{"id":9258,"date":"2012-07-12T12:15:15","date_gmt":"2012-07-12T16:15:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=9258"},"modified":"2012-07-12T18:41:33","modified_gmt":"2012-07-12T22:41:33","slug":"a-john-dewey-primer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=9258","title":{"rendered":"a John Dewey primer"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am co-teaching the Summer Institute of Civic Studies\u00a0 <\/a>and blogging about roughly half of the 18 topics on our syllabus<\/a>. Today, I focus my blog notes on John Dewey’s book, The Public and its Problems<\/em> (1927). <\/em>In the same session, we also discussed Philip Selznick’s The Moral Commonwealth<\/em>, on which I posted notes in 2009<\/a>. (Selznick developed his own views but acknowledged a pervasive debt to Dewey; you might call him Dewey 2.0.)
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

The John Dewey\/Walter Lippmann debate in the 1920s<\/strong><\/p>\n

These two major American intellectuals rejected the classic (\u201ccivics class\u201d) view of democracy, which holds that masses of people know what\u2019s going on, vote according to their principles and interests, and thus steer the ship of state. They agreed that this was impossible in a complex and huge society.<\/p>\n

Lippmann was particularly acute in diagnosing the problem, which he first recognized as he worked on propaganda during World War I. He coined the term \u201cstereotype\u201d (in its modern use) and explored other cognitive biases and limitations as he argued that the \u201cphantom public\u201d could not know what is going on, did not have coherent values or interests, was very easily manipulated, and never seriously affected the government. He concluded that the only role of the public was to use the blunt force of popular voting to unseat extremely incompetent or tyrannical leaders.<\/p>\n

Dewey\u2019s theory of democracy and the public<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dewey basically shared the diagnosis but couldn\u2019t accept the outcome because of his core normative premises, which were what? (p. 147-8)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u2022 Everyone must have \u201ca responsible share according to capacity in forming and directing the activities of the groups to which [he or she] belongs.\u201d
\n\u2022 Every group must derive the full benefit of all its members\u2019 contributions: \u201cit demands liberation of the potentialities of members of a group in harmony with the interests and good which are in common.\u201d
\n\u2022 Everyone belongs at once to many groups, which must \u201cinteract flexibly and fully.\u201d<\/p>\n

In sum: \u201cWherever there is conjoint activity whose consequences are appreciated as good by all singular persons who take part in it, and where realization of the good is such as to effect an energetic desire and effort to sustain it in being just because it is a good shared by all, there is in so far a community.\u201d And democracy is identical to community in its ideal form.<\/p>\n

What about formal aspects of democracy like voting and equal legal rights? These are mere manifestations of a deeper current toward democracy and community.<\/p>\n

Because of Dewey\u2019s underlying principles, he cannot accept Lippmann\u2019s conclusion. So he seeks \u201cthe means by which a scattered, mobile, and manifold public may so recognize itself as to define and recognize its interests\u201d (146). His question becomes (p. 157): \u201cWhat are the conditions under which it is possible for the Great Society [the large and complex modern nation] to approach more closely and vitally the status of a Great Community, and thus to take form in genuinely democratic societies and state?\u201d<\/p>\n

Another way to understand his principles is as a progression. Being part of a group is natural and utterly inevitable. As human beings, we can become aware of our common life. Finally, our awareness can become reasonable or rational if we formally communicate about our common interests through symbols, especially through education and science. This is the classic Hegelian triad of consciousness, self-consciousness, and reason.<\/p>\n

But our reason is unacceptable at present. \u201cThe prime condition of a democratically organized public is a kind of knowledge and insight which does not yet exist.\u201d (p,. 166). We may have freedom of speech, but that is merely negative, the absence of censorship. \u201cNo man and no mind was ever emancipated merely by being left alone.\u201d We need positive conditions for \u201cfreedom of social inquiry and [the] distribution of its conclusions\u201d [p. 166].<\/p>\n

Why don\u2019t we have adequate reason\/communication?<\/p>\n

\u2022 Bad people: \u201cthose who have ability to manipulate social relations for their own advantage have to be reckoned with. \u2026. We seem to be approaching a state of government by hired promoters of opinion called publicity agents (p. 169 and see also pp. 182ff).
\n\u2022 Sacred cows such as \u201cthe Constitution, the Supreme Court, private property, free contract, and so on,\u201d for which \u201cthe words \u2018sacred\u2019 and sanctity\u2019 come readily to our lips,\u201d interfering with critical reason( pp. 169-70)
\n\u2022 \u201cThe backwardness of social knowledge is marked in its division into independent and insulated branches of learning. Anthropology, history, sociology, morals, economics, political science go their own ways without constant and systemized fruitful interaction.\u201d (p. 171). Note \u201cmorals\u201d on the list: Dewey opposes a fact\/value distinction.
\n\u2022 \u201cSeparation between pure and applied science\u201d (p. 174). \u201cScience is converted into knowledge in its honorable and emphatic sense only in application. Otherwise, it is truncated, blind, distorted. When it is then applied, it is in ways which explain the unfavorable sense so often attached to \u2018application\u2019 and the \u2018utilitarian\u2019: namely, use for pecuniary ends to the profit of a few. At present, the application of physical science is rather to human concerns than in them. That is, it is external, made in the interests of its consequences for a possessing and acquisitive class. Application in life would mean that it was absorbed and distributed; that it was the instrumentality of that common understanding and thorough communication which is the precondition of the existence of a genuine and effective public.\u201d
\n\u2022 We are flooded with \u201cnews,\u201d defined only as what\u2019s new. Its \u201cmeaning depends on relation to what it imports, to what its social consequences are.\u201d But that is not explained or discussed. News degenerates into sensationalism.
\n\u2022 Serious inquiry is presented in dry and abstract forms.<\/p>\n

Public opinion (p. 177) \u201cis judgment which is formed and entertained by those who constitute the public and is about public affairs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Discussion questions:<\/p>\n

\u2022 How accurate and applicable is Dewey\u2019s critique today?
\n\u2022 What can we do about it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am co-teaching the Summer Institute of Civic Studies\u00a0 and blogging about roughly half of the 18 topics on our syllabus. Today, I focus my blog notes on John Dewey’s book, The Public and its Problems (1927). In the same session, we also discussed Philip Selznick’s The Moral Commonwealth, on which I posted notes in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-civic-theory","category-philosophy"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9258"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9305,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9258\/revisions\/9305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}