Walter Lippmann — The Amateur’s Control of the Experts

1. 1. The US Army intelligence tests during WWI claimed the average mental age of white draftees was about 13, raising doubts about democracy.
2. 2. Lippmann argued that intelligence testing was fraudulent, dangerous, and elitist, and that Terman's expertise was not genuine science.
3. 3. John Dewey agreed with Lippmann's critique of intelligence testing and argued that true democracy meant 'aristocracy carried to its limit' through universal education.
4. 4. Terman responded to Lippmann with sarcasm and argued that amateur critics had no standing against the consensus of professional psychologists.
5. 5. Lippmann's critique of Terman led him to develop a theory of public contestation in 'The Phantom Public,' where citizens judge experts through debate.
6. 6. Dewey's 'The Public and Its Problems' (1927) echoed Lippmann's view that experts should be controlled through public debate, not technocratic rule.
7. 7. The Lippmann-Terman controversy reveals a more complex relationship between democracy and expertise than the simplistic 'Lippmann-Dewey debate' suggests.