Their scope is something to be critically and experimentally determined.
John Dewey
The Public Record
John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer. He was one of the most prominent American scholars in the first half of the twentieth century.
gutenberg.org
They are subject to all kinds of social influences which determine what they can think of, plan and choose.
The conflicting streams of social influence come to a single and conclusive issue only in personal consciousness and deed.
It arrives at decisions, makes terms and executes resolves only through the medium of individuals.
They are officers; they represent a Public, but the Public acts only through them.
But, after all, individual men and women exercise the franchise; the public is here a collective name for a multitude of persons each voting as an anonymous unit.
As a citizen-voter each one of these persons is, however, an officer of the public.
From this fact the most serious problem of government arises.
By our hypothesis all governments are representative in that they purport to stand for the interests which a public has in the behavior of individuals and groups.
They still have private interests to serve and interests of special groups, those of the family, clique or class to which they belong.
Rarely can a person sink himself in his political function; the best which most men attain to is the domination by the public weal of their other desires.
If one wishes to realize the distance which may lie between “facts” and the meaning of facts, let one go to the field of social discussion.