Obama & the Legacy of Pragmatic American Metaphysics

[alice wellintown]

Noam Chomsky on John Dewey, interviewed May 28, 2003, Stony Brook University:

Interviewer: We only have just a minute left, unfortunately, but one
of the quotes that you refer to is John Dewey in your miseducation
book and I'll just read it: "The ultimate aim of production is not
production of goods, but the production of free human beings
associated with one another on terms of equality." Could you just
maybe end with a few comments about that.

Chomsky: Well, John Dewey was the leading American social philosopher
was also by our standards pretty radical. I mean, he, I think his
position is correct that Bertrand Russell took very similar positions
and yes a decent education ought to be creating free, independent,
creative human beings. It doesn't have to be developing them it has to
be allowing them to follow those natural instincts; those are natural
among children--the educational system has to beat it out of them and
make them obedient and subordinate and so on. But a decent educational
system would allow these natural aspects of human nature to flourish
and encourage them. And it would be part of developing a free and
democratic society of real participation. But of course that runs
counter to elite interests. It's worth remembering that the United
States was not founded to be a democratic society and elites do not
want it to be a democratic society. It's supposed to be what political
scientists sometimes call a "polyarchy," a system basically of elite
decision and public ratification. And if you had the kind of
educational system that Dewey spent his life committed to, you
wouldn't be able to sustain that. People would become active,
involved, engaged, and would try to create a truly functioning
democratic society which would, as Dewey also pointed out, require an
industrial democracy. That means democratizing production, commerce,
and so on, which means eliminating the whole structure of capitalist
hierarchy. His positions were, well, he's very, uh, real "Mainstreeet
America" but radical from the point of view of prevailing doctrine.
And I think he's quite right about that. In fact just to go to
politics, Dewey also pointed out that until that's done, unless that's
done, politics will remain what he called the shadow cast by business
over society and the educational system will be a system of
indoctrination and control. I was lucky as a kid to be sent to a
Deweyite school it was quite, quite an exciting experience.