And there are too many publics, for conjoint actions which have indirect, serious and enduring consequences are multitudinous beyond comparison, and each one of them crosses the others and generates its own group of persons especially affected with little to hold these different publics together in an integrated whole.
Dewey discusses the multitude of competing public interests and their interactions.
Share
More from John Dewey
Nor can the liberating and confirming results of public action be construed to yield a wholesale idealization of states in contrast with other associations.
In short, private acts may be socially valuable both by indirect consequences and by direct intention.
But in this respect he does not differ from those explicitly designated public officials who have also been known to betray the interest committed to them instead of faithfully representing it.
The clear consciousness of a communal life, in all its implications, constitutes the idea of democracy.