E-Journal of Philosophy of Education:
International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, Vol. 4, 2019

Dewey’s Resistance to Totalitarianism:
Focusing on The Relationship Between the Theory of
Esthetic Experience and Politics in His Works of the 1930s
Kengo NISHIMOTOThe University of Tokyo
Abstract
This paper examines the relationship between Dewey’s theory of “esthetic experience” and his
political thought in the 1930s. Mainly, this paper focuses on Dewey’s resistance to totalitarianism
based on the issue of passionate mobilization to totalitarianism by using art which W. Benjaminclaimed. In the 1930s, Dewey criticized the use of art in totalitarian states. In Freedom and Culture(1939), Dewey says that a totalitarian regime controls the whole life of all its subjects by its hold overfeelings, desires, emotions, as well as opinions through propaganda. However, on the other hand,
Dewey writes that works of art are the most compelling of the means of communication by which
emotions are stirred and opinions formed. For Dewey, art is in an unstable position. His concept of art
cannot be separated from the theory of esthetic experience, which he also developed in the 1930s.
Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to discusses whether Dewey’s theory of esthetic experience andthought of art might aid in his resistance to totalitarianism. To elaborate this, this paper is arranged into
three sections. First, we will look at two points: On the one hand, Dewey’s thought in the 1930ssuggests the importance of culture, especially art, as a response to totalitarianism. On the other hand,
Dewey’s theory of esthetic experience contains within it the danger of working in affinity withtotalitarianism. The second section will claim that esthetic experience includes dimensions of both themediacy and immediacy of art by focusing on the making and appreciation of works of art. In addition,
between both dimensions of esthetic experience, there is the chance for the “leap”, a chance for thecreation of new possibilities. Finally, the leap of esthetic experience will be interpreted as a counter tototalitarianism’s encompassing of life. The major focus of this paper is the importance ofcommunication brought about by the mediacy of esthetic experience.
Keywords
aesthetics and education, aestheticizing of politics, life, immediacy and mediacy, culture, democraticsocialism

2

K. NISHIMOTO

Introduction
This study examines the relationship between Dewey’s theory of “esthetic
experience” and his political thought in the 1930s. Mainly, this study focuses on Dewey’s
resistance to totalitarianism. In the 1930s, Dewey defined both Nazi Germany and theSoviet Union as totalitarian states and, in particular, criticized the use of art in these twostates. However, to date, there have been few works that discuss the relationship between
Dewey’s theory of esthetic experience, which he also developed in the 1930s, and his
resistance to totalitarianism. Therefore, this study discusses whether Dewey’s theory of
esthetic experience might aid in his resistance to totalitarianism.
In finding that it does aid resistance, the discussion then turns to W. Benjamin’s
concept of the “aestheticizing of politics.”1 Benjamin claimed that aesthetics also carries
the risk of being used to advance a totalitarian regime.2 In addition, this study looks ahead
to more contemporary discussions about “aesthetics and education” that have been
carried out since the 1990s in Japan.3
This discussion shows the signification of aesthetics: that it can propose “somethingthat brings the indivisible, which reason cannot measure” (Suzuki 1999: 163–164). This
discussion also informs what the task of aesthetics is. T. Nishimura claimed that, sincemodern aesthetics has led to an “easy identification with the absolute” (Suzuki 1999:
163–164), “we must object to the complicity between modern education and aesthetics
in their specifically modern meanings” (Nishimura 2010: 98). Aesthetics, as non-rational,
has the potential to puncture purposive rationality, which designates the limits of modern
education. However, it is necessary to avoid the unification of aesthetics and absolutism.
This paper is arranged in three sections. First, we will look at two points: On the one
hand, Dewey’s thought in the 1930s suggests the importance of culture, especially art, as
Benjamin takes up art, especially films, to set human beings free through training them “in the apperceptions andreactions needed to deal with a vast apparatus whose role in their lives is expanding almost daily” on the premiseof the loss of the “aura” that secures the authenticity of works of art (Benjamin 1986: 382; Benjamin 2008: 26;
emphasis in original). In contrast, according to Benjamin, fascism “sees its salvation in granting expressions to themasses—but on no account granting them rights” (Benjamin 1986: 382; Benjamin 2008: 41). This is the famous
confrontation between the “aestheticizing of politics” and the “politicizing of art” (Benjamin 1986: 382; Benjamin
2008: 42; emphasis in original).
2This study considers the issue of passionate mobilization to totalitarianism by using art, and Benjamin’s conceptof the “aestheticizing of politics,” through an examination of Dewey’s theory of esthetic experience. Y. Imai points
out the similarity of Dewey’s and Benjamin’s aesthetics from the perspective of “the response to the modern
condition of the poverty of experience” (Imai 1998: 156). However, Imai criticizes the structure of purposive
rationality in Dewey’s theory of esthetic experience.
3
T. Nishimura (2010) describes the series of discussions in “Aesthetics and Education” in the 1990s in Japan.
1

The 4th Research Promotion Award Article (2018)

