All our politicians, pundits and so-called populists love to pay tribute to the ideals of America's democratic republic. And while in recent times, a few have begun to pay some attention to its mechanical deficiencies, such as our shamefully corrupt system of campaign financing, we never hear a word about how difficult it is for a democracy to function even under the best of circumstances.This is understandable for any number of reasons. Primarily, America is not a theoretically inclined nation in the first place. Our current debate, driven by sound bites and shout fests among the punditocracy, is so far from the republican (note the small "r") ideal of democracy that theoretical problems with a best-case scenario seem a luxury indeed. But another reason may be that we fear examining the flaws in our own ideals. After all, if even our model is fatally flawed, than the very goal of democratic rule in a modern society may be a fool's errand. And if so, what is the point even of trying to approach it? Shouldn't we set our sights toward something we might actually one day achieve?

The responsibility of the press

In fact, two prominent American political philosophers engaged in exactly this debate about 75 years ago. They did not solve the problem, but they showed remarkable prescience about the evolving media landscape and the problems we face today. The two men were Walter Lippmann, who would soon become the nation's founding political pundit, and John Dewey, a founder of the American school of pragmatism and still probably the most important liberal philosopher the nation has ever produced. The occasion was the publication of young Lippmann's 1922 book, Public Opinion, which Dewey termed, "perhaps the most effective indictment of democracy ever penned."

In Lippmann's book, the 33-year-old aspiring journalist examined what he believed to be the necessary preconditions for the operation of a successful democratic republic -- a competent, civic-minded citizenry with access to relevant details of public policy -- and decides that the entire notion is dangerously Utopian, and ought to be shelved. At the heart of both democratic and republican theory, in Lippmann's view, stood the "omnicompetent" citizen. "It was believed that if only he could be taught more facts, if only he would take more interest, if only he would listen to more lectures and read more reports, he would gradually be trained to direct public affairs," he wrote. Unfortunately, Lippmann concluded, "The whole assumption is false."

Originally, the theory assumed the legislative branch to be sovereign because it best represented the hearts and minds of the people. In Lippmann's analysis, however, sovereignty had shifted to the media, the modern institution that shaped citizens' opinions and hence "manufactured" consent for the governing class. But the media, he argued, are simply not up to the job. Given both the economic and professional limitations of the practice of journalism, Lippmann argued, news "comes [to us] helter-skelter." This is fine for a baseball box score, a transatlantic flight or the death of a monarch. But where the picture is more complex, "as for example, in the matter of a success of a policy or the social conditions among a foreign people -- where the real answer is neither yes or no, but subtle and a matter of balanced evidence," then journalism "causes no end  of derangement, misunderstanding and even misinterpretation." The net result is what Lippmann calls a political "pseudo-environment," in which voters react to the news in light of their own personal prejudices. We emphasize that which confirms our original beliefs and disregard or denigrate what might contradict it.

Lippmann compared the average citizen to a deaf spectator sitting in the back row of a sporting event. "He does not know what is happening, why it is happening, what ought to happen; he lives in a world which he cannot see, does not understand and is unable to direct," he wrote.

Thomas Jefferson may have dreamed of a well-informed citizenry of civic-minded, virtuous Yeoman farmers, but in Lippman's modern era, such optimism was no longer sustainable, the journalist argued. The problem was not merely that representatives found it easier to pander to peoples' prejudices, but that they preferred the security of a false picture of the world to the difficult task of attempting to create a more complex and daunting whole. No one expects a steel worker, musician or banker to understand physics, Lippmann argued, so why should they be expected to understand politics? What is needed, he said, is a network of organized intelligence gatherers shielded from the dangers of democratic interference. It is, after all, "because they are compelled to act without a reliable picture of the world that governments, schools, newspapers and churches make such small headway against the more obvious failings of democracy."

It's who you know, not what you know

John Dewey replied to Lippmann in the May 3, 1922, New Republic, and later in a book called, The Public and Its Problems, published in 1927. He took issue with the very premise of Lippman's argument: the need for "omnicompetence" in a voting public. While Lippmann argued for what journalism scholar James W. Carey today calls a "spectator theory of knowledge," Dewey viewed knowledge as a function of "communication and association."

"Vision is a spectator," he wrote. "Hearing is a participator." The basis of democracy is not information, but conversation -- and the cultivation of what might be called a "culture of communication." More than arcane, inside knowledge, Dewey argued, democracy required "certain vital habits: the ability to follow an argument, grasp the point of view of another, expand the boundaries of understanding, debate the alternative purposes that might be pursued."

The media's job, in Dewey's conception, is to help people form these habits; "to interest the public in the public interest." Unfortunately, the pace of technological change, even back in the 1920s, led the media to classify people according to their most narrow interests, rather than as citizens of a large and diverse nation. This undermined the idea of a democratic public, even before cable TV and the Internet.

One giant problem in need of a solution

The Lippmann/Dewey debate is simultaneously one of the most edifying and depressing moments in the history of American political discourse. It is one of the only times this century that the fundamental problems with genuine republican democracy were at the center of political debate.

What is depressing is that while both writers provided trenchant diagnoses of the maladies afflicting American democracy, neither came up with a remotely pragmatic prescription. Lippmann abandoned his network of organized intelligence gatherers as unworkable in a democratic context, but never came up with a suitable replacement. Instead, he spent the balance of his career seeking to elevate the character of public discourse by example; creating a new form of journalist -- the insider pundit. This effort, while noble in many ways, was fundamentally flawed for one of the reasons Dewey predicted. As a member of the governing class, Lippmann ceased to identify with the "group" he professed to represent and became, instead, a sophisticated propagandist for the interests of the political elite.

But Dewey was hardly more successful. His penetrating critique of Lippmann's elitist understanding of the role of information in a democratic discourse was never fortified by a workable notion of how, exactly, to inspire the culture of communication he deemed necessary. Dewey's inability to formulate a response, however, pointed to a consistent weakness in his work. He rarely bothered to work out the mechanisms though which his reforms might be achieved. So we are stuck with the original question: How, given all the barriers to public discussion created by modern capitalist society, does one craft a culture conducive to a genuinely democratic debate? Unfortunately, we are further than ever from the answer.