On the record
If the masses are as intellectually irredeemable as its premise implies, they at all events have both too many desires and too much power to permit rule by experts to obtain.
Said by
John Dewey
Source
gutenberg.orgJohn Dewey: “If the masses are as intellectually irredeemable as its premise implies, they at all events have both too many desires…”
Editor's note · Context
Dewey posits that if the masses are deemed intellectually incapable, their desires and power would still prevent expert rule.
Share
More from John Dewey
But he does so only at the cost of repression of those of his potentialities which can be realized only through membership in other groups.
That the state should be to some a deity and to others a devil is another evidence of the defects of the premises from which discussion sets out.
Custom consolidates what accident may have originated; established power has a way of legitimizing itself.
What is significant is that access to means of amusement has been rendered easy and cheap beyond anything known in the past.