About the author
American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer (1859–1952), the leading figure of pragmatism and progressive education. Dewey wrote across logic, ethics, aesthetics, and politics; a tireless public intellectual, he championed democracy as a shared way of life and remains central to American liberal and educational thought.
Synopsis
Dewey argues that a 'public' forms when people are affected by the indirect consequences of others' actions and must organize to manage them — that is the origin of the state. In modern mass society this public has been eclipsed: too dispersed and distracted to recognize itself. The cure lies in face-to-face community, free and full communication, and education, through which a 'Great Society' might become a 'Great Community' capable of self-rule.
Core passage idea
Paraphrase · Public domainDewey answers the skeptics by arguing that the cure for the ailments of democracy is more democracy — the rebuilding of community and communication so that a scattered public can recognize and govern itself.
Against Lippmann's case for rule by experts, Dewey insists that democracy's failures call for deepening it, not abandoning it. By rooting self-government in community and communication, he makes democracy a moral and social practice rather than a mere mechanism of voting.
To avoid a bubble
Pair directly with Lippmann's Public Opinion, the elitist challenge Dewey answers, and with critics who find Dewey's faith in communication and 'the public' more hopeful than the structural obstacles to it allow.
Reading note
Read it as the optimistic democratic answer to Lippmann, and as a classic of American pragmatism. Pair it with Public Opinion to follow one of the defining debates about whether ordinary citizens can govern.
Best paired with
Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion; Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America.