The Public and the Role of Consequences

Dewey makes an interesting point in defining a public as a group of people who, through their actions, have effects on the world around them. He says that due to technology's rapid development and man's general lag, we see a public that has been able to effect immense indirect consequences that are difficult to trace back to an origin. This web of interactions is so vast and diffuse, the public can't create effective communities and identify itself, much less deal with itself. The whole thing reminded me of a Rube Goldberg device, one continually shifting shapes and growing exponentially! It would almost be too achingly simple if the public mechanism was as simple and defined as one of Goldberg's skewed machines.