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CHAPTER 4:
DEMOCRACY AS A WAY OF LIFE … IF PROPER CONDITIONS ARE FURNISHED
R.W. Hildreth
Draft: Comments welcome, please do not cite without permission
The private citizen today has come to feel rather like a deaf spectator in the back row … He
knows he is somehow affected by what is going on. Rules and regulations continually, taxes
annually and wars occasionally remind him that he is being swept along by great drifts of
circumstance.
-Walter Lippmann, The Phantom Public (1925)
The world has suffered more from leaders and authorities than from the masses …Until secrecy,
prejudice, bias, misrepresentation, and propaganda as well as sheer ignorance are replaced by
inquiry and publicity, we have no way of telling how apt for judgment of social policies the
existing intelligence of the masses may be.
-John Dewey, The Public and its Problems (1927)
John Dewey called Walter Lippmann’s 1922 book Public Opinion “perhaps the most effective
indictment of democracy as currently conceived ever penned” (MW, 13:337). Lippmann advances a
searing critique of American democracy, radically questioning whether the “private citizen” is competent
and intelligent enough to participate meaningfully in politics. Lippmann does not exactly blame the
masses; his target is rather the theory of democracy that posits the ideal of the knowledgeable, sovereign
citizen as the foundation for democracy. No citizen in a complex industrial society, according to
Lippmann, can know enough about public matters to make intelligent decisions—they are not
“omnicompetent.” More often than not, people are the unwitting victims of propaganda. To cure the ills
of democracy, Lippmann recommends that democracy should be governed, or more precisely,
administered by experts. Citizens still have a role to play-- they are called upon to render judgment when
there are real and substantive differences between prevailing parties, or as Lippmann says, the “Ins and
the Outs.”
John Dewey wrote The Public and Its Problems (1927) as a response to Lippmann. But more
than just a response, it represents the most complete articulation of Dewey’s political thought. As the
second epigraph suggests, one of the distinguishing features of John Dewey’s political philosophy is his
faith in the potential of common human beings. This faith has been the object of criticism and even
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scorn—Dewey is seen as “incredibly naive,” a “fuzzy-minded idealist,” or in a play on his name, a
“dewy-eyed” (Lasch 1991; Niehbuhr 1960). What these critics seem to miss is that Dewey agrees with
Lippmann’s critique, as far as it goes. Dewey is fully cognizant how the growing complexity of modern
life has made it difficult for ordinary people to see the large-scale consequences of public life. This
disconnect has (rightly?) rendered people skeptical of their political efficacy. Thus, Dewey does not rely
on blind faith, but rather offers a qualified, even agnostic belief in human abilities, recognizing the
challenges and opportunities for rejuvenating democratic life.
In Dewey’s view, the shortcoming of Lippmann’s analysis is that it does not go far enough.
Rather than assessing the ability of the public to intelligently weigh in on political questions, Dewey asks
“What is a public?” Instead of seeing the individual as merely incompetent, Dewey asks, “What are the
effects of human association on intelligence?” Dewey’s extension and deepening of Lippmann’s analysis
leads him to radically different conclusions and recommendations for democratic practice. It has often
been remarked that Dewey believes that the cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy (Lasch,
1991). Yet, Dewey explicitly states that this is not the case: “The old saying that the cure for the ills of
democracy more democracy is not apt” (PP, 144). If more of the same will not do, what, exactly, does
Dewey call for?
I have always found Dewey’s democratic faith a refreshing antidote to the wide lament about the
apathy of citizens and lack of knowledge of the American electorate. While Dewey’s faith in ordinary
people is important, the concept of living citizenship engagement cannot be built on faith alone.1 As
Dewey stated above, “we have no way of telling how apt for judgment of social policies the existing
intelligence of the masses may be.” This is a key phrase and represents the primary challenge to Dewey’s
normative democratic theory. Phrased as a question, what conditions enable the intelligent and effective
participation of the masses? In the face of fascism abroad and racism and xenophobia at home, Dewey
powerfully re-articulated his faith in his 1939 address: “Creative Democracy: The Task Before Us.” He
states that “Democracy is a way of personal life controlled not merely by faith in human nature in general
but by faith in the capacity of human beings for intelligent judgment and action if proper conditions are
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furnished” (1939 in LW, 14:227). This statement raises the following questions: What does Dewey mean
by “democracy becoming a way of life”? What are the proper conditions for its realization? And most
importantly, can democracy as a way of life be realized in contemporary conditions? These three general
questions will guide my reading of Dewey in this chapter.
However, rather than analyzing Dewey’s entire theory of democracy, I narrow the focus to
analyzing the salient elements that relate to citizenship and civic engagement. At the same time, this
chapter builds upon and extends my earlier chapters on experience and education. In Chapter Two I
argued for the importance of grounding civic engagement in everyday experience, claiming that any
experience has potential educational and political dimensions. In Chapter Three I outlined Dewey’s
educational method as a basis for civic learning and engagement. I also discussed how the ends of
education are determined in a democratic society. In this chapter, then, I examine the specifically public
and political dimensions of civic engagement. Dewey’s idea that democracy is a way of life has profound
implications for civic engagement. Indeed, for my purposes it can be spelled out this way: citizenship
becomes a way of life, and civic engagement involves young people taking action to change actual
conditions of their everyday lives.
In the reconstruction of Dewey’s political thought that follows, I argue that Dewey’s concept of
democracy makes two principal contributions: First, in terms of theory, Dewey offers a radical, citizencentered praxis. Instead of prescribing a blueprint for citizen action, Dewey offers ideals and evaluative
criteria for citizens themselves to analyze their social practices, design alternatives and carry out their
own forms of political action. It is “radical” because Dewey trusts citizens to be able to carry this out and
because Dewey insists on democratic means (LW 11:296). In this way, Dewey’s diagnosis of the
challenges confronting civic engagement “goes to the root,” which is the core meaning of “radical.”
Second, these theoretical contributions have important implications for civic engagement practice. By
locating the domain of citizenship in everyday roles and democracy in social institutions, widely
conceived, Dewey extends how we think of civic engagement. On one level, Dewey gives us a way to
think about life-long civic engagement (beyond “civic training,” as was often said in his day). On
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another, Dewey allows us to understand civic engagement in the terms and contexts of everyday life. For
all the power and importance of Dewey’s theoretical contributions, the practical represents a significant
challenge: Are Dewey’s ideas and recommendations possible, practical, and sufficiently political given
our contemporary situation?
This chapter is organized as follows. The next section considers what I think is the most
important critiques of Dewey—that he presents an unrealistic, even utopian theory of democracy. The
second, third, and fourth comprise the reconstructive effort that lies at the core of my argument about
Dewey’s contributions to democratic theory. These three sections cover the following issues: Dewey’s
conception of democracy; diagnosis of the problems facing democracy; and the proposed reconstruction
of democracy. In the concluding section, I will critically assess Dewey’s democratic theory and
contribution to the theory of citizenship and practice of youth civic engagement.
2. IMPORTANT CRITICISMS OF DEWEY’S DEMOCRATIC THEORY
Dewey advocated “first-rate criticism,” taking on philosophical arguments at their best (EN, see also
Rorty 1998). In this spirit, this section addresses the strongest “first-rate” criticisms of Dewey’s
democratic theory in relation to the question of civic engagement. A longstanding criticism of Dewey
was that he was a utopian thinker (Diggens 1998, Robertson 1992; see also MacGilvary 2003; Lasch
1991; D’Amico 1978, Frankel 1988; Niebuhr 1960). These scholars argue that Dewey is a utopian in the
pejorative sense that his vision of democracy is unrealistic and impractical. On one level critique reflects
a misunderstanding of the role of ideals in Dewey’s thought. As noted in Chapter Two, Dewey saw
philosophy as a tool to address contemporary social problems.
