Abstract
This article draws from John Dewey’s philosophy of education, ideas about democracy and pragmatist assumptions to explain how his articles for <em>The New Republic</em> functioned pedagogically. Taking media as a mode of public pedagogy, and drawing extensively from Dewey’s <em>Democracy and Education</em>, as well as from his book <em>The Public and its Problems</em>, the article explores the relationships between communication, education and democracy using the expanded conceptions of all the aforementioned advanced by Dewey. Borrowing insights from Randolph Bourne, who used Dewey’s own ideas to criticize his mentor’s influence on intellectuals who supported US involvement in World War I, the analysis explores the contradictions within Dewey’s public pedagogy. The article suggests Dewey’s relevance as a public intellectual in the liberal-progressive press, his view of the State and some of his related presuppositions produced a tension in his thought, delimiting democratic possibilities while simultaneously pointing toward greater democratic potentials. The essay concludes by suggesting that learning from both Dewey and Bourne prompts us to get beyond the former’s public/private dualism to realize what he called the “Great Community” by communicating and practicing the Commons.
Highlights
The same year The New Republic published its first issue, John Dewey penned his first of many contributions for the weekly magazine
A public pedagogy lens brings into focus how desires are mobilized and moral values are shaped (Giroux, 2000, p. 349)
To do so I relate Dewey’s ideas to those of Randolph Bourne, who was mentored by Dewey at Columbia University and who worked as an editor for TNR for a time before becoming a prolific critic of his colleagues’ support for World War I
Summary
The same year The New Republic (hereafter, TNR) published its first issue, John Dewey penned his first of many contributions for the weekly magazine. Public pedagogy is used here as a concept for understanding mediated culture as a site (or as sites) of informal, often under-acknowledged education (Giroux, 2004, 2008). I use the concept to critically understand Dewey’s relevant work, found in TNR archive. Using ideas from Dewey’s philosophical work—and drawing especially from Democracy and Education and The Public and its Problems—I examine how and why Dewey’s contributions to TNR functioned pedagogically. What has not been explored is how Dewey’s contributions to TNR reveal a pragmatism and idea of democracy fraught with potential for progress but bounded by his role as a public intellectual and by his related understanding of the state
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