Popular Opinion

Some time ago someone coined a popular phrase: “Fifty million Frenchmen can’t be wrong.” This is one way of saying that what many people think, must be true. Superficially this might sometimes seem to be a safe rule. But let’s look a little deeper. In the history of warfare hundreds of millions of men have fought hundreds of millions of other men. With some exceptions and reservations, both sides have thought they were right. On every major issue that has ever come before the world as far back as the record goes, millions of men have opposed other millions of men in their opinions. Among the interesting devices of our day are the polls of public opinion. Such polls would seem to have a number of effects. One is to find out what people are thinking, and another is to influence people to think what other people are thinking. Not many men like to be alone in their views. It would almost always seem to be more comfortable to follow the popular trend if we can do so without violating our own principles. And so we poll the opinions of others. But suppose that many men have been misled. Multiplying a false opinion by many millions does not make it any wiser or sounder or safer. Fifty million wrong ideas don’t add up to wisdom. They merely add up to an appalling error. True, fifty million opinions may make an idea popular. Multiplying opinions may assure popularity even to a false proposition. But if millions are misguided, they are still misguided. To concede otherwise would be to concede the old and false philosophy that might is right. And we know what that has done to the world. Truth is no respecter of quantity. It is a respecter only of verity. And if one man’s opinion is wrong to begin with, it doesn’t become right just because it becomes popular. Merely multiplying mistakes doesn’t mean that they aren’t mistakes. If others are right, it is safe to follow them. If they aren’t, it isn’t safe, no matter how many millions there are.