I advance the view that Dewey actually employs a method of ideal theorizing in his poltical and
social philosophy. This method has four steps: first, submit everyday experience critical reflection;
second, clarify social problems by clearing away (philosophic) misunderstandings, third, construct ideals
based on a measured understanding of “the tendency and movement … carried to its final limit” (PP,
148); and fourth, construct criteria for citizens to use in working towards such an ideal (see Festenstein
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1997, 26). This process is best exemplified in Democracy and Education where Dewey summarizes his
position:
We cannot set up, out of our heads, something we regard as an ideal society. We must base our
conception upon societies which actually exist, in order to have any assurance that our ideal is a
practicable one. But, as we have just seen, the ideal cannot simply repeat the traits which are
actually found. The problem is to extract desirable traits of forms of community life which
actually exist and employ them to criticize undesirable features that suggest improvement (DE,
83).
The clarification of these ideals—when put in the form of adaptive criteria—enables citizens to use ideals
to guide their practical efforts of engagement and reform.
Moreover, a careful reading of Dewey reveals many passages where he explicitly addresses this
criticism of him. Consider, for starters:
I have been accused more than once and from opposed quarters of an undue, a utopian, faith in
the possibilities of intelligence and in education as a correlate of intelligence. At all events, I did
not invent this faith. For what is the faith of democracy in the role of consultation, of conference,
of persuasion, of discussion, in formation of public opinion, which in the long run is self
corrective, except faith in the capacity of the intelligence of the common man to respond with
commonsense to the free play of facts and ideas which are secured by effective guarantees of free
inquiry, free assembly, and free communication? I am willing to leave upholders of totalitarian
states of the right and the left the view that faith in the capacities of intelligence is utopian (LW
14:227).
Plainly, Dewey is claiming that his faith in human nature is contextual and tentative.2 Moreover, Dewey
thinks it unwise to appeal to a romantic past or to a mythic future; his ideal of democracy is not a “city of
words.” Instead of valorizing the golden days of democracy, either in revolutionary America or ancient
Greece, Dewey insists on the need to focus on current public social problems (PP, 5).
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Given this clarification of Dewey on ideals, a more challenging version of the “utopian” critique
argues that Dewey does not present a realistic program to discover or carry out his democratic ideals.
Probably the most devastating critique comes from a sympathetic interpreter of Dewey. Robert
Westbrook (1991) argues that the democratic program of The Public and Its Problems does not respond
sufficiently to Lippmann’s criticisms that ordinary people are incapable of democratic rule, and hence is
unrealistic. More damaging, Westbrook contends that the book itself is an exercise in wishful thinking.
Throughout his career; Dewey argues that ends cannot be determined by wishful thinking, out of the air,
but must be working ends-in-view connected to practical means. Westbrook argues that the working ends
of Dewey’s democratic theory—that democracy can become a way of life and that the public can be a
more meaningful guide of policy—are not connected to practical means. Westbrook makes two related
arguments about the disconnection between ends and means. First, he argues that Dewey made the
conditions for the realization of a democratic public so demanding that he inadvertently proves
Lippmann’s point that citizens do not have sufficient knowledge for self-governance (316). Second, for
Westbrook, Dewey leaves too many questions unanswered and gives far too few details about the
realization of his democratic ideal (318). Here we see the criticism of what Dewey constantly refused to
do—provide a blue-print for democracy.
It is true, Dewey leaves much unsaid. However, against these criticisms, I contend and will argue
that his hypotheses are both realistic and practical as projective starting points in the move towards more
vibrant forms of democracy. Dewey constructs ideal criteria to measure democracy on a continuum; it is
not a question of implementing a full-fledged program, but the slow hard work of improving conditions.
Dewey’s very method of thinking prevents him from giving further details: citizens themselves must carry
out their own democratic projects, and in doing so, conditions may change, new hypotheses may be
formed. While important questions remain, I believe Dewey’s reluctance to establish a blueprint
represents the radical nature of his political thought and his radical trust in ordinary citizens (Ryan 1995,
310).
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Nonetheless, Dewey’s radical trust in ordinary individuals also puts the locus of responsibility for
social reform on the citizens themselves. This radical trust leaves some key questions: what if the
conditions for the democratic ideal cannot be realized? To what extent is democracy as part of everyday
life dependent on accessible public spaces within dominant social practices and institutions? To what
extent can citizens open up necessary democratic spaces in those institutions? More specifically, what if
citizens cannot change institutions to create the kinds of free spaces necessary for democracy to be a part
of everyday life? These questions, in many ways, motivate the next chapter. It will address the second
important line of criticism that Dewey’s democratic theory fails to pay sufficient attention to the power,
conflict, and realities of political institutions.
3. DEWEY’S CONCEPTION OF DEMOCRACY
A central feature of Dewey’s mature democratic thought is his distinction between “political” democracy
and democracy “as a way of life.” Political democracy refers to the institutions, mechanisms, and
processes of democracy—making laws, carrying on governmental administration, elections, universal
suffrage, and political parties, etc. Instead of seeing these particular features as defining democracy,
Dewey argues that they are specific means to bring about the idea of democracy. In a statement bound to
provoke gasps from advocates of liberal democracy, Dewey claims that “there is no sanctity in universal
suffrage, frequent elections, majority rule, congressional and cabinet government” (PP, 145). Each
institution may have a specific use in realizing democracy (or the functioning of a particular political
institution), but does this does not mean that they are inherent, timeless, defining features of democracy.
The problem, as we shall see in the next section, is that things we take for granted as defining democracy
may be historical anachronisms, devised during different periods, under different conditions, to solve
different problems. Relying on dated ideas and political institutions may actually hinder the
contemporary realization of democracy. Dewey still values political democracy, of course. Political
democracy, by its very nature, raises issues for discussion and debate; and in this sense can be educative,
allows for the settlement of conflict without resort to violence, enables a degree of collective control.
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However, Dewey calls for the critical interrogation of contemporary democracy in order to come to
understanding of its meaning as a social ideal.
What exactly does Dewey mean by democracy “as a way of life”? 3 In an important sense it
means democracy represents a normative ideal for all forms of social life. Democracy, according to
Dewey, is the form of political and social life that best provides the conditions for individuals to fully
realize their unique capacities and to develop their individuality (LSA, 24). The principal way in which
this development occurs is through “the participation of every mature human being in formation of the
values that regulate the living of men together” (LW 11:217). Dewey calls for incorporating democracy
and democratic forms into all aspects of associated life-- family, school, work, religion, or leisure, etc.
Note, however, Dewey’s qualification that participation is limited to every mature human being,
harkening back to his notion that schools as embryonic communities protect young people from the
complexity of the adult social world. In the penultimate chapter, I, or more appropriately the young
people in Public Achievement challenge this view, positing that young people can act as active citizens,
today.
