What, after all, is the public under present conditions? What are the reasons for its eclipse? What hinders it from finding and identifying itself? By what means shall its inchoate and amorphous estate be organized into effective political action relevant to present social needs and opportunities? What has happened to the public in the century and a half since the theory of political democracy was urged with such assurance and hope?
Interpretation
The quote questions the current state of the public and its inability to organize effectively for political action in a democratic society.
John Dewey reflects on the challenges faced by the public in contemporary society, pondering why it has become less engaged and effective in expressing its political will. He raises critical questions about the barriers that prevent people from recognizing their collective identity and the means by which they can organize to address social needs. Dewey's contemplation serves as a call to examine the democratic process and its disconnect from the public's actual power and participation.
In practice
In a community meeting discussing civic engagement, this quote could highlight the need for citizens to be aware of and address their roles in democracy.
Every teacher should realize he is a social servant set apart for the maintenance of the proper social order and the securing of the right social growth. In this way, the teacher always is the prophet of the true God and the usherer-in of the true Kingdom of God.
Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife.
It science involves an intelligent and persistent endeavor to revise current beliefs so as to weed out what is erroneous, to add to their accuracy, and, above all, to give them such shape that the dependencies of the various facts upon one another may be as obvious as possible.
For in spite of itself any movement that thinks and acts in terms of an ‘ism becomes so involved in reaction against other ‘isms that it is unwittingly controlled by them. For it then forms its principles by reaction against them instead of by a comprehensive, constructive survey of actual needs, problems, and possibilities.
Any genuine teaching will result, if successful, in someone's knowing how to bring about a better condition of things than existed earlier.
The reactionaries are in possession of force, in not only the army and police, but in the press and the schools
Although our interests as citizens vary, each one is an artery to the heart that pumps life through the body politic, and each is important to the health of democracy.
We do not create terrorism by fighting the terrorists. We invite terrorism by ignoring them.
The atrocities in Cambodia are a direct and understandable response to the violence of the imperial system.
I am not aware how you succeed politically when you insult women, who far more than men consistently provide you with great margins of support.
I would vote for a Muslim if he or she was the best candidate able to lead the country and defend our political values.
It is the genius of our Constitution that under its shelter of enduring institutions and rooted principles there is ample room for the rich fertility of American political invention.
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