The Legacy of John Dewey

Although it cannot compare with the collapse of the theory and practice of Marxian socialism in intellectual interest or geopolitical significance, the current revival of interest in the life and work of John Dewey is an astonishing phenomenon. It is a bit of a joke to speak of the death of the Marxist project and the rebirth of a respect for Dewey in the same breath, but they are to a degree connected. It is a platitude that the end of the cold war has left losers but no winners, and so leaves a sort of ideological vacuum. “Marxism-Leninism-Stalinism” is plainly dead, but neither laissez-faire nor the untidy compromise of the postwar welfare state seems terribly healthy. In particular, there is a dearth of nonutopian, non-nostalgic, institutionally serious radical thinking. Nobody suggests that Dewey’s work can wholly fill this gap, but it seems to fill a surprising number of American intellectual needs.

The “back to Dewey” movement is fueled by...