John Dewey: “Such phenomena as the Ku Klux and legislative activity to regulate…”

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Such phenomena as the Ku Klux and legislative activity to regulate science show that the belief in liberty of thought is still superficial.

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John Dewey

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Dewey critiques the superficial understanding of liberty of thought in society, highlighting ongoing issues like the Ku Klux Klan.

More from John Dewey

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

Publication is partial and the public which results is partially informed and formed until the meanings it purveys pass from mouth to mouth.

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

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

John Dewey: “Such phenomena as the Ku Klux and legislative activity to regulate science show that the belief in liberty of thought is…”