Confining ourselves, for the moment, to political democracy, we must, in any case, renew our protest against the assumption that the idea has itself produced the governmental practices which obtain in democratic states: General suffrage, elected representatives, majority rule, and so on.
Dewey challenges the assumption that democratic practices are a direct result of the idea of democracy.
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They are made that way; it is “the nature of the beast.” We do not gain anything by inserting instincts to run, creep, swim and fly between the structure and the act.
For the older symbols of ideal life still engage thought and command loyalty.
They are reflections into the singular human being of customs and institutions; they are not natural, that is, “native,” organic propensities.
The invasion of the community by the new and relatively impersonal and mechanical modes of combined human behavior is the outstanding fact of modern life.