John Dewey: “And without abiding attachments associations are too shifting and…”

On the record

And without abiding attachments associations are too shifting and shaken to permit a public readily to locate and identify itself.

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John Dewey

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Dewey argues that without stable attachments, public identity becomes elusive.

More from John Dewey

That and that only gives reality to public opinion.

But the wingèd words of conversation in immediate intercourse have a vital import lacking in the fixed and frozen words of written speech.

Ideas which are not communicated, shared, and reborn in expression are but soliloquy, and soliloquy is but broken and imperfect thought.

We lie, as Emerson said, in the lap of an immense intelligence.

John Dewey: “And without abiding attachments associations are too shifting and shaken to permit a public readily to locate and…”