Dewey, however, is trying to get at something even more fundamental than just democratizing
social life. In his major works on democracy, Dewey prefers the more precise but less catchy phrases, for
example that “democracy is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience”
(DE, 87) or that “the clear consciousness of a communal life, in all its implications, constitutes the idea of
democracy” (PP, 149). Dewey places particular emphasis on democracy as the realization of community
through communication. As I noted in Chapter Two, communication a shared mode of reconstructing
experience. Democracy provides a social arena for communication on the issues of common interest. To
support his case, Dewey points us to the etymological origins of common, community, and
communication. Citizens not only learn about social and political issues through communication,
deliberation, and shared inquiry, but participate in a communal process of making meaning. If conceived
in this manner, citizenship therefore becomes a meaning making and meaningful activity. The ultimate
end for democracy, in Dewey’s view, is when all citizens have a “clear consciousness of communal life”
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in support of individual growth. This idea invokes Rousseau’s general will. However, as we will see,
Dewey’s concept of public and pluralist conception of society eschews any idea of a single “common
good.”
Dewey never clearly articulated the relationship between “political” democracy and democracy
“as a way of life.” In a provocative article, Axel Honneth (1998) argues that, for Dewey, democracy “as a
way of life” represents a pre-condition for the political form (776). In order for political democracy “to
work,” or more precisely in Honneth’s terms, in order to have more rational means of democratic will
formation, citizens need to have a larger sense of themselves as citizens and as members of a democratic
public. The ideal of democracy as a way of life is characterized by Honneth as a “reflexive form of social
cooperation.” The advantage of this model is that “procedures of democratic will formation are grasped
as the rational means which a cooperatively integrated society attempts to solve its problems” (765). It is
important to note that Honneth’s claim that social life is temporally prior to political institutions. While
Dewey does invoke such a temporal distinction in his narrative of the formation of the public and the
state, I argue that political and “social democracy” are always inextricably interlinked and mutually
dependent.
3.1 Democratic Criteria
While Dewey views democracy as a moral and ethical ideal, it is important to note that it is not a static
ideal or singular vision. Similar to my discussion of the social ends of education, Dewey thinks that
democratic ideals are contextual; they will evolve over time as conditions change. Moreover, ideals are
always a matter of political contestation and debate, thus malleable. What is dangerous, in Dewey’s view,
is unthinking devotion to ideals. Instead, ideals should be used to help clarify problems and construct
criteria to evaluate social practices and proposals for reform. Thinking in terms of the purposes of civic
engagement, these criteria enable citizens to measure the “democratic value” of any social institution or
practice. As noted above, I advance the claim that Dewey’s evaluative criteria are what make his
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democratic theory radical. Moreover, the process of using these criteria is educative; citizens develop
critical intelligence and democratic habits.
In Chapter Three I briefly outlined Dewey’s criteria for democratic education. In The Public and
Its Problems, democracy, he qualifies and extends these criteria as follows:
1. From the standpoint of the individual, it consists in having a responsible share according to
capacity in forming and directing the activities of the groups to which one belongs and in
participating according to need the in the values the groups sustain (PP, 147).
2. From the standpoint of groups, it demands liberation of the potentialities of members of a group
in harmony with the interests and goods which are common. Since every individual is a member
of many groups, this specification cannot be fulfilled except when different groups interact
flexibly and fully in connection with other groups
(PP, 147).
3. From the standpoint of the public, an obvious requirement is freedom of social inquiry and
distribution of its conclusions (PP, 166).
As noted in the last chapter, these seem like strange criteria to “measure” democracy. Except for the
vague presence of freedom of speech and association, these criteria do not seem to address democratic
politics. They do, however, provide the means to assess the degree and extent of communication and
democratic participation within and across social groups. One thing to keep in mind is that Dewey is
outlining the antecedents to a method in The Public and Its Problems. Moreover, the criteria he derives
are absolute values, but represent a way to evaluate social institutions and practices on a continuum in
terms of more or less democratic. Dewey does not deny violence, coercion or conflict in social life, but
forcefully argues that if given a choice, we should work to solve these dilemmas through democratic
means. In this sense, the ideal of the democracy cannot nor ever will be established as a fact, but is a
regulative ideal that must be something actively and continually strived for.
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4. DIAGNOSIS OF THE PROBLEMS OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY
When philosophy is used as a tool for social reform, Dewey holds that the first step is to clarify the
problems at hand. Hence, Dewey’s democratic theory likewise requires a critical analysis of the actual
workings of American democracy. As I noted in the previous section, Dewey urged us to be historically
specific in our analysis of concepts and institutions. We cannot assume that the democratic republic, as
framed during the founding period, perpetuates itself automatically. Specifically, Dewey calls attention to
the fact that norms, institutions, and mechanisms of democracy formed during a previous period may not
work in current conditions. Dewey notes that because society is so complex, this analysis may best be
conducted by philosophers, social scientists, and or policy experts. Rather than rule by experts, Dewey
thinks that experts must play an important role in analysis and framing. Their job is to supply working
hypotheses and criteria effective citizen participation and engagement. Dewey’s diagnosis of the
problems of American democracy in the 1920s and 1930s are relevant today. He helps us understand why
people are apathetic and how democratic will formation is stunted by social structures. Thinking in terms
of contemporary civic engagement efforts, I advance that some form of critical analysis existing political
forms is a precondition to taking collective action.
Dewey’s general diagnosis of the problems of American democracy in the 1920s can be captured
by his idea of “cultural lag.” Basically, social changes have rapidly outpaced both political and social
institutions and political ideas. According to Dewey, the inherited political ideas and political agencies
are incapable of understanding, much less managing such a radically changed society. The industrial and
scientific revolutions have brought about a “new era” which is characterized by mass production,
expansion of markets, acceleration of communication and transportation, new and cheaper forms of
amusement, and the like. These social changes have brought into being new institutions, social
relationships, and habits of work and play.. Dewey, as always, says yes and no to these developments. As
noted in previous chapters, Dewey identifies positive features such as the liberation of individuals, release
from old traditions, increased control over nature, dramatic increase and democratization of knowledge,
and increased productivity. At the same time these changes have enslaved workers to machines, created
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vaster disparities of wealth, developed unprecedented destructive military power and shook the very
foundations of communities (PP, 141).
Importantly, for Dewey, these social changes have altered the relationships and connections
between people. In earlier forms of community, people were connected through face to face interaction,
tradition, and locale. In this localized setting, they could more easily perceive the consequences of their
public deliberations and decisions. Democracy, according to Dewey, worked in this setting because it
embodied the idea of communal problem-solving and the recognition of the effects of communal
decisions of your neighbors.4 This is not to say that democratic forms have remained static since the
founding of America. Dewey carefully describes the development of democratic institutions and
ideologies. His main point is that existing political forms are inadequate to deal with the on-going results
of the rapid social changes turning the new century.
The “new era of human relationships” does not mean that people are disconnected, but are
connected in different ways. Dewey states that
The Great Society created by steam and electricity may be a society, but it is no community. The
invasion of community by the new and relatively impersonal and mechanical modes of combined
human behavior is the outstanding fact of modern life (PP, 98).
A distant cousin of our contemporary infatuation with globalization, the term “Great Society” was an
important and powerful popular concepts in the 1920s. Graham Wallas coined the term to capture the
emergence of the vast global networks of interdependent relationships among nations, industries and
peoples (Westbrook 1991, 307). These networks have “eliminated distance” in the sense that people
could interact or at least take part in transactions that are national and even international in scope. The
flow of capital and information exponentially expands the number and type of human relations. The
consequences of social actions now affect people in extensive and complex, but often invisible ways. As
Dewey states, “the development of those extensive and invisible bonds, those ‘great impersonal concerns,
organizations’ which now pervasively affect the thinking, willing and doing of everybody” (PP, 107). In
a striking claim, anticipating Michel Foucault, as it were, Dewey asserts that “opinion has been
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regimented as well as outward behavior … mass production is not confined to the factory” (PP, 115-116).
