Social "Habits" Versus Institutional Structures: John Dewey, Hannah Arendt, and Totalitarianism

• In Event: 47.071 - Deweyan Insights for Living Well in the World With Others

Abstract

John Dewey’s theory of learning and social habits provides a foundation block of educational theory and action in America. In this essay, I argue that his theories met their limits at moments of extremity: totalitarian horror as experienced by Germans and Russians during WWII. At such moments, I argue, Dewey’s “culturalist” argument begins to fade in explanatory power. We must turn to theorists like Hannah Arendt who understood how terror and horror could begin to dissolve the power of human social practices, making people’s actions malleable for totalitarian leaders

Author

• Aaron Schutz, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee