Page 136 - Šolsko polje, XXVIII, 2017, no. 3-4: Education and the American Dream, ed. Mitja Sardoč
P. 136
šolsko polje, letnik xxviii, številka 3–4
al principles and relations once typical for the household (oikos), like inti-
macy, harmony and cooperation, that, once transformed and amplified in
the public sphere, compose the essence of the social.
Arendt’s insightful analysis offers two conclusions. Firstly, the rise of
the social and, on the other hand, social sciences coincide both historically
and by their mutual interest. More precisely, society can reasonably count
and rely on scientific findings and social laws that legitimise its doings and
confirm its existence, while social sciences follow their vocation to devel-
op a social engineering technique, which would help to organise and steer
social processes in the same way as civil engineers before them succeed-
ed in dominating nature relying on natural sciences. Secondly, since the
despotic rule of the social interest manifests itself in imposing countless
regulations, norms and rules of socially acceptable behaviour in order to
integrate its memebers merely as functions of its own processes and con-
sequently excluding »spontaneous action and outstanding achievement«
(ibid.: p. 43), it appears that the phenomenon of conformism is in fact in-
herent and constitutive for social types of organised life.
From this point of view, the open distrust and hostility toward the
traditional self-sufficient community way of life expressed by Progressive
intellectuals every time they were trying to meet the needs of a new age
becomes much clearer since they perceive it as an actual obstacle in the es-
tablishment of society as one organisational whole. This historical devel-
opment resulted in the fact that »the realm of the social has finally, af-
ter several centuries of development, reach the point where it embraces
and controls all members of a given community equally and with equal
strength« (ibid.). Considering Arendt’s analysis that the rising of the so-
cial is accompanied with intrinsic measures of conformism in thought
and behaviour, a different reading and understanding of the Progressive
discourse becomes possible, beginning with the insight into the type of
cohesive bond that on the one hand, was promising a revival of democ-
racy and community, while on the other, its assumptions reveal the ex-
act opposite.
The element that would be constitutive for Dewey’s »Great Com-
munity« is not a plurality of thought, but the invented ideas, values and
practices, which should be possessed by all, as they were commodities.
What they must have in common possession is »like-mindedness as the
sociologists say« (Dewey in Peters, 1986: p. 78). Cooley’s articulation goes
into the same direction as communication is »capable of fusing men to-
gether in a fluid whole« (Cooley in Peters, 1986: p. 56), where a propaga-
tion of movements, thought and action take place, entire populations can
now »be included in one lively mental whole« (Cooley in Peters, 1986:
134
al principles and relations once typical for the household (oikos), like inti-
macy, harmony and cooperation, that, once transformed and amplified in
the public sphere, compose the essence of the social.
Arendt’s insightful analysis offers two conclusions. Firstly, the rise of
the social and, on the other hand, social sciences coincide both historically
and by their mutual interest. More precisely, society can reasonably count
and rely on scientific findings and social laws that legitimise its doings and
confirm its existence, while social sciences follow their vocation to devel-
op a social engineering technique, which would help to organise and steer
social processes in the same way as civil engineers before them succeed-
ed in dominating nature relying on natural sciences. Secondly, since the
despotic rule of the social interest manifests itself in imposing countless
regulations, norms and rules of socially acceptable behaviour in order to
integrate its memebers merely as functions of its own processes and con-
sequently excluding »spontaneous action and outstanding achievement«
(ibid.: p. 43), it appears that the phenomenon of conformism is in fact in-
herent and constitutive for social types of organised life.
From this point of view, the open distrust and hostility toward the
traditional self-sufficient community way of life expressed by Progressive
intellectuals every time they were trying to meet the needs of a new age
becomes much clearer since they perceive it as an actual obstacle in the es-
tablishment of society as one organisational whole. This historical devel-
opment resulted in the fact that »the realm of the social has finally, af-
ter several centuries of development, reach the point where it embraces
and controls all members of a given community equally and with equal
strength« (ibid.). Considering Arendt’s analysis that the rising of the so-
cial is accompanied with intrinsic measures of conformism in thought
and behaviour, a different reading and understanding of the Progressive
discourse becomes possible, beginning with the insight into the type of
cohesive bond that on the one hand, was promising a revival of democ-
racy and community, while on the other, its assumptions reveal the ex-
act opposite.
The element that would be constitutive for Dewey’s »Great Com-
munity« is not a plurality of thought, but the invented ideas, values and
practices, which should be possessed by all, as they were commodities.
What they must have in common possession is »like-mindedness as the
sociologists say« (Dewey in Peters, 1986: p. 78). Cooley’s articulation goes
into the same direction as communication is »capable of fusing men to-
gether in a fluid whole« (Cooley in Peters, 1986: p. 56), where a propaga-
tion of movements, thought and action take place, entire populations can
now »be included in one lively mental whole« (Cooley in Peters, 1986:
134
