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4. Socialization, Social Efficiency,and Social Control: Putting Pragmatism to Work
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4 Socialization, Social Efficiency, and Social Control Putting Pragmatism to Work LARRY A. HICKMAN Given the assaults on public education that are currently being waged by the Bush administration, it is highly appropriate that we should revisit a key text of one of public education’s greatest champions: John Dewey’s Democracy and Education. For the purposes of this chapter I have selected three central terms from that text. They are terms that have been broadly misunderstood. They are the terms of my title: “socialization,” “social efficiency,” and “social control.” Socialization In chapter 7 of Democracy and Education, Dewey tells us what he means by socialization: “Any education given by a group tends to socialize its members, but the quality and value of the socialization depends upon the habits and aims of the group” (MW.9.88). Unlike some of the critics of socialization who have linked the term to dark and sinister plots, Dewey here employs the term in a neutral sense. Socialization occurs in a madrassa in Pakistan, a public school in Peoria, a Christian homeschool in Phoenix, a graduate school in Palo 67 68 John Dewey and Our Educational Prospect Alto, and countless professional societies as well. His point can be expressed with bumper-sticker precision: “socialization happens.” In this connection, Dewey was highly critical of the claims of social contract theorists such as Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau. In his view, socialization is not the result of independent, presocial individuals coming together to form a covenant, whether it be among themselves or together in contract with a sovereign. As early as 1888, he was already criticizing what he termed the “aggregation” thesis: “The notion, in short, which lay in the minds of those who proposed [the social contract] theory was that men in their natural state are non-social units, are a mere multitude; and that some artifice must be devised to constitute them into political society. And this artifice they found in a contract which they entered into with one another” (EW.1.231). Further, he suggested, the theory “that men are not isolated non-social atoms, but are men only when in intrinsic relations to men, has wholly superseded the theory of men as an aggregate, as a heap of grains of sand needing some factitious mortar to put them into semblance of order” (EW.1.231). Murray G. Murphey put this matter about as succinctly as it could be put in his introduction to the critical edition of Human Nature and Conduct. “Human beings,” he noted, “are social because they must be social or dead; feral fantasies notwithstanding, there are no solitary hunters ” (MW.14.10). Dewey was also critical of the arguments put forward by the advocates of “rugged individualism” as an antidote to socialization. Socialization per se does not carry a germ corruption. Nor is the term synonymous with “collectivism,” as some have charged. Dewey reminded us that, like socialization, individualism can take many forms. Historically, the predatory , social Darwinist ideology of America’s Gilded Age inspired by Herbert Spencer constitutes one unfortunate example. In our time, Ayn Rand’s claim that we become more virtuous as we become more selfish provides another. Dewey’s criticism of classical liberalism included a repudiation of the first of these ideologies directly, explicitly, and at some length. His criticism pertains to the second one by implication. By rejecting the type of individualism urged on us by classical liberalism, however, Dewey was by no means issuing a call for a type of collectivism that would submerge or destroy individuality. On the contrary, he was calling for a newer, reconstructed type of individualism that would marshal the energies of communities in ways that would serve to develop the talents and interests of each member of those communities in an effort to develop potential and encourage growth. He was, in short, calling for community efforts to foster [44.199.212.254] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 22:30 GMT) 69 Socialization, Social Efficiency, and Social Control the flowering of individuality—a type of individuality, moreover, that would in turn foster a greater flowering of community life. The fact is that socialization happens early and it happens often. More generally, it is not the fact of socialization that concerns the educator , but its context, its means, and its consequences. But what, more specifically, does this mean? A gang of thieves is a society. The same is true of a political party and a book club. It is not difficult...