Dewey’s Resistance to Totalitarianism

3

a response to totalitarianism. On the other hand, Dewey’s theory of esthetic experience
contains within it the danger of working in affinity with totalitarianism. Not dwelling on
this last point, the second section will move on to examine the relation between theimmediacy and mediacy of esthetic experience, which will reveal that there is a “leap” inDewey’s theory of esthetic experience. Furthermore, this leap creates unprecedented
possibilities. Finally, this paper argues through an analysis of Dewey’s treatment of
totalitarianism that the points of employing his theory of esthetic experience against
totalitarianism are social change, accomplished through the communication that art
provides, and the creation of unprecedented possibilities.
1. Dewey in the 1930s
1-1. Dewey’s Political Thought in the 1930s
Today, studies about Dewey’s political thought in the 1930s, which was responding
to economic and political situations such as the Great Depression and the eve of WorldWar II, have been gaining increased attention.
As M. Sato (2012) and R. Westbrook (1991) pointed out, in the 1930s Dewey
became sympathetic with socialism after he visited the Soviet Union and came to identify
his political thought as “democratic socialism.”4 Dewey’s “democratic socialism” hasdeepened through the struggle against the “three social systems that branched off after
the economic depression: the state socialism of Stalinism; the state capitalism of the New
Deal; and the totalitarianism of the fascist states” (Sato 2012: 106). A problem common
to these three social systems is the tendency to “reduce the development of free
individuality by enhancing state function” (Sato 2012: 112). In contrast, Dewey’s idea ofsocial democracy targets the development of individuality through interaction andcommunication with one’s surrounding environment. This is different from the “oldindividualism” that divided individuals. Dewey calls it democracy as “a way of living”(CD: 226). 5
4

Dewey’s series of articles about his visit to the Soviet Union was published in the New Republic and later
published in book form as Impression of Soviet Russia in 1928 (ISR). According to Morita, Dewey “found aspectacular social experiment trying to create a collaborative humanity” in the Soviet Union. While initiallyevaluating the experience positively, Dewey later realized that “the principles of people’s spontaneous cooperation
are incompatible with dogmatic Marxism, a government-certified ideology” ( Morita 2004: 99). Thereafter, Dewey
criticizes the intensification of Stalin’s dictatorship in the Soviet Union and the communist’s support of violent
revolution. Additionally, Dewey became convinced of this critical position after the Trotsky trials (Inoue 2008).
5
R. Bernstein (2000) emphasizes the sense of the time when he reinterprets Dewey’s article “Creative Democracy”(1939). Bernstein also points out that Dewey expressed disappointment at the strengthening of Stalin’s dictatorship
E-Journal of Philosophy of Education: International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, Vol. 4, 2019

4

K. NISHIMOTO

The main focus of this study is on Dewey’s resistance to totalitarianism. H. Morita
recognizes Dewey as “anticipating Arendt” in his criticism not only of Nazism but also
the Soviet Union after Stalin, which represented an intensification of the totalitarianregime (Morita 2004: 98). It is noteworthy that Dewey became the honorary chair of theCommittee for Cultural Freedom, which was established to resist the advancement of
totalitarianism. The manifest of the committee warned of the risk that the suppression ofcultural freedom under a totalitarian regime might also occur in the United States anddeclared that securing the sphere of the free creativity of culture could defend democracy(Hook 1987: 248–274). Dewey’s stance against totalitarianism can be understood as adefense of “cultural freedom,” as a defense of the free development of the individuality(Inoue 2008: 194) .6
1-2. The Defense of Political Freedom and the Emancipation of Individuality
Dewey made cultural freedom and cultural creativity the key points of Individualism,
Old and New (1930), Liberalism and Social Action (1935), and Culture and Freedom(1939), written as a response to the social situation at the time. Dewey says that culture islocated “outside of political institutions,” and it is a “complex of conditions which tax theterms upon which human beings associate and live together” (FC: 67). The problem is,then, “to know what kind of culture is so free in itself that it conceives and begets political
freedom as its accompaniment and consequence” (FC: 67).
In order to defend cultural freedom, it is necessary to rethink social and economic
systems and technology that restrict individuals’ actions. However, Dewey does not insist
on removing them. For Dewey, protecting the potential for individuality is required.
Individuality consists of the interaction between individuals and the environment, which
includes social and economic systems and technology. In addition, this argument links
the discussion to societal reform through communication. For Dewey, art became criticalto thinking about communication.
In Art as Experience (1934), Dewey claims that “individualization” is the process
by which a work of art becomes unique. Moreover, Dewey says that the individuality ofartists punctuates “a mannerism” by opening up “a unique manner of acting in and witha world of objects and persons” (ION: 122; 121). Dewey emphasizes communication as
as well as the rise of Nazi Germany in “Creative Democracy” (Bernstein 2000: 216).
6
The concept of “culture” is one of the main concerns of Dewey’s later thought up until his last years. For example,
Dewey wanted to change the title of Experience and Nature (1925), which is one of the main works of his later
period, to Nature and Culture in 1951 (Dykhuizen 1973: 318).
The 4th Research Promotion Award Article (2018)

