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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Populism and John Dewey Convergences and Contradictions John Dewey’s “Modernizing Populism” John Dewey’s biographer Alan Ryan locates Dewey’s views and identifications in the broader populist strand of American political and cultural history: Although Dewey was not in the Marxist sense an enthusiast for class warfare, he had the old populist inclination to divide the world into the privileged and the people… the upholders of the partial interests of particular social groups and the upholders of the interests of ‘the people.’ He did not espouse a backward-looking populism or hanker after agrarian radicalism…he was a forward-looking, modernizing populist.” [^48] Dewey’s philosophy, pragmatism, and his commitments to “democracy as a way of life” advanced themes in the populist tradition, especially civic learning.

At the same time, since democratic populism, based on a dynamic sense of cultural resources, dissolves sharp distinctions between “backward-looking,” on the one hand, and “forward-looking” and “modernizing,” on the other, Ryan’s characterization of Dewey’s populism in these terms also hints at a key limit of Dewey’s theory. Dewey and civic development.

Dewey saw Americans as a people forged from democratic diversity, and America’s democratic traditions as experimental, open, practical, and based in values of universal importance. One of the least plausible charges against him is that his philosophy was about means with no concern for ends .

“I make no apology for linking what is said in this chapter with the name of Thomas Jefferson,” Dewey began “Democracy and America,” the conclusion of Freedom and Culture, defending active democracy against both Marxist and conservative alternatives. Dewey championed the country’s founding ideals.

“[Jefferson] wrote ‘these truths are self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inherent and unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’” Dewey said, “His fundamental beliefs remain unchanged in substance if we forget all special associations with the word Nature and speak instead of ideal aims and values to be realized - aims which, although ideal…are backed by something deep and indestructible in the needs and demands of humankind.”[^49] Populism is based on faith in the intelligence and talents of common men and women everywhere.