PHILOSOPHY

DEWEY AND THE DEMOCRATIC IDEAL

Introduced by Jenny Brain on 4 March 1999

To John Dewey, (1859-1952), the democratic ideal meant a participatory democracy. It was not a way of organising a country politically, it was a way of living, a moral ideal, a modus vivendi. He believed the democratic spirit should permeate every part of society, the school, the community, the town, industry - it was a form of associated living in which there were no divisions between rich and poor, powerful and submissive, privileged and unprivileged. Each person would be enabled through education to develop their potential to the full in order to take command of their own lives and play a part in the life of the community.

It was partly as a result of reading the work of T.H. Green, the Oxford idealist philosopher, that Dewey, in the 1880s and 1890s began to construct this vision of the democratic society. Green had argued for the interdependence of the individual and society, the two being in a symbiotic relationship based on the notion of positive freedom, that is a freedom entailing self-realisation. Dewey based his democratic ideal on this notion.

For seven years, at the turn of the century, as Professor of Philosophy, Psychology and Pedagogy, Dewey directed a `laboratory school' which he tried to make a microcosm of the democratic society he desired. Children worked together co-operatively, learning together by doing things actively rather than sitting at desks reading books. His pedagogy was based the idea that thought derived from action and the children solved problems for themselves under the guidance of teachers rather than being told the facts.

Although his pedagogy has had a lasting
influence, his idea of a participatory democracy was anathema to a capitalist country like the United States. He was revered by liberal educators and deplored by conservatives. His reputation as `America's intellectual voice' did not wane during his lifetime, but he was nevertheless viewed with deep suspicion by those supporting the corporate capitalist state. He remains a guiding light for progressive educators.

Jenny Brain