CREATIVE DEMOCRACY

...This faith may be enacted in statutes, but it is only on paper unless it is put in force in the attitudes which human beings display to one another in all the incidents ind relations of daily life...

...as if our ancestors had succeeded in setting np a machine that had solved the problem of perpetual raotion in politics...

...To denounce Naziism for intolerance, cruelty and stimulation of hatred amounts e) fostering of insincerity if, in our personal relations toother persons, if, in our daily walk and conversation, *« are moved by racial, religious, or class prejudice...

...It means freedom froan coercion...

...Above all, democracy is based on the habit of amicable cooperation...

...v llflll'N I think of the conditions under which " men snd women are living in many foreign rountrir* today, fear of espionage, with danger hanging over the meeting of friends for friendly conversation in prirste gatherings, I am inclined to believe that the heart and final guarantee of democracy is in free gstherings of neighbors on the street corner and in their homes to discuss what is read and heard in uncensored news of the day...

...It is a challenge to do for the critical and complex conditions of today what the men of an earlier day did for simpler conditions...

...Democracy is the belief that even when needs and ends or consequences are different tor each individual, the habit of amicable cooperation—which may include, at in tport, rivalry and competition—it ittelf a prieelett addition to life...

...For the faith is so deeply embedded in the methods which are intrinsic to democracy that when a professed democrat denies the faith he convicts himself of treachery to his profession...

...I am willing to leave to upholders of totslitarian states of the right snd the left the view that faith in the capacities of intelligence is Utopian...

...Belief in the Common Man is a familiar article in the democratic creed...

...To take as far as possible every conflict which arises—and they are bound to arise out of the atmosphere and medium of force, of violence as a means of settlement—into that of discussion and of intelligence is to treat those who disagree even profoundly with us as those from whom we may learn, and in so far, as friends...

...Intolerance, abuse, calling of names because of differences of opinion about religion or politics or business, as well as because of differences of race, color, wealth or degree of culture are treason to the democratic way of life...

...We acted as if democracy were something that took place mainly at Washington and Albany under the impetus of what happened when men and women went to the polls once a year or so...

...Knowledge of conditions as they are is the only solid ground for communication and sharing...

...A genuinely democratic faith in peace is faith in the possibility of conducting disputes, controversies, and conflicts as cooperative undertakings in which both parties learn by giving the other a chance to express itself, instead of having one party conquer by forceful suppression of the other—a suppression which is none the less one of violence when it takes place by psychological means of ridicule, abuse, intimidation, instead of by overt imprisonment or concentration camps...

...All ends and values that are cut off from the ongoing process become arrests, fixations...

...It is uni-*•» It is belief in the capacity Of every person to own life free from coercion and imposition by "¦¦•Provided right conditions are supplied...

...Tkat belief ie without batit and tifnificance »ave aw it meant faith in the potentialitiee tf human nature as that nature it exhibited in every human being irretpective of race, color, tex, birth and l**ily, of material or cultural wealth...

...keen accused more than once and from opposed J**rt«« of an undue, a Utopian, faith in the possibili-intelligence and in education as a correlate of /J""''1"**- I did not invent this faith...

...Thus far we have had in this field only the Italian Commission set up after the Moscow conference...

...Russia sits in on western European negotiations but keeps Americana and Englishmen at a distance from those concerning eastern Europe...

...Vishinsky to represent Russia on this body as a pledge of adhesion to the standards of international discussion...

...And democracy ia net automatically self-perpetuating...

...Finally, given the two conditions just mentioned, democracy as a way of life is controlled by pergonal faith in personal day-by-day working together with others...

...I acquired it "** *7 surroundings so far as those surroundings , ¦"¦¦•ted by the democratic spirit r* what h the faith of democracy in the method of consultation, of conference, of persuasion, of discussion, in forming of public opinion which in the long run is self-corrective, except faith in the capacity of the intelligence of the common man to respond with common sense to the free play of facts and ideas which are secured by effective guarantees of free inquiry, free assembly and free communication...

...to some "authority" alleged to exist outside the processes of experience...

...But when applied it pots a new practical meaning in old ideas...

...The present state of the world is more than a reminder that we have now to put forth every energy of our own to prove worthy of ear heritage...

...If this is a set of moral commonplaees, that ie just the point in saying them...

...Democracy, as compared with ether ways of life, ia the sole way of living which believes whole-heatedly in the process of experience as end and as means...

...Democracy implies belief in the potentialities of he-man nature—its capacity to learn from, and to earkh, human experience—and the right of everyone irrespective of race, religion, or elaaa, to equal opportunity...

...But I am not sure that something of the externality of the old idea does not cling to the new sod better statement...

...But this result has not followed...

...The erisis that aae hundred and fifty years ago called out social and political inventiveness is with us in a form which puts a heavier demand on human creativeness...

...If I emphaaise that the task can be accomplished only by inventive effort and creative activity, it is in part because for a long period we acted as if our democracy were something that perpetuated itself automatically...

...DEMOCRACY means mere than apeclfic political forms...

...Merely legal guarantees of the civil liberties of free belief, free expression, free assembly are of little avail if in daily life freedom of communication, of give and take of ideas, facts, experiences, is choked by mutual suspicion, by abuse, by fear and hatred...

...Since the process is thus cspable of being educative, faith in democracy it one with faith in experience and education...

...The task of this release and enrichment ie one that has to be carried on day by day...

...mocracy is a way of personal life controlled not ¦rely by faith in human nature in general but by TV* •n tne capacity of human beings for intelligent I***"*"1 and action if proper conditions are furnished...

...According to the secretary of the Council, Mr...