This regimentation has produced a level of social and intellectual conformity which Dewey calls the
“standardization favorable to mediocrity.” A Lippmanesque phrase, for sure, in stark contrast to Dewey’s
professed faith in the capacity of human beings, noted earlier. However, Dewey is targeting the social
conditions that have brought this state of affairs. He notes two important consequences of this new era of
human relationships for democracy: first, citizens are increasingly apathetic and second, it is extremely
difficult for citizens to realize their common interests.
4.1 Apathy
One result of this new era is that the “the confusion which has resulted from the size and ramifications of
social activities has rendered men skeptical of the efficiency of political action” (PP, 135). In other
words, social life is so complex that individuals are rightfully skeptical that standard modes of
participation like voting, attending meetings, and writing representatives will impact political affairs.
Here, Dewey echoes Lippmann’s characterization of the citizen as a deaf spectator in the darkened back
row. However, Dewey extends this familiar analysis of political apathy by stating that the consequences
of this skepticism prevents citizens from identifying themselves with definite issues (PP, 134-5).
Because citizens are confused or are unable to comprehend complex political issues, they are less likely to
have the requisite interest and passion to act politically. In this sense, Dewey intimates that one’s identity
as a citizen is directly tied to the issues that one identifies with. Drawing from my earlier discussion of
vocation, it is only by taking on an interest, taking up a cause, or working to change something that
citizenship can become a core part of ourselves. Rather than assuming that young people have given or
fixed political interests or identities (as often defined by political science), Dewey’s notion of vocation
and individual growth opens up ways in which we can form and reform interests and identities through
experience.
Dewey was disappointed with the low levels of political participation in the 1920s. In a comment
that is as fitting today as in the 1927, he states that
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Only habit and tradition, rather than reasoned conviction, together with a vague faith in doing
one’s civic duty, send to the polls a considerable percentage of the fifty per cent, who still vote.
And of them it is a common remark that a large number vote against something or somebody
rather than for anything or anybody, except when powerful agencies create a scare (PP, 135).
Given the current conditions marked by apathy on one side and propaganda on the other, Dewey tries in
The Public and Its Problems to reconstruct an effective role for citizens and public will-formation,.
Dewey’s analysis of social life in the 1920s is that “the political elements in the constitution of
the human being, those having to do with citizenship, are crowded to one side” (PP, 137). Americans
then, and I would add now, are more taken up with immediate work and play than public concerns (PP,
137). At times, Dewey sounds like a curmudgeon, or at least like Lippmann, when he talks about the
increase in “cheap amusements” that diverts peoples’ attention from political concerns. He offers the
perceptive and prescient observation that people can talk with ease about cars, movies or sports while
struggle to have sustained political discussions. I think Dewey is correct in understanding the diverse
nature of individual lives, he recognizes that “man is a consuming and sportive animal as well as a
political one” (PP, 139), While not discrediting the necessity of work and play, our exclusive attention to
them dislocated and pushed to the side our political interests.
However, curmudgeonly Dewey appears to be, he is not a utopian. As discussed above, Dewey
warns against looking back to the ancient polis where “to be fully a free man and to be a citizen [meant]
participating in the drama, the sport, the religion and the government of the community were equivalent
affairs” (PP, 5). While these small republics produced a vibrant political life, Dewey also notes that they
were homogeneous, relatively static, and burdened by slavery and ceaseless war. The challenge for
Dewey, and for my purposes, is to develop ways for citizens to enlarge the constitutive political aspects of
their being in a pluralistic, complex and increasingly global society.
I think that Dewey’s analysis of apathy is applicable to our contemporary society. The distance
between everyday experience and political affairs (traditionally conceived) has grown immeasurably.
This ever-widening gap has not only rendered citizens skeptical of political action, but impedes the ability
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to identify with particular political interests. As I discussed above, the formation of interests and
ultimately a public vocation is a critical element of youth civic engagement. Dewey offers a way to
bridge this gap. Dewey’s analysis of apathy also builds on his concept of the self, especially his notion
that disposition is plural. Dewey frankly acknowledges how issues of work, play, and family are seen as
more important than political concerns. Here we can see the significance of Dewey’s broad vision of
citizenship. Clearly recognizing that it is not possible to simply insist that public affairs are more
important than these other life pursuits, Dewey, instead, seeks to integrate citizenship as one particular
vocation within and across people’s lives.
4.2 The Eclipse of the Public
The other side of the coin of apathy, so to speak, is the “eclipse of the public.” Because citizens do not
participate in democratic life, there is little or no sense of a common or public interest to guide “political”
democracy. As mentioned in the beginning of this section, Dewey held that existing political agencies
were incapable of providing the mechanisms for people to realize their common interests. Honneth
(1998) has helped clarify how Dewey’s account of the “eclipse of the public” is actually a problem of
“democratic will formation” (777). As Lippmann so ably noted, public opinion, in itself, is not an
adequate guide for democratic rule. It is, at best, based on stereotypes and worst easily manipulated.
Dewey basically agrees, but seeks to re-construct the idea of the public that will allow for it to become a
vehicle for democratic will formation.
Dewey’s first step is to ask the fundamental question that Lippmann simply assumed had an
answer: what is a public?” Dewey’s basic definition of a public is deceptively simple, it “consists in all of
those who are affected by indirect consequences of transactions to such an extent that it is deemed
necessary to have those consequences systematically cared for” (PP, 15-16). The line between public and
private, according to Dewey here, is constructed according to the extent and the scope of consequences.
In private actions, individuals have the ability to perceive, and to some extent control, the consequences
of their actions. Instead of locating the public in terms of space (domain of action) or population
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(grouping of persons), Dewey focuses on the indirect consequences of social interactions and the
relationships between and among people and institutions. The public therefore does not exist abstractly,
rather it must be “called into being” in concrete situations where people recognize the need to manage
consequences. In this sense, there can be multiple “publics” in a given society and “the” public may even
extend beyond national boundaries. The implications of this reconstruction are considerable. It entails a
radical re-thinking of core distinction between private and public in liberalism. With Dewey, the lines
between public and private become blurred and dynamic depending on the situation. Taken to its logical
conclusion, Dewey’s consequential definition of the public provides a means to de-territorialize and denationalize conceptions of citizenship. Rather than assuming that there are geographical “communities of
interest,” Dewey is pushing towards transactive communities. In this sense, the public requires people to
recognize the complex ways in which local problems may be globally connected.
As such, Dewey treats the eclipse of the public as, what he calls, an “intellectual” problem; it
involves the ability for the public to perceive, recognize and understand the indirect consequences of
social transactions. Because the “new era” has expanded the scope, density and complexity of indirect
consequences, Dewey acknowledges that it is difficult for public officials, much less ordinary citizens, to
recognize and manage those consequences. In a key turn, Dewey notes that the problem is not a lack of
“a public,” but rather there are too “many publics” or too “much of public concern.” He explains that
The machine age has so enormously expanded, multiplied, intensified and complicated the scope
of the indirect consequences, have formed such immense and consolidated unions in action, on an
impersonal rather than a community basis, that the resultant public cannot identify and distinguish
itself. . . There are too many publics and too much of public concern for our existing resources to
cope with (PP, 126).
