonly by the removal of hereditary advantag-es. People would be born equal, but theywould grow unequal, and the only equalitysubsisting would be equality of opportunity.(‘‘Reason In Society’’ 102)

Lippmann admired the precise and elegantstyle of Santayana the poet, and the moderationand discretion of Santayana the humanist. Butwhere the two thinkers most coincided was intheir shared beliefs about what Lippmann biog-rapher Ronald Steel refers to as the model of theideal society. Lippmann and Santayana shared askepticism regarding the power of public opinionand a belief in the need for educated elites to guidesociety. Both thinkers felt democracy was greatlylimited by the tyrannical power of public opinionand the inability of the ordinary man to pass ac-curate judgments on the key matters of public life.These concerns led them to advocate for a gov-ernment ruled by those possessing sufficient com-petence or knowledge of major issues. Contraryto popular belief, a disinclination toward democ-racy was already present in Walter Lippmannduring his socialist period. In fact, in 1911 Lippmannhad already encouraged liberals to accept ‘‘onceand for all the limitations of democracy’’ (qtd. inSteel 214).

Steel attributes Lippmann’s early skepticismconcerning the functioning of democracies almostexclusively to the influence of two people:Graham Wallas, disappointed leader of EnglishFabian socialism who instructed Lippmann on theirrationality of politics, and H. G. Wells, who wasalso involved in Fabian socialism and later cameunder the spell of fascism. This interpretation maybe a bit drastic. The same disinclination could also

have had its origins in the critique that Santayanahad already developed about the negative effectsof democracy on culture, particularly in the Unit-ed States. Both Santayana and Lippmann can becategorized as belonging to the most pessimisticsector of the Tocquevillian tradition in their ac-knowledgment of the challenges modern manfaces to maintain a rich spiritual life while livingin democracy. Instead, these writers proclaim thehierarchy of the world of the intellect, the spirit,and the aristocracy of talents, values that earnedeach a certain reputation for snobbishness.

AnUnreciprocated Respect

In spite of the similarities in Santayana’s andLippmann’s thinking, the influence can be seen tohave worked in only one direction. Throughouthis more than 500 pages of memoirs, for example,Santayana does not once mention the Americanjournalist, and in his extensive collection of let-ters—more than 3,000 compiled by his literaryexecutor, Daniel L. Cory—Santayana namesLippmann perhaps a half a dozen times and notalways in the most flattering light. Lippmann, onthe other hand, often cites his ex-professor andrepeatedly mentions the influence that Santayanaexerted on his thinking.

It is difficult to convincingly explain whySantayana had such low personal regard forLippmann. In the preface to the fourth volume ofSantayana’s letters, editor William G. Holzbergerreasons the antipathy could stem from Santayana’sopposition to Lippmann’s conversion from so-cialism to conservative thinking. The claim that‘‘Santayana was never well disposed towardconverts of any sort’’ (Holzberger, ‘‘FourthBook’’ xiv) seems plausible although difficult todemonstrate.

It is also possible to interpret motivations of amore personal nature. For example, Santayana,who had become a sort of mentor to Lippmannduring the four years that Lippmann spent atHarvard, was disappointed when his student aban-doned his academic position in the philosophy

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department to go to work for a newspaper withsocialist tendencies, the Boston Common. It isalso likely that Santayana interpreted Lippmann’semerging fame in the world of journalism andpolitics as similar to that of a social climber, andsomeone willing to betray his own intellectualideals of distancing (detachment), in order to baskin the glory of social notoriety.

In 1929 John Middleton Mary, editor of themagazine New Adelphi, asked Santayana for acritique of Lippmann’s A Preface to Morals,claiming that it would be of interest to read themaster’s opinion of his disciple’s work. In hisreply, written on September 17, 1929, Santayanarejected the request: ‘‘It is with difficulty that Ithink of Lippmann as a disciple of mine’’ (qtd. inHolzberger, Fourth Book 130). In addition, ithas also been suggested by many authors thatSantayana was anti-Semitic, a factor which mightexplain his lack of esteem for Lippmann. Forexample, Santayana references Lippmann’sJewishness as an explanation for his identificationwith socialist ideas until after World War I.

Is there any bitter socialism, or is it all Jew-ish and academia? In saying Jewish I wasthinking of some successful Jews, like mypupil Walter Lippmann, who only wanta chance to thrive themselves. (qtd. inHolzberger, Fourth Book 55)

However, affirmations of such a nature fromSantayana can be attributed more to the generalanti-Semitism of the time rather than to any spe-cific racism on Santayana’s part. Indeed, he was aconfessed admirer of Jewish authors like Edmanand especially Spinoza.

