“The discrediting of idealism” (Publication, 1919.10.08)
Year
1919.10.08
Text
Dewey, John. The discrediting of idealism. In : New Republic ; vol. 20, 8.10. (1919). In : Dewey, John. The middle works. Vol. 11 : 1918-1919. Ed. by Jo Ann Boydston. (Carbondale, Ill. : Southern Illinois University Press, 1976-1983). (DewJ12)
Type
Publication
Contributors (1)
Dewey, John
(Burlington 1859-1952 New York, N.Y.) : Philosoph, Pädagoge, Psychologe
Subjects
History : China
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Periods : China : Republic (1912-1949)
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Philosophy : United States of America
Chronology Entries (1)
| # | Year | Text | Linked Data |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1919.10.08 |
Dewey, John. The discrediting of idealism [ID D28468]. It will be recalled that the decision of the Versailles Conference as to Japan's claims in China was announced at the end of April. A few weeks after this time, when I was giving some lectures in one of the chief educational centres of China, the teachers and students were asked to hand in questions in writing. They responded in large numbers. The question asked most frequently, repeated over and over again in different terms, ran about as follows: 'During the war we were led to believe that with the defeat of Germany there would be established a new international order based on justice to all; that might would not henceforth make right in deciding questions between nations; that weak nations would get the same treatment as powerful ones—that, indeed, the war was fought to establish the equal rights of all nations, independently of their size or armed power. Since the decision of the peace conference shows that between nations might still makes right, that the strong nation gets its own way against a weak nation, is it not necessary for China to take steps to develop military power, and for this purpose should not military training be made a regular part of its educational system?' At every educational gathering since, this question has been uppermost. The matter is not referred to here for discussion in connection with China. China can become a strong nation only through industrial and economic development. Any military efforts, apart from this development, would only prolong the present chaos, and at most create an hallucination as to national power. The im¬plications, however, of the question come home to every one who favored the participation of the United States in the war on what are termed idealistic grounds. It comes with especial force to those who, strongly opposed to war in general, broke with the pacifists because they saw in this war a means of realizing pacific ideals—the practical reduction of armaments, the abolition of secret and oligarchic diplomacy and of special alliances, the substitution of inquiry and discussion for intrigue and threats, the founding, through the destruction of the most powerful autocracy, of a democratically ordered international government, and the consequent beginning of the end of war. Once having taken sides, vanity is enlisted. As President Wilson is moved to 'make the best' of the actual outcome, so all those who favored America's action in the war from idealistic reasons are tempted to make the best of its outcome. And 'making the best of it' means blurring over disagreeable features so as to salve vanity. Consequently the pacifists who were converted to war are obliged to undertake an unusually searching inquiry into the actual results in their relation to their earlier professions and beliefs. Were not those right who held that it was self-contradictory to try to further the permanent ideals of peace by recourse to war? Was not he who thought they might thus be promoted one of the gullible throng who swallowed the cant of idealism as a sugar coating for the bitter core of violence and greed? Is the pacifist a outrance, the absolutist of peace, the only one who can make a valid claim to untarnished idealism? Have the ideals of humanity, of self-determination, justice to the weak, been hopelessly discredited through being inscribed? The defeat of idealistic aims has been, without exaggeration, enormous. The consistent pacifist has much to urge now in his own justification; he is entitled to his flourish of private triumphings. Superficially, his opponent—I mean the one who placed himself also on idealistic ground—has not much to urge except the scant though true plea that things would have been much worse if Germany had won, as she would have done without the participation of the United States. The defeat, however, is the de¬feat which will always come to idealism that is not backed up by intelligence and by force—or, better, by an intelligent use of force. It may seem like a petty attempt to get back at the pacifist to say that the present defeat of the war ideals of the United States is due to the fact that America's use of 'Force to the uttermost, Force without stint, ' still suffered from the taint of complacent and emotional pacifism. But it may fairly be argued that the real cause of the defeat is the failure to use force adequately and in¬telligently. The ideals of the United States have been defeated in the settlement because we took into the war our sentimentalism, our attachment to moral sentiments as efficacious powers, our pious optimism as to the inevitable victory of the 'right', our childish belief that physical energy can do the work that only in¬telligence can do, our evangelical hypocrisy that morals and 'ideals' have a self-propelling and self-executing capacity. If the principle of force to the limit had been in operation in behalf of our ideals, complete information would have been had at an early date regarding the secret agreements that were out¬standing, and our share in the war would have been made to depend upon a clearing of the decks. This would have shown distrust of our Allies, and an ungenerous wish to take advantage of the hour of their critical need of our help? There speaks our inveterate sentimentalism, our unwillingness to use the force at hand in support of our ideals. Either we and our Allies were fighting for the same ends or we were not. There was no moral generosity in putting them in a position of willingness to use our help for professed democratic ends when in reality they were to use it for imperialistic ends. On our side, if we had had a tenth of the faith in concrete intelligence used at the right juncture that we had in fine phrases, many of the obstacles to securing at the end a peace in accord with our idealism would have been swept away in the earlier months of 1917. It is exceedingly silly to regard as a failure of idealism what ought rather to be charged against our own lack of common sense. Past history would have shown what any knowledge of the present situation confirms—that the type of man brought forward by war is not the type needed to make peace. The urgencies of war bring to the front the kind of man who can make quick deci¬sions in the face of immediate pressure of circumstance. Such statesmen are bound to be of the aggressive and quasi-gambling type. At best they