Hollowing Out the Dewey-Lippmann Debate

The debate in the 1920s between Walter Lippmann and John Dewey over the meaning of democratic citizenship has in the last decade received attention from many quarters, especially political philosophers and theorists. These scholars have attempted to resuscitate the debate’s historical significance in order to shed light on contemporary tensions between media, political legitimacy, elite power and grassroots democracy. However, the complexities of the exchange have often been glossed over in the attempt to advance an agenda unrelated to the debate itself. Many of these commentators fail to appreciate the historical circumstances surrounding the debate. For instance, they overlook the fact that Lippmann was interested in persuading disillusioned progressives to accept a more elitist view of democracy. They ‘hollow out’ the debate’s particularities and filter what remains through a fine screen so that what remains supports their pet theory. Four specific philosophical treatments of the debate interest me, for in each case the philosopher or theorist hollows out the debate for their own purposes: (i) Noelle McAfee’s reading of the debate in terms of contemporary philosophical disputes over the nature of democratic legitimacy and deliberation, (ii) Ramon Del Castillo’s interpretation of the debate as a critical theorist’s attempt to preserve the public sphere, (iii) Colin Pearce’s reading of the debate as a conflict between American pragmatism and American progressive journalism and (iv) Melvin Rogers’ interpretation of the debate as the simultaneous expression of three recent theoretical frameworks. As I demonstrate, each of these accounts, while thought-provoking, is deficient, for each in its own way distorts the historical record, oversimplifies the issue for extraneous reasons and contributes to the hollowing out of an event in American history that should be appreciated on its own terms and in its robust complexity.