Given the overwhelming presence of too many publics, Dewey defines the normative ideal of the Public
(designated in capitalized form) as recognition of the consequences of a whole community integrated
under a common principle. Unfortunately, Dewey is not entirely clear what this common principle is or
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how it would come into being. At times it seems that the only time a Public comes into being is during a
revolution. Dewey states
To form itself, the public has to break existing political forms. This is hard to do because these
forms are themselves the regular means of instituting change. The public which generated
political forms is passing away, but the power and lust of possession remains in the hands of
officers and agencies which the dying public instituted. This is why the change of the form of
states is so often effected by revolution (PP, 30-31).
Dewey is well aware of how inherited political agencies, not only are inadequate for current conditions,
but block efforts of reform and prevent democratic will formation.
I suggest that Dewey capitalizes “the Public” to distinguish it from the many “publics” that
constitute modern life.5 In this sense, the Public is a moral ideal and criterion for analysis. Rather than
the actual achievement of common interests, the Public helps citizens critically evaluate existing states.
As Dewey notes, the Public “is ever something to be scrutinized, investigated, searched for” (PP, 31).
This concept allows us to assess the degree of organization of the public and the degree in which officers
care for public interests (PP, 33). It is surprising that in Dewey’s analysis a greater realization of the
public produces somewhat modest consequences for democracy. He argues that in a (more) revitalized
public “citizens will give it weight in the selection of official representatives and in the definition of their
responsibilities and rights” (PP, 77) and “the interest of the public [will be] a more supreme guide and
criterion of governmental activity” (PP, 146). Modest consequences indeed, for people to give more
thought for who they vote for and for government officials to give more thought to the common good.
Given that a realization of the Public is rare, if not impossible, the active search for the public is
the best that we can hope for. In structuring social life in terms of the search for it, democracy will
function more like experimental inquiry on a societal scale, or as Dewey says cooperative inquiry. Here
we have the third and final shift in our understanding of experience—from reflective experience,
experimental inquiry, and now cooperative inquiry.
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In this sense, the Public is a decidedly political concept; it can serve as a reference point in
mediating political conflicts. Who are the conflicts between? What are they about? Dewey holds an
idiosyncratic pluralist conception of the state. It is idiosyncratic in that he argues that there is no one
thing that can be called society. Rather, “there are societies, associations, groups of immense number of
kinds, having different ties and instituting different interests” (PP, 69-70). For Dewey there is a
fundamental “fact” of multiple different social groupings—good, bad and indifferent (e.g. gangs, criminal
bands, clubs for sport). Dewey rejects the standard pluralist view associated with G.D.H Cole, or the
English pluralists generally, that the state’s function is limited to settling conflicts between groups “as if
each had a fixed scope of action of its own” (PP, 73). Groups, Dewey reminds us, are not distinct, selfenclosed entities. Because the groups are both distinctive entities and constitutive parts of the public,
there is necessarily an infinite overlapping of interests. Dewey sees the consequences of groups as
complexly inter-related, so thus there is nothing as simple as mediating groups or settling conflicts.
Instead, he argues that the state should construct mechanisms to channel effective operation among and
between groups in relation to the extent to which the consequences of social transactions need to be
regulated.
The importance of this idea to Dewey’s larger democratic theory and as a contribution to
citizenship theory is that there are many societies or associations which “condition” us as human beings.
However, given that each individual belongs to a multiplicity of associations, groupings, and organized
interests, there is little to hold different publics together in terms of an integrated whole (PP, 137). Here
we can see the capitalized form of the Public as an ideal and a point of reference for individuals to
comprehend the indirect consequences of the innumerable social transactions (PP, 126,137). Moreover,
the basic concept of the public (small p) as the consequences of social transactions is a crucial part of
pushing our understanding of citizenship beyond national membership, to common interaction. Indeed,
people belong to many different publics, and it is within these domains that they can act as citizens.
The question looms, however, how can the basic search for the Public be realized? What forms
of social change need to take place in order for citizens to not only recognize the broader consequences of
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social interactions but act in relation to an idea of the public? The criticism of Dewey’s utopian nature
reappears. While Dewey’s ideals of democracy as a way of life, active citizens and an integrated public
are laudable, does he offer a practical and realistic program for their realization? Alan Ryan argues that
Dewey is much more successful in diagnosing the ills of democracy than in proposing workable
solutions. With the basic thrust of this argument, I disagree. However, the issue is complex. In the next
section I try to clarify matters and to outline Dewey’s recommendations for the realization of the Public.
In the conclusion, I will assess their practicality.
5. “DEMOCRACY … IF PROPER CONDITIONS ARE FURNISHED”
I opened this chapter endorsing Dewey’s faith in the potential for ordinary human beings to realize
democracy as a way of life. Dewey, as we have seen, shares Lippmann’s doubts, but argues that we have
no way of knowing if this is true until proper conditions are furnished. This section critically analyzes
Dewey’s articulation of the conditions necessary for the realization of democracy as a social ideal. This
has direct and significant importance for youth civic engagement. Building on the third chapter which
detailed how youth civic engagement experiences can be structured in formal settings, this chapter places
youth civic engagement in a broader context. Specifically I draw from Dewey to examine the ways in
which democratic forms of life can be realized outside of schooling and youth programming. Dewey
offers ways in which associational life and the mechanisms of political democracy can be reconstructed to
foster the habits of social intelligence. In this sense, we have shifted from education for democracy to
identifying the ways in which democracy educates.
As stated, Dewey frankly recognizes the difficulties of bringing these conditions into existence.
His goal in The Public and Its Problems is not to construct an actual method for the realization of the
public, but rather outline the antecedents to such a method. This text therefore only represents working
hypotheses of how the public could be realized (PP, 185). In line with Dewey’s experimental method, the
hypotheses offered in this text must be tested in action. Dewey recognizes that through such actions, both
the goals (ends-in-view) and future means will be revised as the work progresses. Because the
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experimental process is always open to change, it would be absurd to determine exact steps or offer a
blueprint. While this makes sense, it is understandable why Dewey’s refusal to lay out a definite program
is frustrates sympathetic readers and is seen as an evasion by critics.
In The Public and Its Problems, Dewey clearly states that the condition needed to move towards
Dewey’s ideal of democracy as a way of life is a marked improvement in the level of public and political
communication, discussion and debate. A noble idea indeed, and one that deeply resonates with the state
of political rhetoric today. Dewey proposes two different, but inter-related strategies to realize this
condition: First, freer interactions among and between social groups and second, the dissemination of
useful information that allows people to make political judgments based on facts. On the face of it, this
seems like modest proposals. However, embedded in these ideas lie Dewey’s radicalism.
This discussion below draws in large part on Dewey’s democratic criteria outlined in section 2.1
above To quickly review the criteria: First, individuals should have a responsible share in groups and
participate according to groups’ needs and values. Second, groups should liberate the potentialities of
members in harmony with the interests and goods which are common and also interact flexibly and fully
in connection with other groups. And third, there should be freedom of social inquiry and distribution of
its conclusions.
5.1 The General Problem
Dewey, as noted, sees the public as an intellectual problem; the prime condition for its realization is a
kind of knowledge. It is important to note that for Dewey, ,knowledge is a social product. The
intelligence of any human being is contingent upon what Dewey calls the “funded capital” of civilization.