represent the government of war, not the pursuits of normal peace with its long-time interests and consequences. Mr. Norman Angell and a few others, but Mr. Angell especially, taught all during the war the indispensable necessity of provision for popular representation at the peace conference. Everybody who heard him was impressed with the reasonableness of the proposition. But nothing was done. Was this an intel¬ligent use of the force at our command? President Wilson as a peace-maker is the exception that proves the rule. Owing to the accidents of our electoral and party system, he was the one figure in the Councils who had not been given his place and influence by the exigencies of war. He represented and upon the whole with more than ordinary representative capacity the normal interests of men and governments in times of peace. Yet in essentials he was overruled. Why? Because it was thought that, by some magic, dumb millions could be given effective voice through him. He seems to have thought that, contrary to all experience of representative government, he could 'represent' the unrepresented interests of the common people whose main concern is with peace, not war. It would be difficult to imagine any greater travesty on the use of force to the uttermost than the idea that one man could secure a just decision by appealing a la improwisatore over the heads of diplomats to the unorganized, scattered and unenlightened peoples of the earth. When he became inclined to act in this way the diplomats had only to point out to him that he would thereby decrease the wan¬ing power of governmental authority, increase popular unrest, and run the risk of plunging Europe into the chaos of political revolutions. After that, he could not even speak effectually for himself, to say nothing of 'representing' the unrepresented peoples of the earth. He made his popular appeal in the case of Fiume, indeed, but its chief tangible effect was to strengthen Im¬perial Japan in its encroachments upon the people of China. There is another force, an immense force, which might have been used in behalf of the war ideals of the United States, a force which might still be employed though less effectually. There is the economic and financial force of the United States. It may be doubted whether the world has ever seen such a spectacle as that of the last few years. The United States has extended money and credit almost 'without stint' to governments of Europe irrespective of whether they were supporting the announced policies of the United States, nay, even when those governments were doing what they could to undermine American ends. And doubdess the average American has taken pride in this fact. We are so generous, so disinterested, that we do not bargain or impose conditions. In short we are so childishly immature, so careless of our pro¬fessed ideals, that we prefer a reputation for doing the grand seigneur act to the realization of our national aims. This is the acme of our sentimentalism. Can we blame the European statesmen if to put it with blank vulgarity they play us for suckers? Such considerations as these, which might be indefinitely multiplied, show that not idealism but our idealism is discredited, an idealism of vague sentiments and good intentions, isolated from judgment as to the effective use of the force in our hands. It may be said that this is not our fault, but President Wilson's. There are a few who are entitled to the benefit of this plea, but only a few. President Wilson is a scape-goat convenient to save our vanity. But he successfully appealed to the American people and led them. If they—if we—had been different, he would have had to use different methods to get results. History will probably record that his idealistic speeches corresponded to the spirit of the American people; and that the blame which belongs to him is not that of betraying the American spirit but of embodying its weaknesses too faithfully. Take one example. The use of force in behalf of our professed ideals would certainly have involved the use of all the thinking, speaking and writing of the liberals and radicals who in the end could alone give sympathetic and intelligent support to the aims eloquently set forth by President Wilson. Instead, we had a policy of suppression of free speech, of espionage, and of encouragement of the violent unrestraint characteristic of the reactionary. It is easy to blame for this Mr. Wilson's personal desire to play the part of Atlas supporting alone the universe of free ideals. An accomplice his conceit assuredly was, but the American people who revelled in emotionalism and who grovelled in sacrifice of its liberties is the responsible cause. Immaturity and inexperience in international affairs consequent upon our isolation mitigate the blame. But they would not have taken the form they took were it not for our traditional evangelical trust in morals apart from intelligence, and in ideals apart from executive and engineering force. Our Christianity has become identified with vague feeling and with an optimism which we think is a sign of a pious faith in Providence but which in reality is a trust in luck, a deification of the feeling of success regardless of any intelligent discrimination of the nature of success. It may be that the words idealism and ideals will have to go— that they are hopelessly discredited. It may be that they will become synonyms for romanticism, for blind sentimentalism, for faith in mere good intentions, or that they will come to be regarded as decorative verbal screens behind which to conduct sinister plans. But the issue is real, not verbal. There remains a difference between narrow and partial ends and full and far reaching ends; between the success of the few for the moment and the happiness of the many for an enduring time; a difference between identifying happiness with the elements of a meagre and hard life and those of a varied and free life. This is the only difference between materialism and idealism that counts. And until we act persistently upon the fact that the difference depends upon the use of force and that force can be directed only by intelligence, we shall continue to dwell in a world where the difference between materialism and idealism will be thought to be a matter of opin¬ion, argument and personal taste. To go on opposing ideals and force to each other is to perpetuate this regime. The issue is not that of indulging in ideals versus using force in a realistic way. As long as we make this opposition we render our ideals impotent, and we play into the hands of those who conceive force as pri¬marily military. Our idealism will never prosper until it rests upon the organization and resolute use of the greater forces of modern life: industry, commerce, finance, scientific inquiry and discus¬sion and the actualities of human companionship. |
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Cited by (1)
| # | Year | Bibliographical Data | Type / Abbreviation | Linked Data |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2012 | Ethik-Zentrum Universität Zürich | Organisation / EZ |
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