Words, Power, Pluralism: Are You Talking to Me?

Of all affairs, communication is the most wonderful.

—John Dewey (LW 1:132)

The power of words directs action and transforms thought for good or ill; we are as easily manipulated by words as potentially inspired—in fact, it is not easy to distinguish the latter from the former. That manipulative or coercive speech must be distinguished from sincere communication is the point of this article, and I want to argue here that the distinction lies not in the message content or the medium through which it is conveyed but in the very act of communication itself. To whom is address made? Who is speaking? Is response invited or expected? Does it matter? My point of departure is inspired by John Dewey's emphasis on communication as fundamental to transcendent human possibility, that is, to growth—with respect to the potential for change both as individuals and as a society. Ours is the promise of possibility—that we might live in such a way to become more fully human, a capacity potentially realizable, but not as a mere fact of being. This potential necessitates certain conditions be present, of which communication is the most basic, the ground from which all meaning springs.

Language used as directive or explanation or to sell a product or even to disseminate that daily barrage of information-without-context designated as "news" vitiates the most essential condition for meaningful growth: communication. Dewey's view of language stands in contrast to the contemporary view that language is social iteration, that is, that speech mirrors social behavior and is reflective of society. Instead, for Dewey, language is social, interactive in its essence and thus generative of meaning, not merely its instantiation. While speech can be described as an event, since words are repeatable, meanings, even when assumed or taken for granted, are never absolutely static; through the activity of communication meanings are also "eventual"—that is, they come into being through dialogue and emerge as "over-flow" in conversation (LW 1: 139). Speaker and listener grasp each other's trajectories of thought as intimation or intention; meanings then are anticipated, products or outcomes of discourse. Language, then, does not "speak us"; we speak to each other. "To understand is to anticipate together," as Dewey puts it (LW 1:141).

Communication as interactive and generative means that growth is possible. That we might transcend the limits of our own understanding through communication suggests that social transformation is possible; to become more fully human, is not just a potential of being, it is a pragmatic and profoundly ethical enterprise. In his 1927 work, The Public and Its Problems , Dewey writes:

To learn to be human is to develop through the give-and-take of communication an effective sense of being an individually distinctive member of the community; one who understands and appreciates its beliefs, desires and methods, and who contributes to a further conversion of organic powers into human resources and values. But this translation is never finished. The old Adam, the unregenerate element in human nature, persists. It shows itself wherever the method obtains of attaining results by use of force . . . . It manifests itself more subtly, pervasively, and effectually when knowledge and instrumentalities of skill . . . are employed in the service of wants and impulses [that] have not themselves been modified by reference to a shared interest . . . .The only possible solution is the perfecting of the means and ways of communication of meanings so that genuinely shared interest in the consequences of interdependent activities may inform desire and effort and thereby direct action.

(1988a, 154–55)

This lengthy quote provides a context for what is in urgent need of address: inquiry into the broad questions about contemporary society and how it will or might take form in the future. How might we begin to translate the overwhelming changes of the present era? How might we take an active role in inquiry into events we find incomprehensible? How do we question or demand clarification of the endless flow of information over which we have no control and feel no responsibility for understanding into a source for knowledge...