progressivism, individualism, and the public ... - Telmarc Group

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PROGRESSIVISM, INDIVIDUALISM, AND THE PUBLIC
INTELLECTUAL
professed socialist and anarchist 66 , and it was this political bent that permeates his
writings and his views on education and democracy, and which in turn question the
fundamentals of the Founders. He was a believer in Beard who wrote An Economic
Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States which alleged that the Founders
wrote the Constitution to maximize their own personal financial gains. Beard was at
Columbia along with many other left wing radicals from the turn of the 20th Century
onwards. Beard's work was subsequently refuted by many including the work of
McDonald and others.
Fourth, Dewey was a self avowed socialist. As such he vehemently rejected laissez fair,
and in a time when uncontrolled monopolies and trusts abounded. He clearly had no
broad historical or economic perspective but he views were those of one who believed
that there was an elite group whose good ideas were best applied to the growth and
control of the country. Further he believed that the common man was just a bit too
common and needed educating so as to function properly in a productive manner. The
education he mandated was to be of his liking.
4.3.1 Pragmatism and Experimentalism
Pragmatism in simple terms is the philosophy of seeing if an idea works in practice. To
quote Westbrook:
"Truth depended, that is, not on the accuracy with which the idea copied an antecedent
reality or in its coherence with other truths but on its capacity to guide thinkers towards a
successful or satisfactory resolution of problematic situations. 67 "
In simple terms one could say that this pragmatism is akin to having a model of some
reality which when applied to the "real world" yields a result which in some sense reflects
the real outcome. It is predictive. It tells what happens from what is precedent. It does not
mean that we have some complex theory which we know is logically consistent nor a
theory which has a multiplicity of elements. In fact it may be a simple model with simple
predictive abilities. For example we may have a model for a transistor, where we may
know that under the model are sophisticated quantum effects, yet our predictive model
allows us to say when the current here goes up by 3 mA then the current there goes up 5
A. That is all we really need to know for the given situation. The "realities" of the flow of
electrons, their quantum states, and the like are not relevant.
Wiebe states that the Dewey pragmatism was different. Specifically he says:
66 See Martin p. 115 and Ryan p. 11. In fact Ryan in his Preface provides a counter the light hand on Dewey by
Westbrook. If one were to look at the causes and organizations supported by Dewey one would see the strong socialist
positions he took, voting for Debs in 1912 and the like.
67 Westbrook, p. 130.
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