John Dewey
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Total reviews: 4
Average rating: 4.0 of 5
A Most Important Book 5 out of 5 stars.
24 of 24 people found this review helpful.
Derived from a series of lectures Dewey gave in 1927, The Public and Its Problems touches on virtually all the major political philosophy questions of our day. One marvels at its continued relevance into the 21st Century. Dewey, arguably the United States' greatest thinker, does an amazing job in sifting through the problems contemporary society faces when forming a polity. The point Public and Its Problems brings up on more than one occasion is the need for political and social policy to incorporate the scientific method of testing and retesting to generate better results. Dewey refers to this as an experimental social method and surely felt corporate capitalism had used up its testing time and that a new socio-economic system should be tried. Public and Its Problems talks about how policies and theories need to be constantly in flux and not rigidly adhered. The social sciences would then work to investigate and interpret the results of the testing process.
One portion of the book gives a fascinating look at a puzzling quandary Dewey proffers: that being the contradiction of the French and American revolutions having a philosophy of individualism while being massive collective efforts. This section makes for some complicated reading but it's enthralling nonetheless because it touches on a fundamental political and philosophical question. It's in this chapter of the book where he goes on to pose one of the more audacious and profound points of political thought: the essential fallacy of the democratic creed being that it assumes free human beings can rule themselves. (He obviously does say democracy is a good thing given that it threw off a restrictive cloak.) Dewey goes on to elaborate on the point indicating that what's critically necessary is an improvement to the methods and conditions of debate and discussion. Public and Its Problems goes on to ostensibly say it's the corporate capitalist press that controls policy conduct by controlling public opinion. A most astute observation. Of course this opinion is of a public that hasn't found itself, Dewey asserts. He writes "the modern economic regime control present politics much as dynastic interests controlled those of two centuries ago. They effect thinking and desire." Here he touches on false consciousness and monopolistic control over our culture and institutions and the insidious way they thwart the public from finding itself and rallying for its concerns.
Most importantly, Public and Its Problems contends that the majority populace can indeed make wise decisions regarding our present day technocratic culture; the key is that they must have access to unbiased sources without a vested interest (commercial profit) in the issue. Only with a relatively independent conduit of information can the masses make informed decisions on complex subjects. Clearly Dewey would be quite dismayed to see the state of the mass media today, being wholly owned and controlled by big corporate conglomerates. He would no doubt find it nearly impossible for a public to make intelligent decisions when pseudo-fascists like Michael Savage, Joe Scarborough, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, Pat Robertson, Laura Ingram, Rusty Humphries, Michael Reagan, G. Gordon Liddy, Ann Coulter (the proud daughter of a union buster), Mike Gallagher, Bob Grant and William Kristol; along with myriad centrist status quo apologists, set the agenda. In one paragraph of the book Dewey showed incredible foresight by remarking that society "seems to be approaching a state of government by hired promoters of opinion called publicity agents." With current political discourse being dictated by PR firms it's obvious he was right on the mark eighty years ago when he made the prediction.
Dewey comes back to an important question routinely throughout, that being what are the conditions that make the transformation possible for the "Great Society" to change into the "Great Community"? The Public and Its Problems does much to stimulate thought on this vital issue that still plagues contemporary society, especially in the United States when the state was able to wage a war on Iraq when virtually ninety percent of the world was against it!
Dewey's book serves as a tremendous introduction to history's greatest pragmatic philosopher.
Editorial Review:
In The Public and Its Problems, a classic of social and political philosophy, John Dewey exhibits his strong faith in the potential of human intelligence to solve the public's problems. In his characteristic provocative style, Dewey clarifies the meaning and implications of such concepts as "the public," "the state," "government," and "political democracy." He distinguishes his a posterior reasoning from a priori reasoning, which, he argues permeates less meaningful discussion of basic concepts. Dewey repeatedly demonstrates the interrelationships between fact and theory.