Dewey’s Resistance to Totalitarianism

5

mediated by works of art:
In the end, works of art are the only media of complete and unhindered
communication between man and man that can occur in a world full of gulfs andwalls that limit the community of experience. (AE: 110)
Dewey says that art emancipates individuality, and the communication mediated byart fosters social reform. The political power of art does not belong to “the personal
political intent of the artist” but to the creativity of art and its capacity for communication(AE: 347).
1-3. The Risk of Connecting the Theory of Esthetic Experience and Dewey’s
Political Thought
While his political thought deepened, Dewey published Art as Experience in 1934
based on a series of lectures in 1931. In this book, Dewey developed his conceptions ofart and esthetic experience. Although Dewey argued that art responded to current politicalsituations, as previously mentioned, few studies have discussed the relationship between
his political thought and his theory of esthetic experience. Recently, however, suchstudies have begun to appear.
M. Ueno (2010) discovers the relationship between Dewey’s political thought andtheory of esthetic experience by looking at the concept of communication and expanding
his discussion to the issue of the publicness of education. However, Ueno does not focus
on Dewey’s resistance to totalitarianism. Also, Ueno is not cognizant of how Dewey
makes it difficult to talk about a dimension of communication involving multiple actors
because Dewey’s theory of esthetic experience underpins personal and direct
experience.7
T.M. Alexander (1987) values the “immediate or qualitative meaning” ofexperience (Alexander 1987: 57), but he also discusses communication and community
as mediated by art. He says that “[t]o grasp the origin of art it is also necessary to grasp
the origin of the community of shared experience” (Alexander 1987: 189). Art can be themedia through which a community can share experiences. Therefore, for Alexander, art“unites the metaphysics and political aspect of Dewey’s philosophy” (Alexander 1987:
186). However, Alexander’s argument is not cognizant of Dewey’s thinking about
7

Such criticisms are pointed out in B. Croce (1948) and C. Pepper (1989).

E-Journal of Philosophy of Education: International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, Vol. 4, 2019

6

K. NISHIMOTO

politics in the 1930s.
As previously mentioned, aesthetics, as non-rational, has the potential to puncture
purposive rationality. This is the reason for the recent attention given to Dewey’s
aesthetics.8 However, as Benjamin shows, aesthetics harbors the risk that it may bolster
a totalitarian regime. The connection between immediacy and mediacy in Dewey’s
theory of esthetic experience contains the risk that irrational and harmonious direct
experiences will be of absolute and uncritical value. In other words, there is the risk thatthe absolutization of immediate experience, working as the central dogma ofcommunication, has a high affinity with a totalitarian unity.9 Dewey also describes therisk of art being used as “propaganda for special views which are dogmatically asserted
to be socially necessary” (FC: 169). On the one hand, the non-rationality of art bears theconception of social reform, but on the other hand, it can pander to totalitarianism. Art isin an unstable position.
The problem with Dewey’s proposals for resisting totalitarianism through art is thatthey may vacillate between immediacy and mediacy. If immediacy and mediacy areseparate in the first place, Dewey’s trust that the creativity of art and communication will
break through “mannerism” should fail. Despite their connection, if immediate
experience becomes the absolute and central value of communication, the risk that it may
bolster a totalitarian regime is unavoidable. In the following, this study examines theconnection between mediacy and immediacy of the esthetic experience.
2. Dewey’s Theory of Esthetic Experience2-1. The Immediacy of Esthetic ExperienceAt first, this study shows a feature of the aspect of immediacy of esthetic experience.
According to Dewey, esthetic experience “is esthetic in the degree in which organismand environment cooperate to institute an experience in which the two are so fully
integrated that each disappears” (AE: 254; emphasis added). About “an experience,”
Dewey says:

8

For example, N. Saito focuses on Dewey’s “esthetic experience” to “release him from the framework ofconservative criticism such as instrumentalism, scientism, and optimism” (Saito 2009: 8).
9
For example, Imai criticizes Dewey’s concept of direct experience as defenseless against the politics of aesthetics
through the use of media that “penetrates the phase of pre-activity of self and incorporates certain tendencies ofperception” (Imai 2015: 34).
The 4th Research Promotion Award Article (2018)

Dewey’s Resistance to Totalitarianism

7[W]e have an experience when the material experienced runs its course tofulfillment. Then and then only is it integrated within and demarcated in thegeneral stream of experience from other experiences. […] Such an experienceis a whole and carries with it its own individualizing quality and self-sufficiency.
(AE: 42; emphasis in original)“An experience” has a specific “quality” and is fulfilled through the interaction
between an organism and its environment. In other words, “an experience” is a united
experience. In addition, a unique quality of "an experience” is that it is retrospective: “wesay in recalling them, “that was an experience’” (AE: 43; emphasis in original).
Dewey says that esthetic experience is based on “an experience,” but not all
experiences are esthetic.10 We have an esthetic experience when life becomes consciousof and realizes the “rhythm of loss of integration with environment and recovery of union”(AE: 20–21).11 Dewey says that this rhythm is experienced as a process of interaction.
Therefore, Dewey claims that the artist does not “shun moments of resistance and tension”(AE: 21).
There are three points that show the character of immediacy in esthetic experience.
(1) Esthetic experience arises from the activities of a living organism. (2) Esthetic
experience has its root in “an experience,” with the specific “quality” that we say of it
retrospectively that “it was an experience.” (3) Most importantly, for “an experience” tobecome an esthetic experience, there must be a “(re)union” within the interaction, in otherwords, within the rhythm of conflict and integration.
2-2. The Mediacy of Esthetic Experience
It is clear that esthetic experience is based on immediate experience. However, when
esthetic experience acquires a “form” as a work of art, therein lies the mediacy of esthetic
experience.12 In what follows, we will examine the aspect of the mediacy of esthetic
10