The final chapter of Lippmann’s and Santayana’sintellectual relationship comes with the chainof events following the former’s publication ofPreface to Morals in 1929. Santayana critiqued thebook in The Saturday Review of Literature, andLippmann published a retort in the same edition.The approach of the book could not have beenmore stoic: those who, like Lippmann, had losttheir religious faith in modern societies hadno alternative means of salvation but to adopt asecular humanism accessible only to superior

emotional responses. Although Lippmann’s the-sis was fundamentally based on the philosophy ofSpinoza and Santayana’s ‘‘religion of disillusion-ment,’’ including elements such as the distancingfrom others and the stoic acceptance of facts,Santayana nevertheless took issue with the writing.

In his critique, he used words like ‘‘admirable’’and ‘‘well done’’ to describe Lippmann andhis book, respectively, yet Santayana consideredLippmann’s proposed selfless contemplation ofthe world as lacking any sort of moral sense. In apiece titled ‘‘Enduring the Truth,’’ Santayana de-scribed Lippmann’s proposal as ‘‘an epilogue to allpossible moralities and all possible religions’’ as itwas based on the fact that ‘‘the pure intellect isdivorced as far as possible from the service of thewill—divorced, therefore, from affairs and frommorality; and love is divorced as far as possiblefrom human objects, and becomes an impersonaland universalized delight in being. Far from guid-ing human morality, these ultimate insights are indanger of subverting it’’ (512).

Lippmann replied to Santayana’s claims by de-nying the argument that his book encouraged thedispassionate acceptance of the society created bycapitalism. However he went on to argue in ‘‘AFootnote to Santayana’’ that in the event this wereperpetuated, its evolution would have to be led byupright men with no interest in economic power.He wrote, ‘‘All I say is that if the present type ofcivilization is to fulfil itself it will have to recog-nize as its ideal pattern of conduct the disinter-estedness of the mature and self-disciplinedleader’’ (513). After this intellectual tete-a-tetethere is no evidence that the two men ever metagain.

A Similar Conception of Society

One of Santayana’s biggest concerns was thefeeling of loss generated by societal changes dur-ing his lifetime, in particular the loss of liberaldemocracies’ rights because of the sudden emer-gence of the masses in the public sphere. In thecase of Lippmann, this is also a central idea in his

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political thinking and, in all likelihood, one ofthose that marked the transition from the youngLippmann to the mature Lippmann. As we haveseen, this transition was already latent in his so-cialist period and in the early works of his youth,yet it is not clearly manifested until the publica-tion of Public Opinion in 1922. The central thesisof this work is that the inability of the commoncitizen to formulate intelligent opinions on publicmatters represents the origin of and the reason forthe limitations of democracy of the masses.

Lippmann also tackles this topic in greaterdepth in one of his later works, The PhantomPublic (1925). This book shares many of the sameideas previously expressed by Santayana in Life ofReason (1907), Character and Opinion in UnitedStates (1921), Soliloquies in England (1923), lateressays such as ‘‘Alternatives to Liberalism’’ (1934)and other essays published in Dominations andPowers (1952). First and foremost, both thinkersoffer an appraisal of the existence of somethingwhich can be called ‘‘public’’ and a denial of thetheory of popular sovereignty which originated inthe Enlightenment. By speaking of the public as‘‘sheer phantom’’ or ‘‘abstraction,’’ Lippmann as-sumes that public opinion does not constitute a cleargroup of individuals and that this group varies de-pending on the individual interests of its members.

The public is not, as I see it, a fixed body ofindividuals. It is merely those persons whoare interested in an affair and can affect itonly by supporting or opposing the actors.(Rossiter and Lare 89)

In the chapter entitled ‘‘Public Opinion’’ fromhis work Dominations and Powers, Santayanasimilarly contends that public opinion material-izes through public acts arising from individualinterests. Although these interests may differ fromone another, they can still have a common cause.Santayana gives as an example the different mo-tives citizens have for desiring peace in times ofwar. In The Phantom Public (1925), Lippmannadvocates for the incompetent public, which herefers to as outsiders, to play the role of alienatingthemselves in favor of or against the elites,those he calls insiders, who possess ability or

knowledge. This idea is similar to one broachedby Santayana in Reason in Society (1905), whichLippmann read as soon as he arrived at Harvard,when he speaks of timocracy, or government ofthe most able, as the perfect means to reconcile theideal of aristocratic excellence and thereby removeits hereditary characteristics and at the same timeoffer equal opportunities for all citizens to accedeto power based on merits and guaranteed by law.

