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The Public and its Problems

John Dewey

3.86 · Rating details · 344 ratings · 23 reviews

A classic in social and political philosophy. In his characteristic and provocative dialectic style, John Dewey clarifies the meaning and implications of such concepts as “the public,” “the state,” “government,” and “political democracy”; distinguishes his a posteriori reasoning from a priori reasoning which, he argues, permeates less meaningful discussions of basic ...more

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Paperback, 242 pages

Published November 1st 1991 by Swallow Press (first published 1927)

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Jul 02, 2014 Sarah Clement rated it it was amazing

Shelves: phd-and-professional-reads

I became obnoxious to everyone around me whilst reading this book, mainly because - even almost a century after its publication - so much of it rings true. All of us know democracy isn't perfect. Young people in the western world have mostly lost faith in democracy, according to most recent surveys, but it seems to me that we've lost interest in discussing this social experiment and how we can make it better. Some of what Dewey has to say will seem absolutely out of reach in the modern world, I became obnoxious to everyone around me whilst reading this book, mainly because - even almost a century after its publication - so much of it rings true. All of us know democracy isn't perfect. Young people in the western world have mostly lost faith in democracy, according to most recent surveys, but it seems to me that we've lost interest in discussing this social experiment and how we can make it better. Some of what Dewey has to say will seem absolutely out of reach in the modern world, and some of it will seem simply naive, but if you can accept the premise about what is broken and what needs to be fixed, then there's a lot to latch onto here.

Present day pragmatists have kept Dewey's spirit alive, especially through deliberative democracy, but I do find it surprising that there aren't more of them in academia. Among this group word pragmatism has come to mean, as far as I've seen, either a word that biophysical scientists use when they don't understand what social scientists have to say, or a word to describe research driven by political expediency. While those casual meanings are all well and good, I wish we'd reconnect with pragmatism as a philosophy, and along with that what it has to say about matters that Dewey discusses in this book, like defining the public, exploring the relationship between the public and the state, providing room for conflict and a diversity of legitimate interests, etc.

One of my biggest frustrations with the present day view of democracy is that the role of the citizen (and the 'mandate to govern') is boiled down to the act of voting. And then once that flawed process is complete, there's no ongoing dialogue about what we expect (save the clever quips on the internet from otherwise disengaged publics...and disengaged for good reason). This book taught me that this simple view of voting is certainly not new. Even early in the 20th century, he was saying: "...the heart of the matter is found not in voting nor in the counting the votes to see where the majority lies. It is in the process by which the majority is formed. The minority are represented in the policy which they force the majority to accept in order to be a majority; the majority have the right to "rule" because their majority is not the mere sign of a surplus in numbers, but is the manifestation of the purpose of the social organism." The purpose is found through deliberation. Many (including me, on my dark days) would say that deliberation is unrealistic in the modern era, but I'd actually say that the time is even more right than in Dewey's day. Quips and memes on the internet do not have to be the entirety of discussion. We have many more ways to deliberate, but we also have to be sure someone is actually listening, which most of us are not.

This book is dense and thought-provoking, but I'd highly recommend it to anyone interested in politics and social science, ...more

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Sep 24, 2009 Chris rated it liked it

Shelves: i-own

Reading this book reminded me why I'm not a poli-sci or sociology major. It's not that there was anything awful about the book, it's just not my 'cup o tea' as it were.

The book is actually a collection of thoughtful and insightful lectures-turned-essays contemplating the form of democracy and what truly constitutes a "public", a "society", a "community" and what government's involvement should be in all these.

For me, the writing had some great nuggets scattered throughout but unfortunately I Reading this book reminded me why I'm not a poli-sci or sociology major. It's not that there was anything awful about the book, it's just not my 'cup o tea' as it were.

The book is actually a collection of thoughtful and insightful lectures-turned-essays contemplating the form of democracy and what truly constitutes a "public", a "society", a "community" and what government's involvement should be in all these.

For me, the writing had some great nuggets scattered throughout but unfortunately I found myself bogged down by writing that felt otherwise tedious. Dewey is obviously very smart and full of great ideas. Too often for my taste, this resulted in (what I felt) lengthy passages where he took a ton of effort to try and expound on a single thought without getting to a clear point until wandering around the subject for 5 or 6 pages.