For example, in a study that illustrates the importance of discussing the differences between “an experience” and“esthetic experience,” M. Hayakawa writes, “an experience is just the primitive form of the esthetic experience, andit can only be called an esthetic experience when it has become more sophisticated and fulfilling through the works
of discrimination and reflection” (Hayakawa 1998: 99).
11
Dewey’s concept of direct experience was affected by W. James’ concept of “pure experience.” This is clear inExperience and Nature. Dewey says, “primary experience” (pure experience) is given as “vital modes” and “given
in an uncontrolled form” (EN: 21; 24). Dewey considers “secondary experience” to be as important as primaryexperience. Dewey says that the objects one attains in secondary experience as reflective experience “explain the
primary objects, they enable us to grasp them with understanding” (EN: 16; emphasis in original).
12
Dewey criticizes the dichotomy of form and matter and says that “form is always integral with matter” in works
E-Journal of Philosophy of Education: International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, Vol. 4, 2019

8

K. NISHIMOTO

experience by describing the making and appreciation of works of art.
(1) Making
According to Dewey, an “impulsion” of an organism makes a work of art along withrhythmic interaction with a medium (AE: 66). Dewey says that “the expression of theself in and through a medium, constituting the work of art, is itself a prolonged interactionof something issuing from the self with objective conditions” (AE: 71; emphasis inoriginal).
Therefore, the activity of expression is not “the direct and immaculate issue” of thenatural impulse and tendencies of the artist (AE: 70), but is the creation of works of art
that generate the form in and through the medium.
In addition, “[t]he quality of a work of art is sui generis” because the interaction of
the artist and the environment occurs at each point in time (AE: 113; emphasis in original).
The work of art expresses esthetic experience as “an idiom that conveys what cannot be
said in another language and yet remain the same” (AE: 111). Dewey also says that “theself assimilates that material in a distinctive way to reissue it into the public world in aform that builds a new object” (AE: 112). Therefore, in making works of art, esthetic
experience, which implies a direct and nonlinguistic experience in and through a material,
becomes public by acquiring a distinctive form.
For Dewey, creating a new narrative from esthetic experience and throwing it backinto a public sphere is as vital as the beginning of esthetic experience, in which a “direct
and unreasonable impression comes first” (AE: 150).
(2) Appreciation
In the appreciation of works of art, esthetic experience arises within the interaction
between viewers and works of art. Dewey says that “[t]he esthetic or undergoing phaseof experience is receptive” and “involves surrender” (AE: 59). However, “[w]hen we are
only passive to a scene, it overwhelms us and, for lack of answering activity, we do not
perceive that which bears us down. We must summon energy and pitch it at a responsive
key in order to take in” (AE: 60; emphasis in original). In this way, perception andappreciation are trying to respond to works of art while being overwhelmed by them. In
other words, perception and appreciation are the activities in which the passive and active
are united. At that time, the past experience of viewers becomes their reference point.
According to Dewey, “in order to perceive esthetically, he [the perceiver] mustof art (AE: 315).
The 4th Research Promotion Award Article (2018)

Dewey’s Resistance to Totalitarianism

9

remark his past experience so that he can enter integrally into a new pattern” (AE: 143).
Viewers’ perception and appreciation recreate past experiences by working on objects
that overwhelm them (AE: 60). Then, when a viewer “exercises his individuality, a wayof seeing and feeling that in its interaction with old material creates something new,something previously not existing in experience” (AE: 113).
In appreciation, the creation of new experience is done through “criticism,” whichanalyzes and defines the direct impression given by works of art (AE: 308–309). In otherwords: “Criticism is a search for the properties of the object that may justify the direct
reaction” (AE: 312). Analysis and definition in criticism neither describe the feeling itself
nor explain or interpret works of art “on the basis of factors that are incidentally insidethem” (AE: 319). They mean to create a new experience and “[t]he critic, because of theelement of venture, reveals himself in his criticisms” (AE: 312).
To summarize the discussion of the making and appreciation of works of art, bothare based on esthetic experience as a direct experience. However, there is an aspect ofmediacy between the making and appreciation of works of art. This means that a workof art is a re-creation of the experiences of the artist that in turn recreate the viewers’ pastexperiences.
2-3. The Leap of Creative Intelligence
It is imagination that plays an essential role in the recreation of experience. Deweysays the “first intimations of wide and large redirections of desire and purpose are ofnecessity imaginative” (AE: 352) and “[o]nly imaginative vision elicits the possibilities
that are interwoven within the texture of the actual” (AE: 348). Imagination is the ability
to share experiences “far beyond the scope of the direct personal relationship” and is a
power of awareness to create a culture that previously did not exist (AE: 350).
Imagination “involves a dissolution of old objects and a forming of new ones in a medium”(EN: 171).
Also, Dewey calls the intelligence associated with imagination “creative
intelligence” (AE: 351). Dewey defines the work of intelligence in esthetic experience as
the “perception of [the] relationship between what is done and what is undergone” (AE:52). In the production of art, intelligence operates between what has already been
produced and what is to come next. In appreciation, intelligence operates between
accepting the work of art and criticizing it. Therefore, creative intelligence combines what
is done and what is undergone and brings out new possibilities from this combination. N.
Saito defines creative intelligence as “a mode of thinking while taking on the ‘accidental’
E-Journal of Philosophy of Education: International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, Vol. 4, 2019

