ABSTRACT
The public has no independent essence apart from the individuals that constitute it; hence, it is only reflective of the presence of multiple others. But that, in itself, is a gross simplification of the construct. That is so because the public can be expressed in multiple ways, through the actions of individuals or through associational memberships of one kind or the other. In the context of the public, the individual disappears and is reduced to the form of an object expressed in the context of a group. The public exists, not as a thing out there but often as a consciousness in the minds of those who embody as well as think about it. We know about the public through the collective action or sentiments of individuals who participate in certain acts or events or who collectively express specific opinions on particular issues. Hence, the inclination “to adopt the same opinion as the public is nothing but a deceptive consolation, because the public is only there in abstraction” (Kierkegaard, 1946, p. 266).
