Yet the same unbridled generalizing and fixating tendency of the mind which leads to a monistic fixation of society has extended beyond the hypostatizing of “society ” and produced a magnified idealization of The State.
Dewey warns against the tendency to idealize the state as a singular entity.
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In other words, every officer of the public, whether he represents it as a voter or as a stated official, has a dual capacity.
There was no logic which rendered necessary the appeal to the individual as an independent and isolated being.
In this distinction we find the germ of the distinction between the private and the public.
In short, private acts may be socially valuable both by indirect consequences and by direct intention.