Also in The Phantom Public, Lippmann pro-poses another idea stemming from the premise ofdemocracy as tyranny of the masses. He arguesthat democracy is the best possible answer to theurgent need for men to create a civilized societyby means of a system whose hierarchy comes fromits ability to peacefully resolve conflicts ratherthan from its ethical superiority. Nevertheless, thisconquest does not prevent him from describingdemocracy as ‘‘glorified and tainted civil war’’(Rossiter and Lare 215). This Aristotelian vision ofdemocracy as the lesser evil of all the possiblesystems is similar to the vision put forward bySantayana in 1923 when he praised the concept of‘‘English Liberty’’ based on a pressure from themajority that was not tyrannical but docile, andwhich in spite of its inevitable obligations wouldguarantee consensus and social advancement.

Despite the similarities in their thinking, afundamental difference separates the two authors:while Santayana focuses mainly on identifying theevils of democracy, Lippmann makes an effort tofind its strengths and seeks ways to rectify its de-ficiencies. The reason for this could be thatalthough they coincide on the unpleasant reper-cussions of aristocracy on matters of culture,Lippmann was never an aesthete or a deep thinkerlike Santayana but rather more of a pragmatistlike William James.

Public Opinion, Santayana, andSpinoza

Santayana and Lippmann begin with a similarpreconceived idea when dealing with the meaningof public opinion. Both assume man has a creative

187Shared Vision of Society and Public Opinion � Cesar Garcıa

role in his perception of reality. As a result, in-dividuals have an indirect access to reality formedby what this perception represents and the humancontribution determined by the individual cir-cumstances of each person.

We can glean some theoretical insights fromthe professor–student relationship of Santayanaand Lippman, but this on its own is not enough tojustify these important parallels. If we take oneplausible step further, we can follow the trans-mission of knowledge from Santayana’s teachersthrough Santayana and on to Lippmann. One ofthose teachers, Spinoza, was especially crucial toLippmann’s conception of public opinion andstereotype. His influence on Lippmann can beseen most clearly in two key ideas: first, the rolepassions play in confusing human judgments; and,second, the distinction that is achieved in the fieldof knowledge between words, images, and ideas,since these represent the main sources of individ-ual knowledge.

Spinoza addresses the first topic in his workEthics, where he argues that man’s ignorancestems from the fact that he confuses his personalsensations of reality with its real attributes andthinks he knows things when he really only im-agines them. Man, prisoner of what Spinoza calls‘‘corporal passions,’’ would establish ideas of whatis good, beautiful, or moral according to his ownpoint of view. Therefore, the ‘‘opinions,’’ ‘‘sensa-tions,’’ or ‘‘images’’ of each person would lockeach individual into a subjective world where di-rect knowledge is impossible.

Each person formulates opinions of thingsaccording to the disposition of their brain, orrather they think of the likings of their im-agination as reality . . . . In fact, everyone talksabout these sentences: there are as manyopinions as there are heads, each person goesinto great detail about their opinion; there isno lesser discrepancy between brains thanbetween tastes. They adequately show thatmen judge things according to the dispositionof their brain, and better yet they imaginethey understand them. (Allendesalazar 36)

Concerning the second topic, also in Ethics,Spinoza distinguishes between words and images,

which belong to the field of the body and sensi-bility, and ideas, which correspond to the field ofthought. Although he agrees that both words andimages prevent knowledge, Spinoza tries to dis-tinguish between their causes. In the case ofwords, their inherent lexical ambiguity distortsreality by the improper use men make of themand because we often accept them as proof of theexistence of something for the mere fact of havinga name. In turn, Spinoza considers the image to bethe result of the relationship established betweenthe object that affects the individual and his body,depending on the relationship of his own body inview of the outer object rather than on the in-trinsic qualities of the object. Therefore, the imagewould be knowledge after all, but a limited one asit ignores the context and only considers thereaction between two bodies. For this reason,Spinoza suggests the opposition between imageand idea is not absolute although the idea impliesdefining the genesis of the nature and deducingthe properties of the object.

Santayana similarly questions the usefulnessthat his opinions concerning the United Statesmay have for readers as they are based on his ownexperience, which in the end is only the result ofhis own individual tastes and phobias. In this way,Santayana refutes the common assertion that see-ing ourselves as others see us is the same as seeingourselves as we really are and, on the contrary,refers to Spinoza when defending the view that anindividual’s perception of a person or an objectreveals more about the nature of the beholderthan of the person or object in question (‘‘Char-acter and Opinion’’ 5).

