The Public and Its Problems · Question
How does The Public and Its Problems develop the theme of The Great Society vs. The Great Community?
Answer
The Public and Its Problems by John Dewey develops The Great Society vs. The Great Community across the chapters the companion marks for this theme.
Dewey contrasts the fragmented, technologically interconnected 'Great Society' with the ideal of a genuinely democratic and participatory 'Great Community.'
The central tension between the large-scale, impersonal 'Great Society' and the need for a participatory, communicative 'Great Community.'
The distinction between the public and the state, and the need for the public to organize itself, prefigures the later argument for transforming the Great Society into a Great Community.
The chapter's focus on the need for the public to organize into a state through representative officials, and the critique of metaphysical state theories, sets the stage for the later distinction between a mere 'Great Society' and a genuine 'Great Community'.
Evidence in the book
- The Public and Its Problems
The central tension between the large-scale, impersonal 'Great Society' and the need for a participatory, communicative 'Great Community.'
- I: Search for the Public
The distinction between the public and the state, and the need for the public to organize itself, prefigures the later argument for transforming the Great Society into a Great Community.
- Discovery of the State
The chapter's focus on the need for the public to organize into a state through representative officials, and the critique of metaphysical state theories, sets the stage for the later distinction between a mere 'Great Society' and a genuine 'Great Community'.
- III: The Democratic State
Dewey notes that the Great Society created by technology is a society but not a community, and that the invasion of local communities by impersonal forces is the outstanding fact of modern life.
- IV: The Eclipse of the Public
The local face-to-face community has been invaded by vast, remote forces, creating an unintegrated 'great society' that has not yet become a great community.
- V: Search for the Great Community
Central theme: the need to transform the Great Society, characterized by complex indirect consequences, into a Great Community where these consequences are known and an organized public emerges.
- VI: The Problem of Method
Dewey emphasizes that the Great Community must be rooted in face-to-face local associations, which are the source of genuine attachment and democratic life.
