Deweyan Democracy
I refer to John Dewey and democracy fairly often, but the new and improved blog version of Not News doesn’t really have a handy explanation of what I mean. Over the next few days I hope to make a series of posts that discuss the very basics of how we think about what a democracy is, and I can think of no better starting point. When Dewey referred to democracy, he did not primarily have in mind a system for enacting policies and selecting representatives to govern society. He refers to those questions as the domain of “political democracyâ€? in The Public and Its Problems, and considers them too limited a domain to contain the entire concept of democracy. (All page citations refer to the volume of The Collected Works of John Dewey, 1882-1953 in which that book is reprinted.)
The idea of democracy is a wider and fuller idea than can be exemplified in the state even at its best. To be realized it must affect all modes of human association, the family, the school, industry, religion. And even as far as political arrangements are concerned, governmental institutions are but a mechanism for securing to an idea channels of effective operation. (PP 325)
Democracy is an ideal way of life, a goal to be aspired to but never fully achieved. It as much a matter of culture as it is of governance.
At its core, the ideal of democracy is the ideal of a full community life, where everyone who has a stake in a decision’s outcome has a role in making the decision. A decision-maker’s role is not just to have a share of the power to settle a question in one way or another, but to understand what is at stake in the decision. This means that the decision-maker would grasp how the question arose in the first place and the likely consequences of different possible answers, especially the issue of who else would be affected by the choice. Dewey repeatedly points out that many decisions affect everyone in a community, especially in (but not limited to) questions about political democracy and state formation. This means that the entire community must be involved in the decision-making process:
Wherever there is conjoint activity whose consequences are appreciated as good by all singular persons who take part in it, and where the 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. The clear consciousness of a communal life, in all its implications, constitutes the idea of democracy. (PP 328)
How exactly this is to occur is the part that Dewey leaves deliberately and frustratingly vague. He argues that at any given moment in time, the particular needs of a particular community will require different particular forms of political organization, so it is impossible to articulate the ideal forms of the state ahead of time. While this is a legitimate point that is in keeping with the spirit of Dewey’s instrumentalism, it leaves a vital gap in our knowledge. We need some understanding of at least the general shape of those forms. We also need to know what form of political organization is both feasible in our current circumstances and likely to bring us closer to the ideal of the public discovering itself. Dewey does argue that our most promising source is the organizations and associations found within our local communities:
Unless local communal life can be restored, the public cannot adequately resolve its most urgent problem: to find and identify itself. But if it be reestablished, it will manifest a fullness, variety and freedom of possession and enjoyment of meanings and goods unknown in the contiguous associations of the past. For it will be alive and flexible as well as stable, responsive to the complex and world-wide scene in which it is enmeshed. While local, it will not be isolated. Its larger relationships will provide an inexhaustible and flowing fund of meanings upon which to draw, with assurance that its drafts will be honored. (PP 370)
Town meetings, although they require some alteration, are one example; religious organizations, volunteer groups, and civic associations can also provide forums for shared investigation and understanding of the social world. What is key is that citizens understand the concerns of their neighbors – and the way in which their neighbors’ concerns differ from their own – in order to understand the far-reaching implications of a decision. When we do this, we have better information. When we have better information, we make better decisions. When we make better decisions, we achieve our own desires with greater success. We get closer to the ideal of democracy when we harness this cycle within our local communities and then, by reaching out to other local communities, begin to knit together the larger community.
Dewey defended democracy’s ability to promote a flourishing society years earlier in Democracy and Education, in which the encompassing cultural nature of his notion of democracy is very clear. Part of his vision is traditionally epistemological. Openness is central to both science and democracy. We must be open to unexpected results in our inquiry, rather than determined to validate a preconceived notion. We must be open in our communication, sharing our observations with others and genuinely listening to and considering the suggestions of others. Dewey considers this communal investigation to be scalable – a greater number of (trained or skilled) investigators will result in a greater store of knowledge. Therefore it is in the best interest of knowledge-gatherers to expand the ranks of the skilled investigators as much as possible. Dewey takes this idea to its natural conclusion and argues that the entire community should be a community of investigators:
An undesirable society, in other words, is one which internally and externally sets up barriers to free intercourse and communication of experience. A society which makes provision for participation in its good of all its members on equal terms and which secures flexible readjustment of its institutions through interaction of the different forms of associated life is in so far democratic. Such a society must have a type of education which gives individuals a personal interest in social relationships and control, and the habits of mind which secure social changes without introducing disorder. (DE 105)
What constitutes an internal or an external barrier to free intercourse is one of the thorniest issues we have to confront when we think about democracy. Different views of what the individual is and how the person relates to the society produce different answers to this. The American intellectual tradition dating back to John Locke says that freedom is a matter of getting out of the way, of not overtly doing anything to interfere. Dewey and other progressives challenged that notion. They argued that the current state of affiars in the world does plenty to obstruct people, because of bigotry, poverty, crime, disease, ignorance, and other factors. Society therefore has an obligation to redress these wrongs and remove these social obstacles. I think Dewey’s right, but there’s a long way to go in order to convince the general public to accept that as a guiding principle.
About Dave Thomer
Born and raised in Philadelphia. Studied philosophy at Fordham University in the Bronx, where I made many great friends and met my wonderful wife. We moved back to Philadelphia, where I studied philosophy some more and became a teacher. Online and off, I'm looking for ways that we can be better citizens and build stronger communities.