10

K. NISHIMOTO

in the unpredictability and uncertainty of life and speculating it forward” (Saito 2015: 56).
According to Saito, such intelligence depicts the “movement of the leap” within
uncertainty (Saito 2015: 65).
Dewey emphasizes that the first stage of esthetic experience is a feeling of “seizure”(AE: 150), an impact beyond understanding and language. “Not only, however, is it
impossible to prolong this stage of esthetic experience indefinitely, but it is not desirable
to do so” (AE: 150). The experience of “seizure” will have meaning for later criticalresponses.
The feeling of “seizure” is a momentary feeling. Responding to it and recreatingsuch experiences is reflective and requires time. Within that time, the immediacy of
esthetic experience moves to mediacy. This duality is neither disconnected nor
concentrically connected. Both are connected by a “leap” to the creation of unpredictable
new possibilities. That leap in both the making and appreciation of art depicts a different
movement than putting direct experience in an absolute and central position.
3. Esthetic Experience as Resistance to Totalitarianism
3-1. Totalitarianism and Art
How does this leap resist totalitarianism? To begin to answer this question we must
locate the place of art in Dewey’s argument against totalitarianism.
In Freedom and Culture, written in the same year as the conclusion of the German–
Soviet Nonaggression Pact (1939), Dewey wrote that “works of art […] are the mostcompelling of the means of communication by which emotions are stirred and opinions
formed” (FC: 70). However, a totalitarian regime controls the emotions of the masses
through works of art: “A totalitarian regime is committed to controlling the whole life of
all its subjects by its hold over feelings, desires, emotions, as well as opinions” (FC: 70).
Dewey argues that totalitarianism results from a simplification of theory, which itstates “in absolute terms” (FC: 116). According to Dewey, there are two types of suchtheories of absolutism. One is German idealism, especially the Hegelian simplification,
which was used to support the Nazis. The core of this thought is “found in its attempt tofind a ‘higher’ justification for individuality and freedom where the latter is merged withlaw and authority, which must be rational since they are manifestations of Absolute
Reason” (FC: 149; emphasis in original). The second is the Marxist simplification.
Dewey writes that Marxist simplification “combines the romantic idealism of earlier
social revolutionaries with what purports to be a thoroughly ‘objective’ scientific analysis,
The 4th Research Promotion Award Article (2018)

Dewey’s Resistance to Totalitarianism

11

expressed in formulation of a single all-embracing ‘law,’ a law which moreover sets forth
the proper method to be followed by the oppressed economic class in achieving its final
liberation” (FC: 119).
These two absolutized rational theories control human life including desires andemotions. Against them, Dewey argues that social events occur as the result of interaction
between individuals (who have desires and emotions) and external environmental factors.
He claims that within desire and emotion are “non-rational and anti-rational forces” (FC:162). For Dewey, art’s key role in the resistance to totalitarianism is to create new things
while accepting the non-rational and anti-rational aspects of human beings.
In addition, the problem of totalitarianism cannot be taken as the problem of Nazi
Germany and the Soviet Union alone. Dewey found the risk of totalitarianism sprouting
in the division of individual activities within laissez-faire liberalism of the United Statesat that time. The problem derives from the loss of the emergence of individuality that
occurs through interaction with one’s environment, for which “[q]uantification,mechanization and standardization” were chiefly to blame [ION: 52].
Such problems cannot be overcome either by the denial of economic activity(national socialism) or by the control of people’s economic activity through national
intervention (national capitalism). 13 Instead, economic activity must be recaptured as anopportunity that enables the individualization of individuals and an opportunity for “thedevelopment of a shared culture” (ION: 57). To do that, it is necessary to liberatecollective intelligence through “the rise of the scientific method and technology” (LSA:
53). Dewey envisions democratic socialism as going beyond the division of individuals
brought about by economic individualism and seeks to foster individuality through thecreation of culture, rather than a totalization of America. The breakthrough that
democratic socialism might accomplish is founded on Dewey’s concept ofcommunication, which makes up the core of his thought.

