XI. “You speak truly,” I said; “there will. But I bethink me of still another danger now, and one that will affect not individuals, but classes. Shall I speak of it?”
“Go on,” Chærephon said.
“Very well,” I said. “The demos is composed of men and women, and is but human. The demos likes sympathy, and the demos is also vain, and likes to be talked of, and to see its own name in print. If, then, the newspaper would make friends with the demos, it will need to tell of the demos and what it does—of its leaders, and of its virtues, and in like manner of its vanities; for it is no less vain than those it rails at. It will thus flatter the demos by making it feel as important as its betters, and teaching it to think it knows as much as they, about not a few things, but many. It will speak much of the demos’s sufferings, and of the demos’s worth, and of the demos’s rights, and it will make much use of sentimentality, and little of real sentiment, reason, and fact; for reason is a troublesome thing. Will not this be an excellent way for the newspaper to win friends in great numbers, O Megaphon?”
“It cannot be denied,” he said.
“And if this is true, will it not increase its favor with the demos if it also assails those who have store of goods, or gifts bestowed by the Muses, and makes it appear that their riches are due to accidents of fortune or unjust workings of the law, that their talents are not above the ordinary, and that the gifts of the Muses have no value whatsoever? For it will be among the demos that the greatest number of the paper’s friends must be won.”
“Yes,” Megaphon said, “in that manner it would surely make friends.”
“It appears, then,” I said, “that flattery of the demos and fault-finding with the few will be an excellent means for the newspaper to become rich. And consider the evil this will work among us. For the newspaper will make the few seem to the many richer and prouder and more selfish than they are, and the many seem to themselves poorer and more humble and virtuous than they are; besides making them wise in their own conceit, so that they will become meddlesome by trying to do many things of which they know nothing, and by doing them all awry. For the demos is a many-headed beast, lighter and more fickle than
‘the moon, th’ inconstant moon,
That monthly changes in her circled orb,’
as one of our poets saith.“