Again, my distaste is mainly due to not having any real deep interest in the subject (which is part of what he exposes as one of the problems of a public…that there are far too many things out there such that a person can't truly be educated or even interested in everything). I found my eyes growing heavy many times and had to put the book down at risk of falling asleep.

Still, as I persevered an applied heavy concentration, I found myself enjoying and agreeing with many of his premises.

I really appreciated his assertion on the importance of consequences and how it is the consequences of a thing that brings people together. Where a lot of the problems come about is that there are far too many distractions out there such that an individual, or even a collective "public" can't focus on all of the necessary consequences. As a result, even in a "democracy", there are only a handful of individuals sufficiently knowledgeable to properly react to the stimuli around us and predict the consequences to the extent that they can ensure a promising future.

Along with the 'uneducated' implication of having all these stimuli, we also have a problem in that everyone is being pulled in so many disparate directions that we've lost any real sense of community. There are "too many publics" out there. We can't have a solid national or global community because everything is truly a microcosm of each of our individual interests, needs and desires. Any "community" we have is generally very small based on a handful of common interests with others and a single person may be a member of multiple "publics" or "communities", sometimes even at odds with one another.

Until society can find some way to use its collective knowledge and advances in technology and communication, we can never truly have a "Great Community" in the sense of a solid national or global community all united and on the same page.

What was very intriguing to me is that this book was written 80 years ago and many of the anecdotes he uses could be used today without changing any of the language. If anything, in the past 80 years, I would suggest that the world has gained even more "publics" and an even more disparate society that continues to lack in a great sense of "community." At the same time, some technologies such as the various social networking sites, tweeting, and the blogosphere are helping to create a sense of community. But this isn't the type of community Dewey would have preferred as he was a proponent of truly getting to know the individual…and when we're veiled behind the mask of the Internet and technology, we lose something.

***
2.5 stars (though I can definitely recommend this higher to a follower of poli-sci or sociology) ...more

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Jul 13, 2019 Illiterate rated it it was ok · review of another edition

That people act for reasons should lead us to study the causes of those reasons (genealogy). Instead Dewey focuses on consequences (functionalism).

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Dec 22, 2010 Michael rated it really liked it

One of my committee members suggested I re-read John Dewey's The Public and Its Problems because my dissertation is dealing with issues of privacy, publicity, and the social. It was a delight to return to early 20th century pragmatism, since I haven't read much (except for Josiah Royce) since my master's program. Here's a few (disjointed) notes and quotations from Dewey.

Dewey argues that the public/private distinction is not simply an individual/social distinction, because private acts can be One of my committee members suggested I re-read John Dewey's The Public and Its Problems because my dissertation is dealing with issues of privacy, publicity, and the social. It was a delight to return to early 20th century pragmatism, since I haven't read much (except for Josiah Royce) since my master's program. Here's a few (disjointed) notes and quotations from Dewey.

Dewey argues that the public/private distinction is not simply an individual/social distinction, because private acts can be social: "their consequences contribute to the welfare of the community or affect its status and prospects" (13). For Dewey, "any transaction deliberatively carried on between two or more persons is social in quality. It is a form of associated behavior and its consequences may influence further associations" (13). Thus, private acts between individuals can be social. Dewey seems to define social as something that is largely good for society, and thus some public acts are not "socially useful" (14).

Dewey's ontology of humanity is one of becoming: unlike other things that associate, a human "becomes a social animal in the make-up of his ideas, sentiments and deliberate behavior" (25). Becoming human: "To learn to be human is to develop through the give-and-take of communication an effective sense of being an individually distinctive member of a community; one who understands and appreciates its beliefs, desires and methods, and who contributes to a further conversion of organic powers into human resources and values. But this translation is never finished" (154).

The same is true for democracy: it is an ideal, a becoming, rather than a fact: "the tendency and movement of some thing which exists carried to its final limit, viewed as completed, perfected. Since things do not attain such fulfillment but are in actuality distracted and interfered with, democracy in this sense is not a fact and never will be" (148).

