Dewey's short and superb book Individualism Old and New was published in 1930, but could easily have been written last year. In it, he argues that personal liberty is enhanced - not diminished - by social cooperation, and the real threat to the individual comes not from a dynamic concept of the public good, but from the social isolation and economic injustice endemic to mindless corporate capitalism. Dewey thinks that promoting individual freedom and opportunity requires not just private ambition, but also public collaboration and an open, experimental attitude. Unfortunately, we watched a different experiment play out over the past 30 years - the Randian experiment of deregulation, deunionization and regressive tax policy - which culminated in economic crisis, soaring inequality, decreased social mobility,political gridlock and cultural decline. It's time to learn from another experimental period in American history, one that brought us 30 years of relative progress, growth and prosperity - time, in other words, to stop listening to John Galt and to start listening again to John Dewey.
Now, despite their radically different worldviews, Dewey and Rand have some striking similarities. Both are pragmatists who value action over abstraction and believe that the ultimate worth of an idea is how it works in practice. Both are champions of modern science and the human capacity for reason, although Rand believes that such tools uncover absolute and immutable truths, while Dewey considers all intellectual inquiry problem-oriented and therefore provisional. Both are also critical of organized religion, although Dewey acknowledges the role that faith plays in bringing people together and giving them a shared sense of purpose, while Rand dismisses faith as an odious device for controlling the weak-minded. Finally, both envision a free and just society in which individuals can flourish and prosper - in other words, both are individualists, of a sort. Their respective understanding of individualism and how to foster it, however, couldn't differ more.Truthout | Op-Ed
The Antidote to Ayn Rand
Jeffrey Mikkelson | Independent Scholar
I've liked reading John Dewey ever since I took a survey course in American philosophy in graduate school with a prof who was a Dewey expert. America really does have some excellent philosophers in it relatively short history as a contributor to culture, and Dewey is right up there in the top echelon. Unfortunately, Dewey is not a thinker that most people are likely to engage today.
BTW, I should add that John Dewey understood Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics and relies on it. Rand's "Aristotelianism" is a parody of Aristotle, whereas Dewey brings the ancient Greeks up to date with scientific understanding and experimental methodology, which had eluded them as products of their time.
Short summary of Dewey's ethics.
