There is an intimate relation between public opinion and social customs or the mores, as Sumner calls them. But there is this difference: Public opinion fluctuates. It wobbles. Social customs, the mores, change slowly. Prohibition was long in coming; but the custom of drinking has not disappeared. The mores change slowly; but they change in one direction and they change steadily. Mores change as fashion does; as language does; by a law of their own.
Fashions must change. It is in their nature to do so. As the existing thing loses its novelty it is no longer stimulating; no longer interesting. It is no longer the fashion.
What fashion demands is not something new; but something different. It demands the old in a new and stimulating form. Every woman who is up with the fashion wants to be in the fashion; but she desires to be something different from everyone else, especially from her best friend.
Language changes in response to the same motives and according to the same law. We are constantly seeking new metaphors for old ideas; constantly using old metaphors to express new ideas. Consider the way that slang grows!
There is a fashion or a trend in public opinion. A. V. Dicey, in his volume on Law and Opinion in England, points out that there has been a constant tendency, for a hundred years, in English legislation, from individualism to collectivism. This does not mean that public opinion has changed constantly in one direction. There have been, as he says, "cross currents." Public opinion has veered, but the changes in the mores have been steadily in one direction.
There has been a change in the fundamental attitudes. This change has taken place in response to changed conditions. Change in mores is something like change in the nest-building habits of certain birds, the swallows, for example. This change, like the change in bird habits, takes place without discussion—without clear consciousness—in response to changed conditions. Furthermore, changes in the mores, like changes in fashion, are only slightly under our control. They are not the result of agitation; rather they are responsible for the agitation.
There are profound changes going on in our social organization today. Industrial democracy, or something corresponding to it, is coming. It is coming not entirely because of social agitation. It is coming, perhaps, in spite of agitation. It is a social change, but it is part of the whole cosmic process.
There is an intimate relation between the mores and opinion. The mores represent the attitudes in which we agree. Opinion represents these attitudes in so far as we do not agree. We do not have opinions except over matters which are in dispute.
So far as we are controlled by habit and custom, by the mores, we do not have opinions. I find out what my opinion is only after I discover that I disagree with my fellow. What I call my opinions are for the most part invented to justify my agreements or disagreements with prevailing public opinion. The mores do not need justification. As soon as I seek justification for them they have become matters of opinion.
Public opinion is just the opinion of individuals plus their differences. There is no public opinion where there is no substantial agreement. But there is no public opinion where there is not disagreement. Public opinion presupposes public discussion. When a matter has reached the stage of public discussion it becomes a matter of public opinion.