The Public occurs when "association adds to itself political organization" (35). For Dewey, the Public is intricately tied to the state, involving organization and representation (35). The problem of the Public is that it cannot recognize itself. Dewey writes that "'The new age of human relationships' has no political agencies worthy of it. The democratic public is still largely inchoate and unorganized" (109).

Method: He is also less interested in causes of events and phenomenon, which can lead to wild "interpretation" (19) and tautological arguments (I'm reminded here a bit of Eve Sedgwick's critique of hermeneutics of suspicion). Instead, he is more interested in an "empirical and historical treatment of the changes in political forms and arrangements, free from any overriding domination such as is inevitable when a 'true' state is postulated" (46). Thus, Dewey proposes that in order to create a more vital democratic public, we need to turn to a scientific method, one that attends to consequences and criteria. "Intelligence" itself is not enough, for we are stuck in habits that are conservative (157-159). His proposal is ultimately a "logic of method" like the experimentation in laboratories (202).

On technology: "Industry and inventions in technology, for example, create means which alter the modes of associated behavior and which radically change the quantity, character and place of impact of their indirect consequences" (30). Technology create means that affect how we associate.

Finally, "the first and last problem" that we must address "is the relation of the individual to the social" (186). "The individual" is hard to define because it is a matter of perspective: something can appear to be individual, until you either break it up more or look at the connections that it depends upon (187). Dewey defines individual as "A distinctive way of behaving in conjunction and connection with other distinctive ways of acting, not as self-enclosed way of acting, independent of everything else" (188). For individuals to be "social" together, instead of just "associative" there must be common interest and joint action (188). Dewey is suspicious of "evolutionary" claims about sociality (that we are moving to or from collectivism) because there is a "continuous re-distribution of social integrations on the one hand and of capacities and energies of individuals on the other" (193).

Reading this was useful in getting a discussion of the social, public, and individual/collectivism. I was mostly familiar with some of Dewey's arguments already, but it was nice returning to him. A few concerns: Dewey privileges the local community as necessary for improved democracy (216). What to do with this in today's social climate, where local communities seem fragmented and associations seem to be transnational or distributed over space and time? He also privileges face-to-face over print (218), which is understandable, but also limiting. ...more

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Sep 25, 2007 Dave rated it liked it

Shelves: oldshelf

A little obtuse in its wording, Dewey still manages to make some cutting critiques of the public's role in governance. Being a bit of a newcomer to the political scene, some of it was a bit confusing to me, but it was definitely an interesting read.

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May 21, 2018 Moud Barthez rated it liked it

Shelves: politics

it is a hard book to warp your head around, it's tiny but delicate book, it's mainly about hypothesis between The Public as a whole and it's role in the society and the societies role as individuals in constructing a Governmental rule, and the role of democracy and communication on the Public.
it is kinda of a book that gives you headache, i don't recommend it to anyone, it a bit academical advanced and not using examples to simplify the theories just the cheer hypotheses by itself to justify and ...more

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Jul 10, 2018 Alex rated it liked it

some good points, but honestly I expected more given rorty's account of him. i guess it's all in rorty

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Oct 06, 2015 Peter rated it really liked it

John Dewey argues that the public is “in eclipse” because it is bewildered. (121-123) “There are too many publics and too much of public concern for our existing resources to cope with.” (126) This, Dewey asserts, is without historical parallel. (126) He attributes the public’s bewilderment primarily to the social changes wrought by the industrial revolution as well as the continuing technological transformation of society. (141-142, among others) These changes dislocated the public by John Dewey argues that the public is “in eclipse” because it is bewildered. (121-123) “There are too many publics and too much of public concern for our existing resources to cope with.” (126) This, Dewey asserts, is without historical parallel. (126) He attributes the public’s bewilderment primarily to the social changes wrought by the industrial revolution as well as the continuing technological transformation of society. (141-142, among others) These changes dislocated the public by shattering the associations they depended on for their political consciousness. (141) Dewey believed that until communities re-form, the public “will remain in eclipse” (142) because it is only community that can generate the knowledge and understanding necessary for the public to come to grips with complex issues. (158)

