'The Political Habitus' and Dewey's Theory of Democracy — A Note

Image credit. Nature painting itself. Paintings of nature by nature through human means.

I have argued here that what I call "the political habitus" is a "pre-political" condition of politics in a free society. In short, in an individualist age, men get used to acting in ways that are political in nature, while conduct pursued in this vein may largely take place outside—and prior to the establishment—of a democratic political infrastructure.

Broadly speaking, I see individualism as one of the most momentous consequences of the ongoing differentiation of the division of labour among human beings. A historical force to emerge slowly but relentlessly, only later does individualism become an objective of political ambition as we are accustomed to see it. In the meantime, the fait accompli of increasingly individualistic patterns of human cooperation forces a trail of adaptations to the irresistible paradigmatic thrust of individualism, one of which being a new political style: the trend toward more inclusive politics and— ultimately—democracy as we have come to know it. 

The genesis of freedom has its moments of sudden advances, but these are mostly undergirded by slow, even glacial streams of preparatory development like that process lasting a thousand years whereby the individualistic revolution instigated by Jesus of Nazareth and St. Paul would work its way into full bloom, albeit ultimately on secular terms.

John Dewey draws attention to another of these subtle and stealthy processes that continually nurture some of the most decisive, yet hardly noted, cultural paraphernalia of greater freedom. From his unique angle, Dewey confirms my view that — my interpretation — democracy

• (a) must not be reduced to a few signal events, most notably elections, but 

• (b) consists of a way of life which forms a cultural texture permeating the habits and daily practices of an entire society and its population, a texture that

• (c) (i) originates and (ii) grows culturally preponderant until it becomes the dominant political paradigm and from then on (iii) continues to take place to a large extent

                 outside of the institutions expressly designed to support political action.

In fact, this "pre-political" texture makes up the substratum that supports the political order. 

Below I quote from an article written by Axel Honneth: Democracy as Reflexive Cooperation: John Dewey and the Theory of Democracy Today.

Honneth discusses various conceptions of democracy, of which I shall single out only the liberal variant, to contrast them with Dewey's view.

The core of all radical democratic objections leveled [sic] against liberalism's understanding of democracy has referred to its negative, individualistic conception of personal freedom.

[ ... T]he central argument has always been that in the liberal understanding ... [ "of," I suppose, should be eliminated, cf p. 766] the formation of the democratic, political will could be reduced to the function of periodically legitimating state action.

Here the subject is understood as previously furnished with a certain amount of personal freedom; and if the personal autonomy of the individual is understood as independent of the processes of social integration, this entails the following normative conclusion: The political activity of citizens must consist primarily in the regular control of a state apparatus whose essential task must, for its part, be the protection of their individual liberties. (Ibid. p. 766)

Honneth is putting his finger on it: in the liberal account, freedom, and derivatively, the pertinence of democracy or, shall we say, the right pursuit of democratic practices, are being plucked out of the air, conjured into existence as ultimate facts, as God-given or nature-given or logically irreducible axioms, as first principles of eternal existence. Freedom and democracy are not seen as embedded in the social world from which spring the experiences that orient human action and motivate our attitudes toward political categories.

This, of course, explains why liberals fail to appreciate the social character of individualism, thus completely missing its dynamic dimension whereby the exchange and competition of different interests and views keep shaping the meaning of freedom and the forms in which she gains a foothold in the real world.

By contrast, John Dewey offers a perspective on democracy that does account for its place in the social world.

Honneth argues that Dewey is able

[...] to grasp democratic ethical life as the outcome of the experience that all members of society could have if they related to one another cooperatively through a just organizing of the division of labor. (p. 780)

By a  

[...] one-sided restriction of democracy to the political sphere [as in authors such as Habermas] .. one loses sight of the fact that a democratic public sphere lives off social presuppositions that can be secured only outside this idea itself; it must expect each citizen to share so much common ground with all others that at least an interest can emerge in involving oneself actively in political affairs. However, such a degree of common ground can evolve only where, in the prepolitical domain, it has already been possible  to experience communicative relatedness; and this vacant spot in a politically one-sided theory of democracy is filled, in my view, by Dewey's idea of social cooperation, that is, of a division of labor under conditions of justice. (p. 779)