3-2. Communication Mediated by Art
Communication goes beyond economic lubricants. According to Dewey, nonverbal
expressions such as “[g]estures and cries are not primarily expressive or communicative”(EN: 138–139). Moreover, “[l]anguage, signs and significance” as communicative things
13

Dewey criticized the New Deal. It represented an intensive model of government intervention in the market. Thus,
it seems, at first glance, to be in line with Dewey’s argument. However, Dewey points out that the New Deal is areaction to the Great Depression and evidence of “the growth of exacerbated Nationalism” (EBNS: 316).
E-Journal of Philosophy of Education: International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, Vol. 4, 2019

12

K. NISHIMOTO“come into existence not only by intent and mind but by overflow, by-products, ingestures and sound” (EN: 139). Where do such “by-products” exist? Dewey states:
So too man’s posture and facial changes may indicate to other things which theman himself would like to conceal, so that he “gives himself away.”“Expression,” or signs, communication of meaning, exists in such cases for theobserver, not for the agent. (EN: 140)
In nonverbal expressions, the observer brings meaning to communication. 14
According to Dewey, verbal communication is also inherently impossible unless it isshared by the recipients.
For Dewey, nonverbal communication is the work of creating an expression, which
can only be transmitted and accepted as a nonverbal sensation, into a unique meaning.
All communication is inherently creative and indeterminate, verbal and nonverbal
communication alike. Therefore, no prior meaning has been established forcommunication. Instead, that uncertainty becomes a space for creation.
Especially in artistic expression, “[i]f the artist desires to communicate a special
message, he thereby tends to limit the expressiveness of his work to others” (AE: 110).
Rather, the “unexpected turn, something which the artist himself does not definitely
foresee, is a condition of the felicitous quality of a work of art” (AE: 144).
Artworks are offered to the recipient as open media and create unexpected meaning.
It is communication mediated by art for which Dewey argues.
3-3. Esthetic Experience Resisting Totalitarianism
Works of art as representations of the artist’s experience recreate viewers’ pastexperience, and they demonstrate their uniqueness through the mutual relationshipbetween the artist and the viewer. This is what communication through art means. In
addition, both production and appreciation include the chance of the leap resulting fromcreative intelligence.
This movement of the leap in the mutual relationship between making andappreciation bring about the reorganization of the activities of “quantification,
14

In Experience and Nature, Dewey discusses “meaning” as an overlap of “sense” and “signification” (EN: 200).
Sense is grasping a direct and sensory quality and “signification” is indicative meaning. This study cannot discuss
the multiplicity of Dewey’s semantics in detail, but it should be pointed out that “meaning” implies both immediacy
and mediacy, an important issue in his theory of esthetic experience as well.
The 4th Research Promotion Award Article (2018)

Dewey’s Resistance to Totalitarianism

13

mechanization and standardization” and repel the absolutization of theory. Here, thecontrast between art used to strengthen and maintain the existing political system andsocial order and art used to reorganize them is clear.
However, such a restructuring process does not rebuild the political system andsocial order from the ground up. For Dewey, seeking a fundamental reconstruction of thesocial order by means of a simplified theory means abandoning intelligence for“credulous faith in the Hegelian dialectic” (LSA: 60). The outcome of this would be theviolent creation of different governing structures. On the other hand, Dewey’s democraticsocialism, conceived from a perspective critical of totalitarianism, promotes a continuoustransformation of the political system and social order through the movement of the leap.
The driving forces for such transformations are communication via art and creative
intelligence, which suggests possibilities that previously did not exist. “The future isalways unpredictable” (ION: 122).
However, Dewey also said “that art itself is not secure under modern conditions”(AE: 347). To be able to secure the creative potential of art, “the material for art should
be drawn from all sources whatever and that the products of art should be accessible toall” (AE: 347). Art is not something that is praised as being placed on a “far-off pedestal,”such as is found in museums (AE: 12).
Dewey insisted that works of art are created out of “ordinary experience” (AE: 17).
According to him, the vital activity at the root of the aesthetic quality is ordinary
experience. However, as mentioned before, there is also the risk that everyday life may
be involved in totalitarianism through the dimensions of sense, desire, and emotion. The
theory of esthetic experience embraces life’s continuous transformation toward an
unknown future, hoping to foster opportunities for the leap in the interaction between life
and the environment, with the necessity of starting with the vitality.15
Conclusion
This study examined the theory of esthetic experience as a response tototalitarianism in Dewey’s works in the 1930s. First, this study confirmed that, in the
1930s, Dewey conceived of his notion of “democratic socialism” and signaled the15This argues against R. Rorty’s (1989) concept of the “liberal ironist” who distinguishes between the public andthe private. R. Shusterman (1997) advocates a “somaesthetics” based on Dewey’s theory of esthetic experience.
According to Shusterman, awareness of the physical senses and their control could be cultural-critical because it
results in both an adaptation to civilization and awareness of how power works on the body. Shusterman criticizes
Rorty for ignoring Dewey’s concept of experience, including esthetic experience. The issue with Rorty is that heneglects the political potentiality of action in a nonpolitical sphere.
E-Journal of Philosophy of Education: International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, Vol. 4, 2019

14

K. NISHIMOTO

importance of culture in response to the circumstances of the time, including
totalitarianism. Also, it was pointed out that, although Dewey emphasized art as a part ofculture, art included a risk of working in harmony with totalitarianism.
Second, this study described how the theory of esthetic experience, while it was
based on immediate experience, included dimensions of both the mediacy and
immediacy of art by focusing on the making and appreciation of works of art. In addition,
between both dimensions of esthetic experience, there is the chance for the leap, a chancefor the creation of new possibilities. To show that, this study focused on the concept ofcreative intelligence included works of the imagination. Therefore, the theory of esthetic
experience and communication does not treat immediate experience as absolute andcentral.
Finally, this study clarified that, according to Dewey, the leap of esthetic experience,
which is based on vitality can be interpreted as a counter to totalitarianism’s
encompassing of life, including day-to-day life. The major focus of this study was theimportance of communication brought about by the mediacy of esthetic experience.
How does Dewey’s theory of esthetic experience connect with his educational
thought? In other words, how does it connect to the issue of “aesthetics and education?”
Focusing on the concept of creative intelligence, the educational significance of theesthetic experience is its capacity to create something that did not exist previously: “artbecomes the incomparable organ of instruction, but the way is so remote from that usuallyassociated with the idea of education, it is a way that lifts art so far above what we areaccustomed to think of as instruction, that we are repelled by any suggestion of teaching
and learning in connection with art” (AE: 349). This is resonant with two concepts
discussed in Experience and Education (1938): interaction and continuity.
In Experience and Education, Dewey shows the importance of interaction between
individuals and their environment and the continuous recreation of community througheducation by discussing “individual freedom and social control,” the overlapping themesof Dewey’s political thought (EE: 31). Based on the argument of this study, thisinteraction creates new possibilities, and the continuous recreation is uncertain because
nobody can tell the future perfectly. Dewey desired to protect the opportunity for social
reform by designing schools that could produce this kind of interaction and continuity.
The theory of esthetic experience is significant because it also aids in areconsideration of Dewey’s purposive rationality. However, the non-rationality of life in
opposition to the rationality of the absolutization of theory can easily lead to

The 4th Research Promotion Award Article (2018)

Dewey’s Resistance to Totalitarianism

15

totalitarianism, as long as it is a mere liberation of life.16 Against that, Dewey provided
conceptual tools for opposing totalitarianism in his discussion of creative intelligence,
which would find the possibility that previously not exist in non-rationality. Therefore,
the key to integrating his educational thought and his resistance to totalitarianism throughaesthetics lies in the concept of creative intelligence.
What follows from this is to consider the leap, through creative intelligence, as anode of the non-rational movement and as the intelligence of life. It will be necessary toconsider this in light of recent attention to Dewey’s concept of “life.”17

References
Works of John Dewey
1969–1991 The Collected Works of John Dewey, 1882–1953, edited by Jo Ann Boydston.
Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press.
Abbreviations
EN = Experience and Nature (1925 LW1)
ISR= Impressions of Soviet Russia (1928 LW3)
ION= Individualism, Old and New (1930 LW5)
AE = Art as Experience (1934 LW10)
LSA= Liberalism and Social Action (1935 LW11)
EE= Experience and Education (1938 LW13)
FC= Freedom and Culture (1939 LW13)
EBNS= “The Economic Basis of the New Society” (1939 LW13)
CD= “Creative Democracy: The Task Before Us” (1939 LW14)
Other Works
16

For example, S. Suzuki says, “thought based on the universalism of ‘life,’ for the most part, has a totalitarian
tendency and is easily connected to totalitarianism, which sacrifices individuals for the whole” (Suzuki 1995: 13).
17
Recently, a study of Dewey’s conceptualizations of life and the vital is being conducted, focusing on Taisho-ShinKyoiku (New Education in the Taisho Era). M. Hashimoto indicates the “possibility of the historical linkage between
Dewey’s concept of ‘life’ and Bergson’s concept of ‘la vie’” (Hashimoto 2013: 221). Also, S. Tanaka argues that
“Dewey’s thinking on education is based on the concept of ‘nature’ that tacitly leads to Christian ‘Agape,’” which is
inseparable from Dewey’s concept of “life” (Tanaka 2015: 36–37). Both of their suggestions reinterpret Dewey’s
thought from the viewpoint of vitalism.
E-Journal of Philosophy of Education: International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, Vol. 4, 2019

