John Dewey and Citizen Politics
How Democracy Can Survive Artificial Intelligence and the Credo of Efficiency
Harry C. Boyte, 2017 John Dewey Society Lecture
San Antonio, April 27 2017
“Without some kind of oversight, the golem, not God, might emerge from machines…it is naïve to believe that government is competent, let alone in a position to control the development and deployment of robots, self-generating algorithms, and artificial intelligence. Business is self-interested and resists regulation. We, the people, are on our own here…”
Sue Halpern, “How Robots & Algorithms Are Taking Over”
“In the past the man has been first. In the future the System must be first.”
Frederick Winslow Taylor, Principles of Scientific Management
“I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.”
From “Invictus,” Nelson Mandela’s favorite poem
Citizen politics, John Dewey, and the crisis in “modernity”
Can we become masters of our fate in an age of smart machines governed by an efficiency creed, with its conviction that “the system is the solution”? In this 2017 Dewey lecture I answer affirmatively the question raised by nine scientists in a Scientific American essay, “Will Democracy Survive Big Data and Artificial Intelligence?” I argue that we need a different kind of politics, citizen-centered, educative, and empowering, as well as places to learn such politics and put it into practice. Drawing on Dewey, I use schools embedded in communities as a case study for developing civic power….
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Systmic/Essay
Reflections on Elizabeth Anderson
By Wade Lee Hudson
NOTE: Following is the text used in my January 12, 2020 “Democratic Equality and Democratic Dialog” PowerPoint presentation at the Humanists and Non-Theists committee of the San Francisco Unitarian church.
The article that had the biggest impact on me last year was “The Philosopher Redefining Equality” in The New Yorker. The subtitle reads: “Elizabeth Anderson thinks we’ve misunderstood the basis of a free and fair society.” That profile of Anderson begins: [play audio]
She ended up studying political and moral philosophy at Harvard under John Rawls and teaching at the University of Michigan, where she stayed, despite being heavily recruited by other universities.
In 1999 the esteemed journal Ethics published her path-breaking, widely reprinted article "What is the Point of Equality?" She’s also written three books, including Value in Ethics and Economics, which argues that some goods like love and respect should not be sold on the market or otherwise treated as commodities, and The Imperative of Integration, which examines how racial integration can lead to a more robust democracy. Her many podcast interviews include a great one with Vox.com founder Ezra Klein.
Last year Anderson received the no-strings-attached $625,000 MacArthur “Genius” award. Included in their announcement was this [play video].
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Colleagues have called Elizabeth S. Anderson’s 50-page 1999 tour de force “What is the Point of Equality?” “path breaking” and The New Yorker described her as “The Philosopher Redefining Equality.”
Anderson wants to end oppression by creating communities “in which people stand in relations of equality” to one another. Her thinking is rooted in numerous grassroots egalitarian movements, such as the civil rights, womens’, and disability rights movements.
Unfortunately, however, most grassroots political movements today don’t clearly reflect those social values.
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Politics/Books
A review
Become America: Civic Sermons on Love, Responsibility, and Democracy
Eric Liu
Sasquatch Books, 2019, 302 pages
Citizen University Sermons
By Wade Lee Hudson
Eric Liu’s latest book, Become America: Civic Sermons on Love, Responsibility, and Democracy, is eloquent and inspiring. His exhortations to be engaged in civic activism, beyond voting, are compelling. In the end, however, he comes up short. He neglects the need for new, holistic structures that nurture an energizing cultural environment.
The book consists of “civic sermons” that Liu presented at various locations throughout the country as part of a series of “Civic Saturdays,” a project of the Seattle-based Citizen University, which is dedicated to “building a culture of powerful, responsible citizenship.” In the Preface to the book, Liu declares:
We are the counterculture now. In a culture of celebrity worship and consumerism, we stand for service and citizenship. And in the age of hyper-individualism, we practice collective action and common cause. In a time of sentimentalism and showy sanctimony, we stand for discernment and humility. In the smog of hypocrisy and situational ethics, we still live and breathe the universal timeless values and ideals of the Golden Rule, the Tao, the Declaration, and the Preamble of the Constitution. That is radical.
In the “A Divided Heart” chapter, Liu reports that a friend, Mark, who was a founder of the Tea Party, in so many words said, “Millions of Americans have felt left out and put down, told that they’re deplorable racists and bigots and sexists if they challenge the elites and insiders who are tolerant of everyone but them. They're tired of it, and with Trump, they found a way to say so.” Become America and the Citizen University aim to speak to these people.
Liu has concluded “Americans today lack the coherence and moral clarity and civic self-possession to resist a real Hitler, and that's one thing we’d better work on.”
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Building a “Full-Stack Society” with “New Power”
By Wade Lee Hudson
Process is important. So is product. Advocates for democracy who focus on mobilizing popular power can forget that the tyranny of the majority is a real threat. New Power: How Power Works in Our Hyperconnected World -- and How to Make It Work for You by Jeremy Heimans and Henry Timms acknowledges this reality, and offers a solution. …
They make a strong case for dynamics that are “open, participatory, and peer driven.” Yet they also write: ”As we see with ISIS and the growing hordes of white supremacists,... the tools that bring us closer together can also drive us further apart.” Heimans and Timms argue we can avoid this danger by creating “a world in which all major social and economic institutions are designed so that [all] people can more meaningfully shape every aspect of their lives.”
According to their vision:
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…angry political tribes are tearing the country apart. Driven by primal passions, they call themselves “liberals” and “conservatives.” But their policy beliefs are secondary. What matters most is tribal victory.
Americans largely agree on most specific public policies. But highly committed political people are like die-hard sports fans. They’re identify with their team and feel a deep need to crush the “enemy.” Tribal leaders, in their quest for the power to dominate, manipulate followers’ innate instincts. In particular, they promise to protect their tribe from threats by conquering “the other.”
Political psychologist Lilliana Mason has marshalled considerable evidence in support of these conclusions.
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The American people hold the power. The wealthy do not rule. They do not direct, exercise control, determine what happens.
When a supermajority of Americans unite and act forcefully, they persuade elected officials to respect the will of the people. But unified action rarely happens. Fragmentation and passivity allow the rich and powerful to get what they want.
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