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Appendix io. Studies of Race Attitudes 1139
concrete character is carried out, the valuations and their conflicts can be recorded,
indirectly but quantitatively—just as the heat of distant stars is measured by observing
their spectra. From our inquiry of the Negro problem we are convinced that ignorance
is not always simple; it is often opportune.®
But the valuations should, of course, also be studied directly. For this purpose ques-
tions should be selected which relate to opinions that do not contain any reference to
reality. A main consideration in the analysis of answers to such questions should be that
valuations are complex and ordinarily conflicting, and that an individual’s focusing of
attention in the valuation sphere may be opportune. In most cases the indirect analysis
of the valuation sphere, through the study of the deviations of beliefs from true
knowledge, is likely to reach deeper than does the direct analysis. An individual contin-
ually tends to arrange his valuations so that they may be presented in an acceptable
form. But in his beliefs concerning social reality—^which are shaped to give the
appearance of rational organization to his morals—he reveals himself.
3. “Personal” and “Political” Opinions
When studying valuations there is another distinction the observance of which is of
utmost significance in the Negro problem as in other problems where human valuations
are sharply conflicting, namely, the distinction between a person’s “private,” or
“personal,” opinion and his “public,” or “political,” opinion on the same question.*’
They do not need to agree; in fact they seldom agree. This, in itself, is a reason for a
clear distinction to be upheld, since otherwise a major source of systematic error is
contained in the observations. A further reason is that the very registration and measur-
ing of this difference is an important part of an opinion analysis.
A man’s opinion as to the desirable size of a normal family might be totally different,
* As examples of how opportune ignorance and knowledge may be, it might be pointed
out that Negroes are amazingly sophisticated with respect to the incidence of indirect taxa-
tion and the environmental influences on intelligence test scores. Even ordinary Negroes with
little formal schooling can explain to the satisfaction of the economist just how taxes on
real estate are passed on to the tenant, and can often do better than the trained psychologist
in revealing just how lack of incentive and intellectual stimulation can keep intelligence
tests from revealing “innate ability.” It is apparent that the reason Negroes know these
things is that they have been victimized by indirect taxation and the intelligence tests—that
is, it is claimed that Negroes pay practically no taxes, because they pay practically no direct
taxes, and that they are biologically inferior because their I.Q. scores are lower. It is appar-
ent, too, that whites—especially the dominant ones, the ones who pay direct taxes and who
have, or think they have, high I.Q. scores—have an opportune ignorance with respect to
these things. Even when simple facts are presented to ruflSe their ignorance, they reject them.
” There has been much discussion about the distinction between “opinion” and “attitude,”
with the assumptions that the former is measurable while the latter is not and that the
former is a mere verbalization while the latter directs action. Our distinction between
personal and political opinions is difleerent, and should not be confused with the distinction
between opinion and attitude. It is no easier to measure political opinions than personal
opinions; both direct action—although different kinds of action; and one is not more a
mere verbalization than is the other.
Schanck has attempted to investigate statistically the distinction between public and
private attitudes, although without relation to the Negro. (R. L. Schanck, “A Study of a
Community and Its Groups and Institutions Conceived of as Behaviors of Individuals,”
Psychological Monographs [1932].)
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