16

K. NISHIMOTO

Alexander, Thomas. M. 1987 John Dewey’s Theory of Art, Experience, and Nature:
The Horizons of Feeling, Albany: State University of New York Press.
Benjamin, Walter. 1986 “Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen
Reproduzierbarkeit”, Gesammelte Schriften VII･I, Frankfurt: Suhrkamp
Verlag. = 2008 “The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological
Reproducibility: Second Version,” The Work of Art in the Age of Its
Technological Reproducibility, and Other Writings on Media, Edited by
Jennings, Doherty, Levin, Translated by Jephcott, Livingstone, Eiland, andOthers, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard university Press, 19–55.
Bernstein, Richard. J. 2000 “Creative Democracy: The Task Still Before Us,” American
Journal of Theology & Philosophy, 21(3), 215–228.
Croce, Benedetto. 1948 “On the Aesthetics of Dewey,” Translated by Katherine
Gilbert, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 6(3), 203–207.
Dykhuizen, G. 1973 The Life and Mind of John Dewey, Carbondale: Southern Illinois
University Press.
Hashimoto, Miho. 2013 “Karikyuramu: Oikawa Heiji Kyōiku Shisō no Seimei Gainen”(Curriculum: Concept of Life in Heiji Oikawa’s Educational Thought), Kyōiku Shisōde Yomu Gendai Kyōiku (Reading Modern Education with the History of
Educational Thoughts), Tokyo: Keisōshobō, 202–224.
Hayakawa, Misao. 1998 “Amerika ni okeru Deyūi Tetsugaku Saihyōka no Dōkō(II):“Myakuraku Shugi” to “Keiken no Biteki Shitsu” wo ch ūshin ni” (Movements ofRevaluation of John Dewey’s Philosophy II: On “Contextualism” and “Esthetic
Quality of Experience”), Nagoyadaigaku Kyōiku Gakubu Kiyō, 36, 91–105.
Hook, Sydney. 1987 Out of Step: An Unquiet Life in the 20th Century, New York: Carroll& Graf.
Imai, Yasuo. 1998 Barutā Benyamin no Kyōiku Shisō: Medeia no naka no Kyōiku (Walter Benjamin’s Educational Thought: Education in Media), Yokohama:
Seorishobō.
----. 2015 Medeia, Bi, Kyōiku: Gendai Doitsu Kyōiku Shisō no Kokoromi (Media, theAesthetic, and Education: Essays on the History of Educational Thoughts inModern Germany), Tokyo: Tōkyōdaigakushuppankai.
Inoue, Hirotaka. 2008 Jon Deyūi to Amerka no Sekinin (John Dewey and America’s
Responsibility), Tokyo: Mokutakusha.
Morita, Hisato. 2004 ““Akai 30nendai” no Jon Deyūi: Riberarizumu to HanSutārinizumu no Aida” (John Dewey in the “Red Decade”: Between Liberalism and
The 4th Research Promotion Award Article (2018)

Dewey’s Resistance to Totalitarianism

17

Anti-Stalinism), Kyōiku Gaku Ronshū, 45, 97–115.
Nishimura, Takuo. 2010 ““Bi to Kyōiku” wa ikani ronji rareta ka ?” (How has the theme“the Aesthetic and Education” been discussed?), Kyōiku Shisō Shi komentāru, 97–
113.
Pepper, Stephen. C. 1989 “Some Questions on Dewey’s Esthetics,” The Philosophy ofJohn Dewey, 3rd ed., Edited by Paul Arthur Schilpp, La Salle, Illinois: The
Open Court Publishing Co.
Rorty, Richard. 1989 Contingency, Irony, Solidarity, Cambridge; New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Saito Naoko. 2009 “Uchi naru Hikari” no Kyōiku: Puragumateizumu no Saikōchiku (TheGleam of Light: Moral Perfectionism and Education in Dewey and Emerson),Tokyo: Hōseidaigakushuppankyoku.
----. 2015 “Kiwa ni Tatsu Puragumateizumu” (Pragmatism Standing on the Edge),
Gendaishisō, 43(11). 54–79.
Sato, Manabu. 2012 Gakkō Kaikaku no Tetsugaku (Philosophy for Renovating Schools),
Tokyo: Tōkyōdaigakushuppankai.
Shusterman, Richard. 1997 Practicing Philosophy: Pragmatism and the Philosophical
Life, New York and London: Routkedge.
Suzuki, Sadami. 1995 ““Taishō Seimeishugi” towa nani ka” (What is “Taisho Vaitalism”),
Taishō Seimeishugi to Gendai (Taisho Vaitalism and Modern), Tokyo:
Kawadeshobō, 2-15.
Suzuki, Shoko. 1999 “Shisō shi kenkyū to shite no Fuikushon: Bi to Kyōiku no Rendō ni miru
“Doitsu teki naru mono”“ (Fiction as a Method of the History of Ideas: The
Germanistics in the Context of Beauty and Education), Kindaikyōikufōramu, 8, 157–
165.
Tanaka, Satoshi. 2015 “Deyūi Kyōiku Shisō no Kiso: Shizen no Kōu Kanousei”(Communicability of Nature: Profondeur of Educational Thought of Dewey), Taishō
Shin Kyōiku no Shisō: Seimei no Yakudō (Philosophia of Taisho-Shin-Kyoiku: un
Véritable Élan de Vie), Tokyo: Toshindō, 34–61.
Ueno, Masamichi. 2010 Gakkōno Kōkyōsei to Minshushugi: Deyūi no Biteki KeikenRon e (The Publicness of Schools and Democracy: Toward John Dewey’s
Theory of Aesthetic Experience), Tokyo: Tōkyōdaigakushuppankai.
Westbrook, Robert. 1991 John Dewey and American Democracy, Ithaca, New York:
Cornell University Press.

E-Journal of Philosophy of Education: International Yearbook of the Philosophy of Education Society of Japan, Vol. 4, 2019