War and the Intellectuals: Bourne, Dewey, and the Fate of Pragmatism

Abstract

My purpose here, apart from convincing you that John Dewey was quite possibly right about American entry into World War I, is to address the repression and mutilation of pragmatism by left-wing intellectuals in the twentieth century. These would seem to be very different purposes, but in fact they are the same. If we are to understand how pragmatism acquired its unsavory reputation among leftists everywhere, we must go back to 1917, when Randolph Bourne denounced not only Dewey's decision in favor of American entry but also pragmatism itself as the source of that decision. These almost ancient denunciations would not matter very much, except that they are repeated in every subsequent account of the American Left in World War I, and are recalled if not reiterated in every subsequent critique of pragmatism – they still determine our thinking about Dewey, about pragmatism, and about the war. Revisiting this primal scene allows us to ask why. It allows us to convert the following statement, which still serves as a left-wing credential, into a question: Dewey's support for American entry into the Great War demonstrates that pragmatism is a philosophy of acquiescence to “the existing fact,” a philosophy that must validate capitalism, accept imperialism, and repudiate socialism.