..
Mr. Dewey also was a proponent for a “new world order”,
and in order to see that come about knew that loyalty
to country, family and faith would have to be eroded.

Mr. Dewey thought that faith, belief in a prayer-answering God, was old-fashioned, out-moded, and simply not proveable; therefore he, as did many others, rejected
the Christian faith and promoted it’s exclusion from
public education. According to Mr. Dewey, “man” was the
only one who could solve man’s problems, and thus began
the religion of “secular humanism”, with man, not God,
in charge. As you probably agree, having man in charge
can be pretty risky, because man can become proud and
arrogant, dispising those they rule over, as Stalin, Hitler,and many, many others have proven.

Sincerely, Sandra Alexander

You argue Dewey was:

“…a socialist” – absolutely, no argument

“…did not believe in absolute values or truth” – most likely true, at least that is what he preached. However, Dewey also contradicts himself often enough we cannot make this judgment of him ‘absolutely’. For example, Dewey imposed his own absolutist judgment of racism (i.e., in Dewey’s mind there are no ‘shades of truth’ as regards racism).

“…he ridiculed those who put their trust in the traditional understanding of the Constitution and the laws…” – Here, again, inconsistent as he also approved rule-of-law, constitutionalism, and “democratic institutions” (i.e., criticisms appear to be more what we’ve done with them than premise).

“…determined to replace Christianity (through the education system) with his “new” religion…” – Hard to say as Dewey never really comes out strongly against the teaching of religion or Christianity. His position seems to be more a distain for religion while recognizing this is a question teachers are in no position to impose.

“…method of indoctrination … was to re-educate the children surreptitiously, apart from the influence and values of their parents…” – Precisely. Dewey makes no bones he intended to teach anti-racism over the objections of parents. He had some other ‘absolute’ opinions of a moral and/or social nature (e.g., voter rights for women, welfare, &c) that were in vogue but not yet the standard of opinion.

“…part of the leftist elite who visited Russia under Stalin and came away determined to “reform” the American education system into the “Russian” model…” – Yes, but he also, later, condemned Stalin for his treatment of Trotsky and of dissidents. He also, condemned the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’. Therefore, we must distinguish between Dewey the early idealist and Dewey the later pragmatist and apologist for socialism. Dewey’s trip to Russia is used so frequently as absolute proof of his socialist extremism we lose sight this was but one stop on his world tour. He also visited Japan, China, Turkey, Mexico and South Africa. Following the same logic, would that not make him sympathetic toward Afrikaner racists despite all we know of his opposition to racism at home? We know Dewey admired much he found in Russia, but not all. He liked what he saw as ‘progressive’, but then procrastinated that it was okay for Russia (because of its’ backward state) but would not be okay in America.

“…major author of and signer of the [First] Humanist Manifesto…” – True, but what was the political climate at the time of his participation, and was this in or out of sync with mainstream thought? We have to remember that socialism, in the 1920s and 1930s, was all the rage and did not yet bear the stigma it would have later on (once the brutalities and horrors became well known). In 1938, when Dewey endorsed the Manifesto, being a socialist was perfectly respectable and ‘conservatism’ (as we know it) hardly existed other than as a sort of vague bucking of the socialist trend.

“One of his goals … was to establish the new world order … only … possible when the bonds of patriotism, family, and religion were destroyed…” – I must disagree with this because Dewey later contradicts himself by promoting civics education (including mild patriotism) for socialization/integration and a uniform culture. I do agree he sought a weakening of these traditional influences as interfering with the greater influence he wanted for educators and internationalism, but disagree he ever meant it to go so far as to destroy them outright. Here, it would be good to establish a timeline for when he was more for and more against each of these, and benchmark these as against changing attitudes within the culture.

“…not the “idealistic” education reformer we have been encouraged to admire by his disciples…” Au contraire, despite his reputation as a pragmatist, Dewey was extremely idealistic. How else explain his rigid adherence to socialism, even after the horrors became known. Rather than abandon this dangerous ideology, Dewey simply (and disingenuously) differentiated between good and bad socialisms (which is what most socialists idealists did and still do). His lifetime dedication to education when he could have easily made his mark in clinical psychology (or made a fortune listening to ditzy rich people pour out life stories) or as an efficiency-expert tells me this is not just someone with a huge ego, but an ego satisfied by nothing less than a ‘altruistic calling’. I have had a lot of contact with idealists, and I am certain being a cynic and an idealists are not mutually exclusive. Moreover, I suspect you may be judging Dewey’s idealism based on your own standards of idealism. Conservatives often have difficulty accepting the idealism of socialists because we know of so many at the top of the socialist heirarchy who are cynical parasites. Likewise, to liberals, conservatives are unprincipled moneygrubbing facists without ideals. Neither seems to get the other’s political rivals are mostly uncompromising idealists (at least this is true of the rank-&-file of each).

