[MD] Barfuesserkirche (ZMM & Dewey)

[Arlo Bensinger]

All,

David Granger recently forwarded me a copy of an address he delivered last 
year on "deep democracy". I'd like to share this with the group (having 
received permission from David to do so), but now realize that at 13 pages 
of text, its a bit long to force into one email. So I will offer some 
excerpts and thoughts, and if you are interested in reading David's 
(outstanding) take on democracy and education "[revealing] a clear line of 
influence running from the Danish folk schools to efforts at "deep 
democracy" in this country via Myles Horton's monumental Highlander Folk 
School, [including] an earlier bit on Jane Addams to provide some context", 
I'd be happy to send it on, just email me.

David's entry point in this essay is "Hull House", a turn of the century 
endeavor in Chicago which "at its beginning, its main purposes were to 
provide social and educational opportunities for working class people in 
the neighborhood, many of whom were recent immigrants. There was classes in 
literature, history, art, domestic activities such as sewing, and many 
other subjects, concerts free to everyone, free lectures on current issues, 
and clubs both for children and adults." (Wikipedia). Local conditions 
"underscored for Addams [a cofounder] the inadequacies of the popular 
liberal ideal of the "natural man" who enters the world a freely-choosing, 
self-sufficient and self-realizing being." (Granger). David continues, 
"Enunciating the means of a more positive freedom, the official charter of 
Hull-House (1889) stated as its purpose to "provide a center for [the 
development of] a higher civic and social life; to institute and maintain 
educational and philanthropic enterprises, and to investigate and improve 
the conditions in the industrial districts of Chicago." (Granger)

At this point, I'll reiterate a need to understand the "purpose" of an 
educational system. This was discussed here before (in anticipation of 
David's book), with Dan linking several great points from Dewey's 
"Democracy and Education" to Pirsig. I just say this again because I think 
any challenge to the "status quo" must begin with an understanding of what 
objectives "education" has. Is it (to restate some possibilities) to 
develop an informed citizenry? Productive workers? Etc. Just an ongoing 
thought to keep in mind.

Addams held a belief in "deep democracy", which David contrasts with 
"economist democracy". "Deep democracy, in near dialectical opposition to 
our present "economistic" or consumer democracy, is actively participatory 
and innately pluralistic. As a form of developmental democracy, it 
emphasizes inclusiveness and mutual transformation through collaboration 
and collective problem solving among persons of diverse viewpoints, 
abilities, and potentials. In doing so it links people's individual 
experiences with the larger social reality, in particular, with sites of 
democratic struggle and intervention. ... Though such deep democracy has 
never been fully realized, it has, notes Green, "been partially achieved at 
certain times and places, giving rise to certain institutional forms [e.g., 
public education and universal suffrage] that have the potential to promote 
its fuller realization" (Granger)

David make a comment at about this point in his narrative that reflects 
over to the "Capitalism" thread, and the understanding that social 
restrictions on the market were *a response* to conditions. Moving from 
Addams to Myles Horton, David writes, "[Addams] acknowledged the growing 
intransigence of the social, political, and economic forces associated with 
what Dewey famously called "the eclipse of the public," whereby the 
atomistic individualism of the private market economy fosters "conditions 
which halt the social and humane ideals that demand the utilization of 
government as the genuine instrumentality of an inclusive and fraternally 
associated public."

Horton started the Highlander Folk School (now the Highlander Research and 
Education Center) in Appalachian Tennessee "to provide an educational 
center in the South for the training of rural and industrial leaders, and 
for the conservation and enrichment of the indigenous cultural values of 
the mountains" (Wikipedia). "Highlander's formal mission upon its opening 
was to bring together workers, grassroots leaders, community organizers, 
educators, and researchers to develop rural and industrial leaders for a 
new social order." (Granger).

Calling it a "thinly-veiled crib from Dewey's Democracy and Education", 
Granger recounts one of the first public descriptions of the Highland 
school. "It is the aim of
education to take part in correcting unfair 
privilege and unfair deprivation, not to perpetuate them
it must take 
account of the needs of the existing community life; it must select with 
the intention of improving the life we live in common." Horton also 
espoused the need for "educated hope", "If people are in trouble, if people 
are suffering and exploited and want to get out from under the heel of 
oppression, if they have hope that it can be done, if they can see a path 
that leads to a solution, a path that makes sense to them and is consistent 
with their beliefs and their experience, then they'll move." (Granger) I 
should note that this resonates strongly with socio-cultural theory, a path 
I hope to come back to in a future post.

Arguing that "democracy, as a social conduit, is not only about rights and 
agency, it is also about the responsibility of active listening and mutual 
acknowledgement" (Granger), David points out the fluidity of the Highland 
school in "its governing concepts, letting the people it serves and the 
times in which they live define precisely what
democracy, mutuality, and 
united social action mean."

David concludes by pointing out that for Horton "significant social change 
could not be effected by individuals acting alone or by radical political 
analysis alone, Highlander attempted to educate people away from an 
individualistic mindset-another part of the myth of American 
exceptionality-and towards the freedom that only becomes possible with 
cooperation and collective action." (Granger)

I hope this brief outline was enough to spark your interest.