The old saying that the cure for the ills of democracy is more democracy is not apt if it means that the evils may be remedied by introducing more machinery of the same kind as that which already exists, or by refining and perfecting that machinery.
Dewey critiques the notion that simply increasing democratic machinery will solve its problems.
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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.
That and that only gives reality to public opinion.
Signs and symbols, language, are the means of communication by which a fraternally shared experience is ushered in and sustained.