Universities, Schools, Communities, and Democracy

Abstract

In Preface Dewey's Dream, we emphasized that pri mary purposes of book were agenda setting and movement initiating, not thesis proving. Our hope was to stimulate con structive criticism, creative counterproposals, serious sustained debate, and experimental action necessary...to solve Dewey Problem. We defined Dewey Problem as, what specifically is be done beyond theoretical advocacy transform American society and other developed societies into participatory democ racies capable of helping transform world into a 'Great Community}1 This Symposium on Dewey 's Dream and Bloom's Closing of American Mind has produced precisely kind of dialogue and discussion we had optimistically envisioned. Indeed, authors of seven articles that analyze themes addressed by John Dewey and Allan Bloom, as well as in Dewey 's Dream, have provided the give and take of ideas, facts, experiences that Dewey claimed be essential for democracy itself.2 Certainly we have learned a great deal from ideas, proposals, and critiques. Among other benefits, articles have helped us sharpen our own thinking, as well as clarify arguments we made in a relatively short book that we described as a democratic manifesto rather