"Lose the 'we.'"

Arnold Kling quotes Nicholas Lemann discussing a book by Arthur Fisher Bentley on political theory:

Under Bentley's rules, you can't talk about public opinion, because there is no such thing as "the public" (there are only groups) and opinions don't matter, only actions do. Abstractions like "the people" and "popular will" have no real content, either. "The public interest" is a useless concept, he says, because "there is nothing which is best literally for the whole people."

And adds:

I always thought that this was standard political theory. It was what my father taught me. Once, when I used the word "public interest" in one of my essays, he chided me that there is no such thing. It was his way of saying, "Lose the 'we.'"

This is pretty much the root good of a truly free society and why a truly democratic society creates problems. Whenever you try to pick on thing that is best for everyone, you will at the same time leave a lot of people unhappy.