But a belief in intellectual freedom where it does not exist contributes only to complacency in virtual enslavement, to sloppiness, superficiality and recourse to sensations as a substitute for ideas: marked traits of our present estate with respect to social knowledge.
Dewey warns that false beliefs in intellectual freedom can lead to complacency and superficiality.
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There are even those who hold that the presumption is always that social loss will result from agents of the public doing anything which could be done by persons in their private capacity.
The democratic public is still largely inchoate and unorganized.
They are made that way; it is “the nature of the beast.” We do not gain anything by inserting instincts to run, creep, swim and fly between the structure and the act.
What is significant is that access to means of amusement has been rendered easy and cheap beyond anything known in the past.