How did this come to pass? And what are the ramifications for politics? Dewey points, in the first instance, to WWI, which he believes showed "existing political and legal forms and arrangements” to be insufficient. (128) He also shows the impossible task individuals face in trying to come to terms with complex issues — and Dewey, like Lippmann, argues that most issues of the day are complex and thus beyond the capacity of the individual to understand them, let alone influence or dictate their resolution. (129-132) Without the ability to understand issues on the merits, Dewey also agrees with Lippmann that the public depends on cues and symbols to guide their political participation. (133) Dewey attributes this as much to social change as a result of industrialization as to the individual’s general incapacity. (133) In essence, Dewey argues that people — even those who continue to participate in the political process — depend on heuristics. (134-135)

Dewey distinguishes between democracy as an idea and political democracy as a form of government. (143-144) He believes it is wrong to credit/blame the idea of democracy for the creation of all of the existing institutions of government. (144) The idea of democracy is “the idea of community itself.” (148) Dewey proceeds to offer an impassioned articulation of the idea of community and the value of it. (148-155) Communication is a necessary condition of community (155, among others) and openness and transparency — drawing on the spirit of scientific inquiry — are essential prerequisites for a democratically organized public. (167) It is not enough, Dewey argues, for legal restrictions on thought and communication to be removed. (168) The results of social inquiry must be communicated, because that is how public opinion forms. (176-177) And the results of social inquiry must be communicated continuously, otherwise public opinion will only appear in moments of crisis. (178)

Dewey warns that as long as the public remains dislocated, powerful interests will “have an unresisted motive for tampering with the springs of political action in all that affects them.” (182) To balance this, Dewey looks to artists as the key to breaking through “crust of conventionalized and routine consciousness.” (183) “Artists have always been the real purveyors of news” because they kindle “emotion, perception, and appreciation.” (184)

Dewey ends on a marginally optimistic note. (184).

Interesting Tidbits

Dewey makes a compelling case for writing history that comes right down to the present day on the logic that if historians leave gas in their narratives, the public must guess at connecting the dots to their present situation. (179-180)

Historiography

Dewey’s attempt to engage Walter Lippmann’s provocative claims results in more hair-splitting than meaningful distinctions. The two men differ slightly on the causes of public political apathy, but generally agree on the results.

Dewey seems to agree with Lippmann that the nature and complexity of contemporary issues exceed the capacity of the individual to come to terms with them. (131-132) However, where Lippmann attributes this incapacity to general human shortcomings in the face of impossible complexity, Dewey argues that the missing knowledge reflects the absence of association/community, which give individuals the habits that lead to thinking. (158-160) Dewey agree that the period of growing prosperity in the 1920s distracted citizens from political affairs. (139) Unlike Lippmann, however, Dewey believes there is a public — but that the problem is that there “is too much public, a public too diffused and scattered and too intricate in composition.” (137) This is a thin, perhaps meaningless, distinction, since the result is the same.

Similarly, Dewey agrees with Lippmann that public opinion tends to emerge only in moments of crisis, though Dewey's reasoning differs slightly and is premised on his idea of community/communication/scientific inquiry. (178) ...more

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Aug 09, 2019 Yapaag rated it it was amazing

I like it.

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Aug 06, 2012 John Carter McKnight rated it really liked it

Shelves: academic

My copy is a forest of sticky tabs. For the most part, it's absolutely astonishing that this book was written in 1927: its analysis of our political ills and their technological/economic roots is sharp and accurate today.

Dewey argues that mass technologies - industrialism and mass communications - pretty much necessitate the death of citizenship in favor of consumerism, by weakening strong ties and empowering weak ones, while not being blind to the many advantages of the mass age.

He's scathing ...more

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May 09, 2013 Jake rated it liked it

This book is hard to evaluate. It's really a set of working hypotheses on the relationship between public rationality and mass society. He wants to avoid saying that the public is lost for good, like Lippmann and other said before him. Rather it's asleep or eclipsed. The problem is that his plea for increased communication and rationality is never as convincing as his description of democracy's erosion from within. This makes it seem quaint.