The “kind of knowledge” needed is actually a degree of social intelligence in which individuals can see
the larger public significance of the consequences of actions. Dewey argues that the best way to develop
social intelligence is through improving conditions of communication, discussion and debate. Dewey
identifies two inter-related strategies to improve the condition of discussion and debate-- face to face
communication and the quality of public information (sub-sections 4.3 and 4.3 below). Both are
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necessary. On the eve of World War II, Dewey nicely captures both the necessity of face to face
communication and broad dissemination of public knowledge in one statement: “the heart and final
guarantee of democracy is in free gatherings of neighbors on the street corner to discuss the back and
forth what is read in uncensored news of the day” (LW, 14:227).6 Dewey argues that the transformative
potential of communication is best realized face to face. However, face to face communication may be
parochial, biased, and exclusionary. There are two ways to overcome this—for individuals to belong to
and communicate in many different social groups and for these discussions to be grounded in useful,
accurate, uncensored public information. The “uncensored news of the day” represents the public
dimension of information; there needs to be publicity of information common to all. It serves to ground
intimate conversations in a common object, larger context, and (more) factual background.
5.2 Face to Face Communication
Recall that the first democratic criteria centers on individuals joining groups. At first glance, the mere act
of joining a group seems to lack political content. But Dewey makes several important qualifications—
individuals need to share in the direction of groups which at the same time are structured in ways that
allow individual self-development. In other words, these groups represent “democracy as a way of life”
on a small scale. They provide the opportunity to “practice” the skills of democracy—communication,
deliberation, negotiation, and problem solving through working together to advance the mission of the
group. In groups, communication and co-creation of meaning have the potential to transform both the
individuals and the group. Dewey defines groups very broadly, perhaps too broadly, to cover all forms of
associational life. While Dewey generally speaks in terms of voluntary groups, he often includes the
workplace as a group. Dewey calls for the democratization of the workplace, while recognizing both the
limited power of the workers to enact reforms and the possibilities for changing workplace regulations
(LW 11:217). Dewey hopes that participatory processes, in all forms of social life, will provide the
conditions in which the individuality of members can be liberated in harmony with the common interests
and goods of the group.
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While groups represent a learning opportunity, as it were, Dewey is acutely aware that
participation in groups can sometimes be undemocratic or even anti-democratic. Remember Dewey’s
favorite example of the band of robbers. They could very well fulfill the criteria in which the group
works together to realize their collective aims of burglary while at the same time individual members
become more skilled at lock-picking, disabling alarms, cracking safes, getting away, and laundering their
loot. Here we see individual growth in the furthering the aims of the group. However, the participation in
this group is limiting because it forecloses opportunities for members to freely participate in other groups.
Dewey argues that institutions and social practices that narrow the range of an individual’s experiences
and sets up barriers between social groups are not conducive to individual growth and are deleterious for
democracy. What should be done, however, assuming that there will be many undemocratic and antidemocratic associations, nor being able to dictate that they should be?
This leads to Dewey’s second criteria, that there be free and full interaction between groups (a
standard that the robber band would not meet). Dewey believes that there is an educative and democratic
function of the interaction between groups. He again evokes John Stuart Mill in emphasizing the positive
effects of having diverse and novel experiences.7 More importantly, Dewey argues that by encountering
with different groups, people, and ways of life, the barriers that separate people are broken down. By
seeing how the ways of being or consequences of actions of one group affect other groups or the larger
public, individuals can learn the broader public meanings of their actions. This, Dewey believes can
develop “good citizens.” He states that
A good citizen finds in his conduct of a political group enriching and enriched by his participation
in family life, industry, scientific and artistic associations. There is a free give-and-take fullness
of integrated personality is therefore possible of achievement, since the pulls and responses of
different groups reënforce one another and their values accord (PP, 148).
This idea of an “integrated personality” is a central element of Dewey’s conception of the self. In
Chapter Two I highlighted how the self is always in the process of formation through interaction with its
environment. Because social customs and individual habits are a function of interactions with
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environments, Dewey argues that we have different dispositions, or what I will later call vocations. An
integrated personality refers to one’s ability to adapt flexibly and incorporate diverse habits across
different settings. We can see the connection to Dewey’s primary educational goal for young people to
acquire flexible habits that they can use in a variety of situations.
By joining many groups, Dewey holds that individuals gain new roles, powers and
responsibilities. At the same time, they avoid insularity and narrowness. Dewey notes how a particular
person may be “one thing” as a church member and “another thing” as a member of the business
community (PP, 191). In taking on different roles in different associations, Dewey notes that the person
“has new powers and immunities, new responsibilities. He can be contrasted with himself as he behaves
in other connections” (PP, 189). We can see connections to Dewey’s concept of the self, and while not
fully-developed, the beginnings of a social role theory. Dewey is aware that there may be conflicts within
across roles and responsibilities, and these conflicts may or may not be harmful. An integrated
personality will be able to make sense of and incorporate these conflicts. This critical element for growth
is the ability to compare and contrast different roles and responsibilities.
It must here be noted here, in criticism, that Dewey seems to assume that the critical comparison
of roles will occur. Dewey’s example of the individual who is both a business person and member of the
church is a good case in point. While there may be different moral economies for both these roles, some
people may critically compare these roles, while many others will simply take them for granted in their
isolation. The main point, especially for civic engagement, is that taking different roles is an important
condition for the development of active citizenship. Each new experience and role has the potential of
disclosing the taken for granted and represents an opportunity for cumulative learning and growth. In the
sixth chapter, we will see the importance for young people to have multiple opportunities to “practice”
citizenship.
The first two democratic criteria furnish the specific conditions for the realization of democracy
at the local level. By joining multiple groups that freely interact with each other helps people interact
across barriers, have a better idea of the consequences of actions, and develop integrated personalities.
23
However, there is no guarantee that these types of interactions will enable citizens to understand national
or international issues.
5.3 The Quality of Public Information and the Failings of the Press
This directly leads to the issue of the role of the press in a democracy. Dewey advanced a fairly standard
critique of his day that the America press in the 1920s was not serving the public interest. In order to
elevate the conditions of public discussion and debate, Dewey recommends freeing social scientific
inquiry and broadly disseminating its results in a useful and factual manner. Against the obvious
objection is that ordinary people are not interested in reading, much less listening or viewing, the results
of social scientific inquiry, Dewey enlists art for the purposes on attractive presentation of inquiry.
Dewey, here, recognizes how artful presentation played a key role in the success of propaganda, and
hopes that it can serve a similar function for the dissemination of factual information. .
Before addressing Dewey’s recommendations, it is important to understand his critique of the
news media. The three problems Dewey identifies are as applicable today as they were in the 1920s–
overt and covert propaganda by elites, the fact that media is driven by the profit motive, and the
sensationalistic nature of the news.
Dewey’s experience of the official propaganda machine during World War I left an indelible
mark on his political thinking. Dewey was deeply troubled by the way politicians, government, and
industry exploited the sentiment of the masses and repressed dissent. Elites have capitalized in the
national reach of media and “have developed an extraordinary facility in enlisting upon their side the
inertia, prejudices and emotional partisanship of the masses by use of a technique which impedes free
inquiry” (PP, 169). Dewey notes that the professional war-time propagandists have turned into hired
publicity agents. Rather than communicate platforms and ideas, the publicity industry aims to manipulate
public opinion through “public relations.” While it can be assumed that manipulation of opinion has
always been a tool of the powerful, what troubles Dewey (unlike, say Lippmann) is the
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professionalization and nationalization of this activity; it is has become an industry onto itself with
unprecedented reach
Moreover, the elite exploitation of opinion is fueled by the fact that the media is a profit driven
enterprise dependent on advertising. Dewey elaborates that “those who have this interest will have an
unresisted motive for tampering with the springs of political action in all that affects them” (PP, 182).
