Dewey's Democratic Spiral and the Civil Rights Movement: Nonviolence, Art, and Social Inquiry

2023

Careful reading of John Dewey's The Public and its Problems reveals a weak point at the stage when a given public became self-aware and proceeded to seek representation in the institutions of the state. Aside from a general emphasis on art and science, Dewey's political theory offered no concrete discussion of the means suitable for this phase of the democratic process. Furthermore, the dichotomy between violence and the peaceful means of art and science left no space for the affirmation of nonviolence - the method most capable of amplifying democracy during the decade following Dewey's death. Accordingly, the article hypothesizes a novel rendition of nonviolence from the standpoint of Dewe…