We do not “naturally” or organically need them, but we want them.
John Dewey
The Public Record
John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer. He was one of the most prominent American scholars in the first half of the twentieth century.
gutenberg.org
If we do not demand them directly we demand them none the less effectively.
For they are necessary consequences of the things upon which we have set our hearts.
The indirect and unthought-of consequences are usually more important than the direct.
The disparity between the results of the industrial revolution and the conscious intentions of those engaged in it is a remarkable case of the extent to which indirect consequences of conjoint activity outweigh, beyond the possibility of…
Its outcome was the development of those extensive and invisible bonds, those “great impersonal concerns, organizations,” which now pervasively affect the thinking, willing and doing of everybody, and which have ushered in the “new era of…
Equally undreamed of was the effect of the massive organizations and complicated interactions upon the state.
Instead of the independent, self-moved individuals contemplated by the theory, we have standardized interchangeable units.
Persons are joined together, not because they have voluntarily chosen to be united in these forms, but because vast currents are running which bring men together.
Green and red lines, marking out political boundaries, are on the maps and affect legislation and jurisdiction of courts, but railways, mails and telegraph-wires disregard them.
The consequences of the latter influence more profoundly those living within the legal local units than do boundary lines.
If one wishes to realize the distance which may lie between “facts” and the meaning of facts, let one go to the field of social discussion.