We are living still under the dominion of a laissez-faire philosophy. I do not mean by this an individualistic as against a socialistic philosophy. I mean by it a philosophy which trusts the direction of human affairs to nature, or Providence, or evolution, or manifest destiny—that is to say, to accident—rather than to a contriving and constructive intelligence. To put our faith in the collective state instead of in individual activity is quite as laissez-faire a proceeding as to put it in the results of voluntary private enterprise. The only genuine opposite to a go-as-you-please let-alone philosophy is a philosophy which studies specific social needs and evils with a view to constructing the special social machinery for which they call.
So far I have avoided any contrast of the so-called progressive attitude with the so-called conservative attitude. I cannot maintain that reserve any longer. While in general, the opposite of the progressive attitude is not so much conservatism as it is disbelief in the possibility of constructive social engineering, the conservative mind is a large factor in propagating this disbelief. The hard and fast conservative is the man who cannot conceive that existing constitutions, institutions and social arrangements are mechanisms for achieving social results. To him, they are the results; they are final. If he could once cure himself of this illusion, he would be willing to admit that they grew up at haphazard and cross purposes, and mainly at periods quite unlike the present. Admitting this, he would be ready to conceive the possibility that they are as poor mechanisms for accomplishing needed social results as were the physical tools which preceded the mastery of nature by mind. He would then be free: Not freed just to get emotionally excited about something called progress in general, but to consider what improved social mechanisms or contrivances are demanded at the present day.
(John Dewey, "Progress," The International Journal of Ethics 26 [April 1916]: 311-22, at 318-9 [italics in original])
Note from KBJ: These paragraphs reek of hubris and dishonesty. Dewey has utter (some would say blind) faith in "contriving and constructive intelligence" and in "constructive social engineering." Notice how he misrepresents the conservative attitude. It's not that the conservative "cannot conceive" that things could be better. Even to a conservative, progress is conceivable. The conservative thinks that social engineering is unlikely to make things better. Indeed, experience shows that social engineering is likely to make things worse. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Dewey, like so many progressives, was a true believer, and, as such, dangerous. Unfortunately, there are many Deweyans (do-gooders) running around today.
