Clownish Naivete

      I have always thought that John Dewey was a crypto-bolshevik.  While reading Brave New World Revisited by Aldous Huxley, I saw the following attributed to him:  "a renewal of faith in common human nature, in its potentialities in general, and in its power in particular to respond to reason and truth, is a surer bulwark against totalitarianism than a demonstration of material success or a devout worship of special legal and political forms."  In other words, we don't need the Anglo-American legal tradition, the Declaration of Independence, or the Constitution.  People are just so extraordinarily wise that they can discern tyrants before they elect them.  Have you ever heard of an educated person being so naive?  Can you imagine why such a writer would be considered sacred writ in education colleges?

          The sunny optimism of assuming that people always support justice and progress.  From John Dewey to Marie Harf, nothing is new under the sun.