WHAT WE DO IN THE LIGHT:

"No man and no mind was ever emancipated merely by being left alone," John Dewey affirms. According to Dewey, it is not individuals who are the proper foundation and fabric of democracy, but associations.These associations meet, convene, and sometimes conflict, in the public sphere. 

Democratic citizens are social products. Which is to say, they are molded, formed, and empowered through social interaction, and they primarily exert power in collectives, not as individuals. Citizens are not magically produced on their own, in a private bubble. They are not made by simply giving people space, time, and quiet. They are just as likely to become preoccupied with egotistical concerns, and ignore the public good. Citizens are formed through interaction and communication, learned habits of negotiation and peaceful dispute, and the crucible of struggle. 

Dewey understood 'associations' expansively. He included groups or entities that are explicitly political, such as advocacy groups, alongside those that are not, or not necessarily, such as social clubs, labor unions, churches, mosques, and synagogues. Dewey was also very concerned about the importance of schools in a democracy, and wrote extensively on the topic. Schools are a primary and essential forum where children are socialized, and learn to live with and communicate with people from many different backgrounds. Schools may serve as the polity in a microcosm, in other words.

Associations impart crucial democratic training for their members--they introduce them to democratic life--though the character of the groups themselves may not be democratic through and through. Often, they are not. They nurture democratic character nonetheless, because they provide members opportunities to learn how to listen to one another, navigate differences and disputes, and manage complicated coordination of efforts. Associations also instruct on how and when to mobilize, and in so doing, encourage individual citizens who would be less inclined and prepared to mobilize on their own. Associations help us define ourselves, address and compete with opponents, and challenge authority--credibly. Entrenched powers are more likely to heed, and perhaps fear, coordinated citizen action, not the demands of isolated individuals.

The Civil Rights movement offers an instructive case study of the power of associations, and the irrelevance of privacy. As individuals, civil rights activists were no match for Jim Crow; they were also subjected to constant surveillance, harassment, and worse. A typical example was the recently departed Bob Moses, who organized sharecroppers in Mississippi. He was persecuted for so much as mentioning the vote to unregistered African Americans, but he persisted nonetheless thanks to the solidarity of allies who flocked south during the Freedom Summer of 1964. And civil rights groups prepared and emboldened their activists, training them in various arts of non-violent protest. This was not something they could be expected to learn, much less practice on their own. 

The proper solution to lost privacy is an abundance of public life. We must rediscover the joys and power of socialization, where we may build bonds with diverse others, in intentional groups such as Dewey eulogized. Associations mold, empower, and direct us as citizens. At the policy level, this means--concretely--that communities must integrate their built environment, and redesign it to elevate the public realm. 

In a poignant statement, Dewey also wrote that "Democracy must begin at home, and home is the neighborly community." Democracy is not a matter of abstract or ideal speculation, Dewey maintained. It is born in concrete action, mobilized in actual relations, grounded in the bonds you make with those who are proximate. Democracy withers when neighbors do not see one another, or interact on a regular basis. It withers when they fail to see what they have in common--or share a common purpose. Democracy is undermined when people feel so remote and isolated that they vilify one another. This is a pervasive result of social media echo chambers, which have made partisanship so rigid and unforgiving.

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