From: LeoCasey <LeoCasey-AT-aol.com>
Date: Mon, 15 Dec 1997 20:09:42 EST
Subject: M-TH: Dewey's Politics


Justin wrote:
 >Finally, Dewey's politics. D's bad line on WWI is something that's always
 >thrown at us, as if no one else ever made a mistake. D was a democratic
 >socialist who believed in worker's control. He defended Trotsky against
 >Stalin's lies. He opposed the red scares and worked to free Sacco and
 >Vanzetti. Some apologist for the domination of capital.
 
 Ralph responded:
 Dewey was a petty bourgeois reformist, who both analyzed reality in a
 piecemeal fashion and advocated piecemeal reform.  He complained that
 Marxism reduces several factors to one factor, the economic, as if Marxism
 cared about factors rather than structure.  Just as Jukka warned, a
 recognition of multiple and interacting factors ("mutual determination")
 alone without a firm basis does not get us where we need to be.
 
 But doesn't "piecemeal" characterize the way you think, too?

My (Leo's) view:
My sympathies are entirely with Justin on this point; I think that there is
much to be gained from engagement with Dewey and pragmatism, and not just
because I work in teacher unions and deal with issues of education. But what I
want to point out here is that Ralph's reply is interesting as a point of
comparison. Justin's argument made actual  reference to the politics of Dewey
-- his actual, active political interventions. Ralph dismisses Dewey as a
petty bourgeois reformist, and do so by reference not to actual political
stances, but by a rather broadly stroked characterization of an intellectual
position. He not simply disagrees with Justin; he attempts to change the terms
of reference. What does this shift say? That actually political intervention
is less important that adherence to an intellectual position? That what
distinguishes Marxism from petty bourgeois reformism, whatever that social
disease may be, is not an actual politics, but a belief in some ultimate,
complete transformation?

Leo


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