...For to get rid of the habit of thinking of democracy as something institutional and external and to acquire the habit of treating it as a way of personal life is to realize that democracy is a moral Meal and so far as it becomes a fact is a moral fact It is to realise that democracy is a reality only as it is indeed a commonplace of living...

...it is) more than a mecaaniam of government Democracy is a way ef life that is aerseaal as well aa collective...

...all other communication means the subjection of some persons to the personal opinion of other pereons...

...Put into effect it signifies that powerful present enemies of de-Bwcracy can be successful met only by the creation of personal attitudes in individual human beings, so that wt must get over our tendency to think that its defense can be found in any external means whatever, whether military or civil, if they are separated from personal attitudes so deep-seated as to constitute personal character...

...Need and desire—out of which grow purpose and direction of energy—goes beyond what exists, and hence beyond knowledge, beyond science...

...They strive to fixate what has been gained instead of using it to open the road and point the way to new and better experiences...

...we were in the habit of thinking of democracy as a kind of political mechanism...

...Democracy is the faith that the process of experience is more important than any special result attained, so that special results achieved are of ultimate value only as they are used to enrich and order the ongoing process...

...The only imaginable barrier against such a calamity would be the clear recognition of the Atlantic Charter as a set of guiding principles and the setting up of an administrative body to put them itno effect ' The New Leader is heartily in favor of this proposal...

...ay* asve lived for a long time upon the heritage that eases to us from the happy conjunction of men and events in an earlier day...

...He here gives a reafllrmation of his deep pragmatic faith in democracy...

...Varian Fry, there is a real danger of the division of enemy territory and lands occupied by the enemy into spheres of influence the existence of which is a step toward a new imperialism...

...that democracy is a way ef life...

...Democracy as a personal, an individual, way of life involves nothing fundamentally new...

...that it signifies the ponettton and continual ««« of certain attitude*, forming pergonal tktructer, and determining detire and purpote in all On relatione of life...

...Instead of thinking of our own dispositions and habits as accommodated to certain institutions we have to learn to think of the latter as agressions, projections and extensions of habitually dominant personal attitudes...

...The American Labor Conference on International Affairs is on solid ground when it calls for the immediate creation of a council to take charge of the occupation and administration of enemy territories as they are liberated...

...Experience, in this connection, is the free interaction of individual human beings with surrounding conditions, especially the human surroundings, which develops and satisfies need and desire by increasing knowledge of things as they are...

...An octogenarian, John Dewey maintains an unchallenged position as one of the world's fore-' most philosophers snd educators...

...Every other form of moral and social faith rests upon the idea that experience must be subjected at some point or other to some form of external control...

...it maat be recreated by every generation...

...The task of democracy is forever that of creation of a freer and more humane experience in which all share and to which all contribute...

...To cooperate by giving differences a chance to show themselves in the belief that the expression of difference is not only a right of the other persons but ii a means ' of enriching one's own life-experience, is inherent in the democratic way of life...

...A resolution passed by the Conference envisions such a Council as the prerequisite for the handling of immediate administrative problems and, especially, of the establishment of a satisfactory international organizations...

...jyEMOCRACY is a way of life controlled by a working faith in the possibilities of human nature...

...indeed, by anything save a generous belief in their fmeibilities as human beings and hence in the need of Providing conditions which will enable these capacities to reach fulfillment The democratic faith in human equality is belief that •wry human being, independent of the quantity or mt* of his personal endowment, has the right to equal •JPertnnity with every other person for development "whatever gifts he has...

...Of late yeare we have heard more and more fre-eeeatly that this is not enough...

...Since it is one that can have no end till experience itself comes to an end, the task of democracy is forever that of creation of a freer and more humane experience in which all share and to which all contribute...

...as that which is capable of generating the science which is the sole dependable authority for the direction of farther experience and which releases emotions, needs and desires that call into being the things which have not existed in the past For every way of life that fails in its democracy limits the contacts, the exchangee, the communications, the interactions by which experience ie steadied while it is also enlarged and enriched...

...If the Soviet government had a hand in settling Italian problems, it was taken for granted that the other allied powers would be given a part in the solution of problems affecting Poland and the Baltic states...

...The democratic belief in the JJjP of leadership is a generous one...

...In any case we can escape from this external way of thinking only as we realize in thought and act that democracy is a persona/ way of individual life...

...It means faith in the process of conference, compromise, persuasion, discussion, the free play of ideas...

...These destroy the essential condition of the democratic way of livinx even more effectually than open coercion which, as the example of totalitarian states proves, is effective only when it succeeds in breeding hate, suspicion, intolerance, in the minds of individual human beings...

...For everything which bars freedom and fullness of communication sets up barriers which divide human beings into sets and cliques, into antagonistic sects and factions, and the democratic way of life is undermined...

...It continually opens the way into the unexplored and unattaingd future...

...So stated, democracy is belief in the ability of human experience to generate the aims and methods by whieh further experience will grow in ordered richness...

...CREATIVE DEMOCRACY The Tasks Before Us By John Dewey THE creation of democracy is an iaeue which is bow as urgent as it was a hundred and fifty years ago when the moat experienced and wisest pea ef the country gathered to take stock of conditions pad to treats the political structure of a self-governing eeejetf, far the net import of the changes that have taken ajaes in these later yeare ie that ways of life and institutions which were once the natural, almost the inevitable, product of fortunate conditions have now to •p jug by conscious and resolute effort...

...The allied world took the appointment of Mr...

...Let the United Nations Unite CO far the Relief and Rehabilitation Administration is the only symbol of United Nations collaboration outside the field of military operations...

...Since my adult years have been given to the pursuit of philosophy, I shall ask your indulgence if I state briefly the democratic faith in the forma) terms of a philosophic position...