Even though there is a nominally “free” press to the degree to which it is or is not controlled or censored
by the government, Dewey urges us to examine the effect of the economic system on the press. Rather
than documenting instances of abuse and “honest reporting,” Dewey asks “how far genuine intellectual
freedom and social responsibility are possible on any large scale under the present existing economic
regime?” (LW, 11:270). Dewey argues that editors and reporters are ultimately responsible to profit, not
the public. This feature of the press is exacerbated in towns and cities where the press is owned by
“industrial interests.” Dewey notes how the press either entirely omits or positively frames stories
involving the reigning industrial interests of the town, which just happen to own a stake in the press
(271).
Dewey agreed with Lippmann that the general nature of the news was sensationalistic. He plays
on two meanings of “sensational.” First, news tends toward the sensational when it reports scandalous
events such as murders, fires, or the love affairs of public figures. Second and related, the press presents
“stories” as isolated events or “sensations.” Dewey states that “the ‘featuring’ of passing incidents in a
way which violates all logic continuity and which leaves us with those isolated intrusions and shocks
which are the essence of ‘sensations’” (PP, 168-169). Without any sense of the meaning of the event or
its connections to other events or social relations, citizens have no way to place the event in its larger
social significance.
Lippmann, however, came to a radically different conclusion. He argued that even if there was a
free and unbiased press, mass democracy was still inadequate. The immediate nature of news means that
the press can only report on events, it cannot reveal the truth of the matter (Lippmann 1921, 358).
Because ordinary citizens are pre-disposed to viewing the world through stereotypes that simplify
25
complex reality, even if the news is “factually” correct, people will still filter in preconceived ways. A
principal difference between Dewey and Lippmann is that Dewey believed that a rectified and repackaged press can fulfill its role in democracy.
This rectification would take the form of social scientific inquiry repackaged with the assistance
of art..8 Dewey does not advocate the inclusion of social scientific reports, in any strict sense, in the mass
press. The problem with social scientific inquiry of his day (and ours) is that its results often come on the
scene too late for citizens to make informed judgments (in addition to being poorly written). What is
needed, however, is the artful presentation of information that is, in Dewey’s words, meaningful, factual,
contemporary and quotidian (PP, 180). Dewey wants the news both to speak to the everyday reality of
people lives (contemporary and quotidian) and enable citizens to connect the news to broader social
processes (meaningful and factual) in order to render sound judgments on the issues of the day.
Dewey anticipated the obvious objection is that ordinary citizens are not interested in social
scientific analysis, not matter how quotidian. He states that “the mass of the reading public is not
interested in learning and assimilating the results of accurate investigation (PP, 183). Dewey argued that
the masses could become more interested through better presentation; and presentation is a question of
art. The idea that art can breathe life into and social scientific inquiry more useful is appealing (especially
to social scientists who aspire to either poetic presentation or popular audiences). Dewey sees a special
place for art in democracy because “(m)en’s conscious life of opinion and judgment often proceeds on a
superficial and trivial plane. But their lives reach a deeper level. The function of art has always been to
break through the crust of conventionalized and routine consciousness” (PP, 183).
Dewey’s also recognizes the possible objection that the call for social scientific inquiry in the
name of democracy raises the specter of expert rule (see Diggins 1999; Kaufman-Osborn 1984, 1985). If
we accept Dewey and Lippmann’s assumption that modern societies are too complex for ordinary citizens
to grasp, expert analysis may indeed be required. It is important to note that Dewey recommends an
“experimental approach” to social science. Rather than the logic of laboratory science and the search for
universal laws of human nature, the experimental approach argues that analyses and recommendations are
26
tentative hypotheses to be tested; that policies should be seen “not as programs rigidly adhered to and
executed, but subject to test, observation, and revision” (PP, 202; Kaufman Osborn 1985). For Dewey,
the results of experimental social science will not erase or even dampen differences of opinion and
interest “even when the two sides are using the same facts” (PP, 179). However, Dewey prefers that
public decisions and policies will be “informed by a greater degree of knowledge and citizens would base
their beliefs and judgments to a greater degree of evidence” (PP, 203).
Against Lippmann, Dewey says that the role of experts should be limited to discovering and
making known what he calls “social facts.” The role of the expert stops at inquiry—then it is up to public
officials and the public itself to construct hypotheses and implement policies. This strikes us as
questionable proposition today, especially in light Foucault. But Dewey seems to be making a rather
unDeweyan distinction between inquiry, implementation, and critical reflection. Dewey also does seem
to be aware of the indirect effects of social scientific knowledge with his statement that “increased
knowledge of human nature would directly and in unpredictable ways modify the workings of human
nature, and lead to the need of new methods of regulation, and so on without end” (PP, 197). Even
though Dewey shows an inkling of the disciplinary effects of social sciences, he generally assumes that
such changes will be positive. …
More fundamentally, even if the role of experts was limited, it is difficult to overcome the
objection that people are not interested in this type of information. Given the fact of the “free press”
driven by advertising, “sensational” news appears to be the most profitable. Under the best
circumstances, it is unlikely that Dewey’s dream of the artful presentation and broad dissemination of
social inquiry is possible. In this sense, Robert Westbrook’s criticism of Dewey of a disjuncture between
Dewey’s democratic ends and practical means rings true. I concur that Dewey’s proposal for artfully
presented social science is unrealistic. However, the core of his argument still stands, we are still
searching for ways to elevate political debate. In terms of civic engagement, it serves as a reminder to
teach critical media analysis; for young people to carefully consider the factual basis of the knowledge
they draw on in the course of citizen action.
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5.4 Summary
Even though Dewey saw significant problems with democracy during the 1920s and 1930s, he recognized
that basic mechanisms of “political” democracy (popular voting, majority rule and the like) involve
consultation and discussion about perceived social problems. However imperfect in practice, Dewey still
values “political” democracy because it raises debate and therefore is educative. His hope is that through
the criteria he outlines, citizens will be able to assess the democratic worth of all forms of associational
and institutional life. Moreover, based on these criteria, citizens themselves can engage in cooperative
inquiry to raise the level of debate at the local and national level as well as provide the opportunities for
people to “practice democracy” through associational life. In this sense, his recommendations are
modest, and meliorist. They do not immediately advocate a radical reconstruction of the democratic
machinery. Instead, they are practical and possible recommendations for citizens themselves to begin to
realize democracy as a way of life. Dewey thinks that if these conditions are met the public will give
more weight in the selection of public officials and base their decisions on evidence rather than
manufactured opinions. Dewey proposes two conditions to counter this: Face to face communication is
the surest way to realize the transformative potential of democratic living. However, the scope and depth
of indirect consequences renders such local interactions inadequate for grasping the larger dimensions of
public life. Therefore the artful communication of useful public knowledge is necessary.
6. CONCLUSIONS
I began this chapter endorsing Dewey’s faith in the capacity of human beings and in democracy. Is this
endorsement warranted? Dewey’s vision for the realization of democracy is premised on furnishing
proper conditions for the intelligent judgment and action of ordinary citizens. This raises the following
questions: Does Dewey successfully articulate and defend these conditions? Is this project realistic?
