Conflict is the gadfly of thought. It stirs us to observation and memory. It instigates to invention. It shocks us out of sheeplike passivity, and sets us at noting and contriving.

--John Dewey

It is impossible to foretell definitely just what civilization will be twenty years from now. Hence it is impossible to prepare the child for any precise set of conditions. To prepare him for the future life means to give him command of himself; it means so to train him that he will have the full and ready use of all his capacities; that his eye and ear and hand may be tools ready to command, that his judgement may be capable of grasping the conditions under which it has to work, and the executive forces be trained to act economically and efficiently.

-John Dewey

"Such a development of the individual that he shall be in harmony with all others in the state, that is, that he shall possess as his own the unified will of the community; that is the end both of politics and of ethics . . . The individual is not sacrificed; he is brought to reality in the state . . . The end [of democracy] is not mere assertion of the individual will as individual; it is not disregard of law, of the universal; it is complete realization of the law, namely of the unified spirit of the community . . .

"One aspect . . . remains to be touched -- the nature of industrial equality, or the supposed tendency of democracy towards socialism, if not communism. And there is no need to beat about the bush in saying that democracy is not in reality what it is in name until it is industrial, as well as civil and political. Such a condition is indeed far enough away; on this point, democracy is an ideal of the future, not a starting point. In this respect, society is still a sound aristocrat. And the reflex influence of this upon our civil and political organization is such that they are only imperfectly democratic. For their sakes, therefore, as well as for that of industrial relations, a democracy of wealth is a necessity."

--John Dewey, "The Ethics of Democracy" (1888)

Erin O'conner,

I like the quote because I am interested in conflict, as in the conflict of the dialectic. I am thinking that this is the kind of conflict Dewey means. However, just to make sure I am reading it right could you help me translate it because the language structure is odd.