Santayana also shares Spinoza’s beliefs con-cerning the relativity of ethical values. If, asSpinoza taught him, ‘‘our approvals and disap-provals are nothing but personal equations;or, at most, indications of the needs and interestsof the human race’’ (qtd. in Cory ‘‘The Idler’’ 76),then the moral judgments we make will nothave any universal validity and will only be anindication of each person’s pursuit of satisfyinghis or her own personal needs. Santayana ques-tions the credibility of the opinions of the indi-vidual, which would be expressions partial to

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their nature but not in themselves sufficient orinfallible.

Lippmann uses the term ‘‘image’’ to explain thedifficulty that the individual has in separating re-ality from illusion. Although Lippmann refers toFreud’s study of dreams as his inspiration on thistopic, the way Lippmann uses the term ‘‘image’’also can be seen to draw on Spinoza’s use of theterm in Ethics. Lippmann’s argument is based onthe fact that the news coming from the mediagenerates ‘‘images in our heads’’ about an outerworld that is ‘‘out of reach, out of sight, out ofmind’’ (‘‘Public Opinion’’ 18). When using theword ‘‘image,’’ Lippmann refers to a level of im-mediate knowledge, perhaps ‘‘corporal’’ but inany case inferior to the rational knowledge that hesuggests to overcome stereotypes. Lippmann, likeSpinoza, establishes levels of knowledge, two inhis case: one that is instinctive and equivalent towhat Spinoza calls ‘‘sensitive,’’ based on the prej-udices of people and manifested in the creation ofstereotypes, images, or ‘‘figments of imagination’’;the other, which Spinoza calls rational, based oninformation and knowledge, is characteristic ofthe elites and is useful in the creation of ideas.

In the case of the word ‘‘image,’’ Lippmann isalso influenced by Spinoza’s writing on lexical am-biguity and symbolic components. However, farfrom criticizing written language’s limitations forknowledge, Lippmann theorizes on the symbolicpower of words which, when used wisely, canserve to unite people and facilitate decisionmak-ing by societies in critical moments. This point ofview is more typical of an expert in persuasionthan that of an ethics philosopher like Spinoza.

On other concepts, such as the human’s ina-bility to understand the world in a rational way,Santayana and Lippmann follow divergent cours-es. Santayana uses this inability to discredit bothindividual opinion, based on pure subjectivity,and collective opinion, mere fiction instigated bycontagious rumor and expressiveness. Lippmann,in turn, professes a more positive view of indi-vidual opinion. Whereas in Public Opinion heblames the existence of stereotypes on the humaninability to possess rational knowledge of the en-vironment, he also admits that stereotypes offer

us a limited but also ordered and consistent imageof the world necessary to give it value.

Both thinkers believe it is impossible for manto formulate rational and analytical opinionsabout public matters because of the thinking lim-itations imposed on him by industrial capitalism.Therefore, both also agree on the need for qualityintermediaries to act as guides to public opinion.While Santayana advocates bestowing the role ofguide on worthy men, or timocrats, Lippmanndefends the role of the press as opinion leader,although he recognizes that to date the press haddone the opposite in adopting and amplifyingopinions already existing in the public sphere.

For both Santayana and Lippmann, modern manis condemned to succumb to the hands of the mod-ern techniques of persuasion that would put intoquestion the dogma of democracy and the spontane-ous emergence of knowledge in people. Santayanarefers to these modern techniques of persuasion asexpressiveness, whereas Lippmann calls them prop-aganda. In spite of these differences in terminology,both are aware of the fact that advances in socialpsychology, along with the modern means of com-munication, transformed the idea of democracy.

In the new society that emerged, those means ofcommunication act as elements of social organiza-tion. Both men justify the idea that in particularsituations, such as economic crises or wars, it canbecome necessary to use new communication tech-niques as a means of social control. In 1934,Santayana wrote: ‘‘Perhaps without official coer-cion it would be impossible to form a definite typeof citizen in our vast amorphous populations, andto create an unquestioning respect for a definite setof virtues and satisfactions’’ (qtd. in Cory ‘‘Birth ofReason’’ 76). More than a decade earlier, in 1922,Lippmann had written in favor of using symbols aspropaganda in extreme situations due to hisdistrust of ‘‘the defective organization of publicopinion’’ (‘‘Public Opinion’’ 19). The reactionarymotives behind these claims should not lead us toforget the historical period in which they were ex-pressed: shortly after the World War I, and in themiddle of a global economic depression.