Does it take into it adequately takes into account power and conflict? And finally, for our purposes, how
does it help us help us understand youth civic engagement?
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6.1. Critical Commentary
I believe that one reason why the criticism of Dewey as a utopian thinker has had so much staying power
is due to the prospective nature of his thought. Dewey’s construction of ideals and discussion of
“conditions to be furnished” keeps us looking towards an unrealized future. Given that the future that
Dewey desired has not come into being, it is easy to say Dewey is utopian. However, it is worth seriously
considering whether Dewey’s democratic project is practical and possible.
One of Dewey’s main conditions necessary to realize democracy is improving the conditions of
discussion and debate. Based on democratic criteria, Dewey makes two principle recommendations:
First, Dewey makes a strong claim for the transformative potential of face to face communication,
especially if this is reinforced through interactions across multiple social groups. Second, Dewey argues
for the improved quality, dissemination, and presentation of factual inquiry. Taken together, Dewey is
trying to bring the principles of cooperative inquiry writ large. The basic sentiment is good, that face to
face communication has its limits, and citizens need better facts to base their political judgments on
firmer intellectual grounds. However, his proposal for the artful, widely disseminated, social scientific
inquiry is not only unrealistic, but deeply problematic. However, Dewey’s introduction of the experts,
albeit in limited roles, has disciplinary implications that need to be thought through.
Dewey’s merit, in my view, is offering practical starting point from which we can work towards a
more vibrant democratic life. It is important to remember that Dewey constructs criteria to measure
democracy on a continuum, it is not a question of implementing a full-fledged program, but the slow hard
work of improving conditions. Underlying these criticisms, of course, is the view that citizens are not
competent, knowledgeable or interested enough for democratic self-rule. In the sixth chapter we will
meet some young people who will silence this criticism. They show the promise and potential for the
transformative nature of political engagement. The broader question, still unanswered looms: Can these
individual examples of engagement and transformation be democratized for all young citizens? This
brings us directly to the issue of how conditions are to be brought into being. To make such civic
29
engagement programming possible, times and spaces needed to be made available, resources brought to
bear, priorities altered. To make these conditions possible are ultimately political questions.
This brings us back to Westbrook’s second criticism of Dewey. He argues that Dewey fails to
provide a blueprint for his democratic vision. Throughout this book I have argued that the root of
Dewey’s radicalism is that he does not supply a ready-made plan for how to proceed. However, there is
a missing link in Dewey’s political thought. Dewey does not offer any guidance for practical political
work necessary to bring his desired conditions of improved communication into being. In concentrating
on communication as the precondition for democratic will formation, Dewey ignores the important
question of how to democratize social life. Families, schools, workplaces, and associational life will not
democratize themselves, but require practical political work. It requires the building and exercise of
power by citizens. Moreover, Dewey tends to ignore both how communicative spaces are structured by
power relations in ways that restrict cooperative action. We can see this clearly in the delegation of social
inquiry to social science. Rather than solely relying on experts to analyze social phenomena, why not
make opportunities for citizens to pursue cooperative inquiry and collective action?
This emphasis on communication and cooperation leads to the impression
that Dewey’s political thought elides issues of power, political action, and political institutions. These
may be part of what he calls “political democracy,” but they are not addressed in depth. What is striking,
in my view, is that Dewey already articulated a strong account of action in his thinking on experience and
education. As important as discussing the news of the day on a street corner, I think Dewey’s concept of
experimental inquiry, if directed towards political matters, offers a far more powerful model for citizen
engagement. This is the method in which people intentionally work together to identify public problems,
devise strategies, take a stand on how to proceed, take action and then analyze the consequences of their
actions (in order to act again). This is a process of collective problem solving that does not elide conflict,
fail to account for power relations or engage institutions. This glaring elision of power and politics is an
important issue, and will be addressed in depth in the next chapter.
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6.2 Implications for Civic Engagement
Despite the shortcomings of The Public and Its Problems, I think that it broadens the scope of the
standard literature on civic engagement. Not only does Dewey push democracy to all forms of social life,
but he offers a important insights on how to foster civic engagement outside of and beyond formal
programs or “interventions.” While joining groups is typically not seen as a political concept, Dewey
makes a convincing case that this is a vital condition in the development of democratic habits. However,
beyond contemporary understandings of social capital that only focus on joining groups (and to some
extent the composition of groups), Dewey provides a normative frame to guide the activities of groups.
Moreover, Dewey advocates joining multiple groups to develop flexible habits and integrated
personalities. This insight has been supported by contemporary research on civic engagement which
reinforces the importance of diverse nested civic experiences (Billig 2000; Hepburn 2000; see also
Putnam 2000). As we will see in the sixth chapter, when civic engagement is an isolated experience,
young people are far less likely to take their learning to other domains of their lives. Joining multiple
groups is the necessary antidote to the fact that some social groups are undemocratic or even antidemocratic. Formal civic engagement programming has the advantage of being able to structure the
activities democratically. However, once students finish their programs, it is left to them to work for the
change of social practices and institutions. This is an unfair burden for students, and another problem
with Dewey’s radicalism, in my view. There needs to a concentrated effort not only in formal civic
engagement programming, but to provide opportunities for involvement and leadership throughout young
people’s lives—in school, at home, at work, with friends, in clubs. The larger goal of civic engagement is
for young people to become life-long active citizens, only then will democracy become a personal way of
life.
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1
Dewey is fully in agreement that democracy or civic engagement cannot be built on faith alone. His life-long work
on educational reform is a testament to this.
2
Dewey claims that every authoritarian or totalitarian regime was based on the view the needed intelligence for
ruling was confined to a privileged few (1937 in LW 11: 218).
3
Dewey borrows and approvingly cites the phrase from T.V. Smith (1926).
4
Dewey notes continues that 19th century conservatives such predicted that general suffrage would bring about the
ruin of the upper and middle classes at the hands of the propertyless masses. However, Dewey counters that ties
established by the industrial regime were “as rigid as those which were disappearing and much more extensive” (PP,
102).
While Dewey warns his readers against hypostatizing concepts such as “The Society” and “The State” (concepts he
denotes through capitalizing). Dewey’s intermittent capitalization of the public is curious given his invective that
against an “unbridled generalizing and fixating tendency of the mind which leads to a monistic fixation … and
magnified idealization of The State” (PP, 71).
5
6
In the late 1930s Dewey shifted from viewing democracy as a way of life to democracy as a personal way of life.
He came to emphasize the actions of individuals more than the social context. This quote, and this idea, are a direct
result to the development of totalitarian regimes. Dewey remarked how these regimes bred hate, suspicion, and
intolerance in addition to using propaganda to skew content and dissemination of information. The conditions that
Dewey establishes were choked and expired. Thus, Dewey comes to focus on individuals developing such habits so
that they can resist such regimes.
Dewey also notes that J.S. Mill forgets that “the actions and passions of individual men are in the concrete what
they are, their beliefs and purposes included, because of the social medium in which they live; that they are
influenced throughout by contemporary and transmitted culture, whether in conformity or protest” (PP, 195).
7
Dewey’s argument her recollect an earlier scheme, hatched, but never tried, called Thought News. Dewey and
eccentric publisher Franklin Ford hoped to start a philosophically inspired newspaper, that in Dewey’s words, would
“sell intelligence” (Westbrook 1991, 51-57).
8
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