The reason I disagree with your inclusion of Dewey in those who deliberately contribute to moral degeneracy is that Dewey was very much concerned with moral teaching. This was important to Dewey both as an objective of teaching inherent in producing ‘socially-adjusted’ beings, but also from the perspective of teacher-morality (i.e., suitable role models). In “Democracy and Education”, Dewey uses variants on the word ‘moral’ (moral, morality, morally, &c) no less than 150 times and in “Moral Principles in Education”, Dewey uses variants on the word ‘moral’ about 90 times. We can be pretty sure a word count in his other tracts would give similar results. In both, he discusses religion, Christianity, and traditions in the context of moral teaching and a social-moral framework. The fact Dewey was seriously wrong in his conclusions and ideology, and his program resulted in the debasement of society, in no way changes he was a crusading reformer to whom morals matter.

I am no Dewey supporter (not by a long shot), but I also believe it is important we judge Dewey on his actual rather than imputed merits. Imputing to him intentions based on results and later day interpretations leaves us open to the charge of ‘false witness’. Dewey wrote so profusely, you would think it easy to get a handle on him. However, this same profuseness works against pinning him down. For every oft repeated assertion he makes, there is a weasely disclaimer buried somewhere in the text. Thus, I commend caution in asserting the ‘real Dewey agenda’.

I don’t know about the schools, but I experienced God first hand in Moscow 18 months ago. Our guide was showing us The Church of Jesus Christ Our Savior, not St. Basil’s with the colorful domes, but also near Red Square. After explaining that the church was blown up by Stalin before WWII and rebuilt after 91 we were asked if we would like to go inside. I reluctantly agreed and when we entered, the Holy Ghost instructed me to light a candle in my father’s memory. Having been brought up a Baptist, I was not familiar with candles, but I went to the shrine of his namesake, placed the candle and said a prayer for him. The experience was surprising and multi-dimensional, but one thing it told me was that God is back in Russia.

May he bless you.

Sadly, Mr. Dewey has been very influential. My own father attended the U. of Vermont in the 1930′s and did his Master’s thesis on John Dewey. Dad entered UVM a Christian, and left a humanist. Consequently, my own upbringing did not lead me to faith in the God of the Bible, although I certainly had a wonderful childhood. It wasn’t until later that I realized that something was missing and that I couldn’t solve all of life’s problems without understanding that there is a God Who alone can bring meaning and prupose to life, a God Who would help me and guide me and show me the moral boundaries necessary not only for my own good, but for the good of all humanity.
Shutting God out of the public schools, as Mr. Dewey envisioned, has now become a reality in America. Ironicly,
after the fall of the Iron Curtain, God was once again allowed into the formerly atheistic Russian schools, and many Americans have subsequently been allowed to speak and share their faith in classrooms in that once closed country, something they wouldn’t be allowed to do here in
America. Submitted by Sandra Alexander

I’m reading Thomas Paine now and his ideas on the French Revolution, especially with regard to democracy eliminating war, seem silly based on what we know about Napoleon and the Third Reich.

A careful study of Dewey reveals his ‘freeing’ of “children from the repressive prejudices of their parents” had, mainly, to do with racism; and that Dewey thought it proper to correct racism in the schoolroom over the objections (and threats) of parents. Dewey’s fault, then, was not so much the philosophy he espoused as the means he advocated; now used to promote a more degenerate philosophy than his own. While true some of this modern philosophy is directly traceable to Dewey, some also is not and is only attributable by placing him among more radical elements that pushed his ideas far beyond their original and natural intents. His failure is two-fold; first that he took no note of the corruption to which his ideas would be subjected, second, that overriding parents is ever justified. It’s obvious he believed the prejudices of teachers (a group which, in his time, represented a moral high water mark – mostly liberal-Christians) inherently superior to those of parents in all times and sufficient to the task he set for them; and that he believed a flaw like bigotry in some justifies a violation of that most fundamentally incorruptible of institutions for the protection and nurturing of children – the family.

Like many reformers, Dewey thought he saw a shortcut. Such shortcuts, however, have a nasty habit of unraveling proven, workable systems taking generations to create and not easily restored. Dewey, then, was guilty of monumental hubris thinking he could create a new system devoid of all prejudice, only to substitute one system of prejudice with another; one prone to every corruption.

Educators have built on Dewey more because of the power his program gives them than for his rules and doctrine; which most barely comprehend.