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Oct 14, 2008 Jasmine rated it really liked it

Shelves: american

Okay this book is not the most interesting book in the world until about the fourth chapter. The writing is a little repetitive. But the idea are very interesting. Also it tends to jive well with both cynicism and optimism that America had the exact same problems almost a hundred years ago. Sure it hasn't gotten any better, but at least it isn't getting worse. The book also assumes a lot about the capacity of people which is as always endearing.

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Mar 18, 2008 Selby rated it liked it

Shelves: nonfiction

Oh where oh where has the public gone oh where oh where could it be? Poor John Dewey, like Machiavelli, Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Tocqueville before him; they just want selfish individualists to give a shit about their polity and inject a good shot of republican spirit into political discourse. I am sensitive to both their arguments and cause.

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Oct 02, 2011 Tommy Estlund added it

Very interesting look at how we view community in relation to political thought. Dewey does a great job of drawing to the fore the way we see certain political institutions as "sacred" and view with a reverence that...they might not truly deserve. A difficult read, but a good one.

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Dec 01, 2016 Natalie rated it really liked it

This book has so much to offer!!! Dewey is so so optimistic about the public, but I got behind it tbh. If you're uncomfortable with seeing the world through an ideological lens, read up! It may be impossible for his propositions to ever become a reality but a girl can dream \_(ツ)_/ ...more

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Aug 15, 2014 Andrew rated it it was amazing

John Dewey rocks the house. He puts his finger on problems that (sadly, perhaps) we still have not managed to resolve, without caving in to pessimism or cynicism. For instance, He is thinking about prospects for "glocalization" well before Roland Robertson coined the term.

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Mar 30, 2008 Kelly rated it did not like it

The type of professor who assigns this book wants you to learn something about American political thought - I'm just not sure what.

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Sep 09, 2011 Brock rated it liked it

Shelves: reviewed

Decent. There are others I'd recommend first.

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Dec 22, 2009 Neeta rated it liked it

Shelves: non-fiction

My head is spinnnnnnnninggggggggg

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Sep 08, 2014 Liz rated it it was amazing

Shelves: political-science

You know a book is good when your very first thought upon finishing it is "...damn."

And that's "damn" pronounced as "dayum," as in "daaaaayum that's a good book."

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Jul 04, 2012 andrea rated it it was amazing

timely as ever!

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Dec 19, 2011 Kaia rated it liked it

The ideas are great, but man. Dewey sure can't write.

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About John Dewey

John Dewey

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John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Dewey, along with Charles Sanders Peirce and William James, is recognized as one of the founders of the philosophy of pragmatism and of functional psychology. He was a major representative of the progressive and progressive populist philosophies of John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Dewey, along with Charles Sanders Peirce and William James, is recognized as one of the founders of the philosophy of pragmatism and of functional psychology. He was a major representative of the progressive and progressive populist philosophies of schooling during the first half of the 20th century in the USA.

In 1859, educator and philosopher John Dewey was born in Burlington, Vermont. He earned his doctorate at Johns Hopkins University in 1884. After teaching philosophy at the University of Michigan, he joined the University of Chicago as head of a department in philosophy, psychology and education, influenced by Darwin, Freud and a scientific outlook. He joined the faculty of Columbia University in 1904. Dewey's special concern was reform of education. He promoted learning by doing rather than learning by rote. Dewey conducted international research on education, winning many academic honors worldwide. Of more than 40 books, many of his most influential concerned education, including My Pedagogic Creed (1897), Democracy and Education (1902) and Experience and Education (1938). He was one of the founders of the philosophy of pragmatism. A humanitarian, he was a trustee of Jane Addams' Hull House, supported labor and racial equality, and was at one time active in campaigning for a third political party. He chaired a commission convened in Mexico City in 1937 inquiring into charges made against Leon Trotsky during the Moscow trials. Raised by an evangelical mother, Dewey had rejected faith by his 30s. Although he disavowed being a "militant" atheist, when his mother complained that he should be sending his children to Sunday school, he replied that he had gone to Sunday School enough to make up for any truancy by his children. As a pragmatist, he judged ideas by the results they produced. As a philosopher, he eschewed an allegiance to fixed and changeless dogma and superstition. He belonged to humanist societies, including the American Humanist Association. D. 1952. ...more