Santayana permanently left the United Statesin 1912 and, after living in England and traveling

189Shared Vision of Society and Public Opinion � Cesar Garcıa

throughout several Mediterranean countries be-tween 1918 and 1920, he settled in Rome and livedthere until the end of his life. At first his lack offaith in liberal democracy made him sympatheticto other alternatives, such as the existence of cer-tain elites who, resorting to the tools of propa-ganda, inculcated in the masses a series of values.However, at the end of his life, the tragic histor-ical evolution of the 1930s led him to distancehimself from this tendency and severely criticizethe existence of propaganda.

Lippmann dedicated significantly more time inhis life to reflecting on public opinion and phe-nomena such as propaganda. He successfullyformed part of the first American intelligenceagency, The Inquiry, of which he was the secre-tary, chief of propaganda for Europe and, even-tually, director. By his own admission, thenegative consequences of World War I and thenPresident Wilson’s failure to follow through onagreements, fostered in him a growing skepticismregarding the purpose of politics and the roleplayed by public opinion. Nevertheless, he neverlost faith in the utility of influencing collectivethinking from the means of communication inwhich he worked for sixty years, as both edito-rialist in the most influential newspaper publishedin New York at the time, the World, and for morethan 36 years as the most important columnist atthe Herald Tribune. In the end, unlike Santayana,Lippmann was always more a journalist thanphilosopher.

Lippmann’s belief that the media and presscould act as quality intermediaries in the forma-tion of public opinion today holds more signif-icance than ever considering the overwhelmingpresence and power of the audiovisual media, es-pecially television. In an era in which individu-als—arguably erroneously—feel more capacitatedthan ever to form opinions of their own simply bywatching TV, Lippmann’s groundbreaking workon public opinion nearly a century ago—and thethinkers like Santayana who influenced thatwork—are worthy of continued study.

Works Cited

Abellan, Jose Luis. Santayana (1863–1956). Madrid: Ediciones delOrto, 1996.

Allendesalazar, Mercedes. Spinoza, Filosofıa, Pasiones y Polıtica.Madrid: Alianza Universidad, 1987.

Bryce, James. The American Commonwealth, 2-volume set. India-napolis: Liberty Fund, Inc., (1995 [1888]).

———, ed. The Birth of Reason and Later Essays. New York: Co-lumbia UP, 1968.

Cory, Daniel. The Idler and His Works. New York: George BrazillerInc., 1957.

Dawidoff, Robert. The Genteel Tradition and the Sacred Rage.Chapel Hill: The U of North Carolina P, 1992.

Garcıa Munoz, Cesar. ‘‘Santayana on Public Opinion.’’ Overheard inSevilla: Bulletin of the Santayana Society. Indianapolis: IndianaUniversity Purdue University (IUPUI), No 23, Fall 2005.

———. Public Opinion and Press in the United States: The View ofSpanish Intellectuals from 1885 to 1936. Madrid: UniversidadComplutense, 2005.

Holzberger, William H., ed. The Letters of George Santayana (ThirdBook: 1921–1925). Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2002.

———, ed. The Letters of George Santayana (Fourth Book:1928–1932). Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2002.

Le Bon, Gustave Psicologıa de las masas. Madrid: Ediciones Morata,(1986 [1895]).

Lippmann, Walter. ‘‘A Footnote to Santayana.’’ The SaturdayReview of Literature 7 Dec. 1929: 513.

———. Public Opinion. New York: Free Press Paperbacks (1997[1922]).

Rossiter, Clinton, and James Lare, eds. The Essential Lippmann.New York: Random House, 1963.

Santayana, George. Character and Opinion in the United States.New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1921.

———. Soliloquies in England. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons,1923.

———. ‘‘Enduring the Truth.’’ The Saturday Review of Literature 7Dec. 1929: 512.

———. Reason in Society. New York: Collier Books, 1962.

Savater, Fernando. ‘‘Santayana, huesped del mundo.’’ Instruccionespara olvidar el Quijote. Madrid: Editorial Taurus, 1995.

Steel, Ronald. Walter Lippmann and the American Century. Boston:Little Brown and Company, 1980.

de Spinoza, Baruch Etica. Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1987.

Splichal, Slavko. Public Opinion. Developments and Controversies inthe Twentieth Century. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Pub-lishers Inc., 1999.

Tarde, Gabriel. La opinion y la multitud. Madrid: TaurusComunicacion. (1986 [1904]).

de Tocqueville, Alexis. Democracy in America. New York: SignetClassics. (2000 [1835]).

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