Copyright 1997, 1999, 2000 by Tad Beckman, Harvey Mudd College, Claremont, CA 91711
Concepts like democracy and freedom frequently get swept up in metaphysical speculation and, frequently, are put to rhetorical use in rather empty ways. We measure ourselves against other people by saying that we are free and democratic. But what do we really mean? Do we actually say anything in this other than issuing some self-congratulatory slogan that makes us feel happy or righteous? The recently proclaimed "victory of Capitalism" over Communism, ending the Cold War, has welcomed in an incomparable period of blindness, forwarding self-congratulations and prohibiting all further self-criticism.
Dewey was especially concerned, in the late 1930s, because the world was rapidly becoming polarized between the radical right and the radical left, at home and abroad. At the same time, the Great Depression had demonstrated great problems within the American society. Was democracy coming apart worldwide? Could the pure will to be free salvage America? In particular, do American democratic institutions, as founded in specific political documents, guarantee the survival of democracy and freedom in America? These were understandably important questions in 1939; however, they are no less relevant to our own age.
While Dewey was sympathetic to Leftist critiques of American problems, especially the dilemmas of the working public in the corporate industrial world, he was not a Communist nor was he very sympathetic to American or Soviet Communism. However, when Trotsky was put on trial in absentia, in the USSR, for sabotage and treason and found guilty, Dewey was convinced to chair a commission to collect evidence on the Trotsky case. He traveled to Coyocan, near Mexico City, where Leon Trotsky was living with the famous artist Diego Rivera, in April 1937. Dewey's involvement was negotiated by Sidney Hook, a Dewey student and famous American philosopher in his own right. The Commission involved many extraordinary people, including Max Eastman, James Farrell, John Dos Passos, Reinhold Niebuhr, Lionel Trilling, and the principal, George Novack. During the trial, Dewey had the opportunity of debating the Marxist/Communist positions with Trotsky himself, and this spawned a serious of articles by each, culminating in a famous pamphlet by Dewey titled "Their Morals and Ours." The Commission, incidentally, found Trotsky entirely innocent of Stalin's charges against him, but he was assassinated not long thereafter anyway.
Freedom and Culture was written the year following Dewey's role in the Trotsky hearings; and the chapter on "Totalitarian Economics" reflects his continuing meditations on Marxist ideas. In Dewey's Pragmatic analysis, the idea of freedom can only mean something that we experience in our physical and social relations. It is either there or it isn't. If we are free people, then we have something to show for it. Similarly, if democracy is meaningful, then we can show what it is by application in our world of experience. If democracy and freedom are alive and well, they are aspects of our actual culture, not just declarations on paper, eternal principles, or heroic beliefs. Dewey was completely convinced that a democratic way of life is hard. It demands work, and it demands constant vigilance. This conviction comes straight out of his Pragmatist position. That is, democracy doesn't happen because we state it, declare it, or found it. Democracy happens because we make it happen each day in the way we live. Here, Dewey found the development of American society more than worrisome. The principles and social practices of American democracy developed out of the culture of New England --- largely rural agrarian and largely guided by the Protestant ethic. By 1939 that had changed dramatically; by 1997 it has changed even more dramatically. There was no doubt whatsoever, in Dewey's mind, that the cultural changes in America had transformed democracy and freedom. What remained questionable was what democracy had become and where it might go.
Consider one small aspect of the democratic life, exercising our right to select our representatives. How many people exercised that right in fall 1994 or fall
1996? First of all, not all Americans even bother to register to vote. Secondly, usually only around 30-40% actually do vote. In local elections, the performance
is even worse. And in the end, how many of that 30-40% actually believe their votes are worth much or have available the candidates that would really matter to
them? Granted, voting is merely a small part of the social experience that should be called democracy, but we can surely ask whether our national voting habits
don't suggest something about the general lack of health in realizing democracy. What is American culture? And are democracy and freedom attributes of it? If
not, how can American culture be re-shaped to preserve freedom and renew optimism among our youth?
|
Back to Contents |