Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Hypatia, Inc. and Wiley are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Hypatia.
http://www.jstor.org
I.
II.
That the practitionersof science have not always lived up to Mead's and
Dewey'sexpectations goes without saying, and we must leave open here the
questionof whetheror not all of the sciences can be understoodas extensions
of commonplace skills. But Mead'sattitude towardscience does allow us to
begin to understandhow he could link his daughter-in-law's well-beingto the
claimthat she "mustbe a partof this intellectualworld."Yetto fullyunderstand
Mead'sremark,another aspect of his thought mustbe introduced.
Meadwas a dedicatedinternationalist.No doubthe was led to this position
in part through his early commitment to certain religiousand moral ideals.
Jane Addams may also have had some influence on Mead'scommitments
(Deegan 1988, 136 n.22). He arguedthat due to numerousfactors in the
modem world-for example, the increasinglyinterdependentnature of the
modem economies, enhanced possibilities for contact and communication
with others,the growingself-destructivenatureof modernwarfare-"intema-
tional-mindedness"would eventuallybecome the wave of the future.
We all belong to smallcliques,andwe mayremainsimplyinside
of them. The "organizedother"present in ourselvesis then a
communityof a narrowdiameter.We are strugglingnow to get
a certainamountof interational-mindedness. We arerealizing
ourselvesas membersof a largercommunity.The vivid nation-
alism of the present period should, in the end, call out an
international attitude of the largercommunity. (Mead 1934,
265)3
When Mead says to Irene Tufts Mead that she "must be a part of this
intellectualworld,"he is concernedabouther personalgrowthand not merely
about the fragilityof her position vis-a-vis the powerpossessedby the practi-
tionersof science. No doubthe wantsher to be able to respondwhen criticized.
This, however, is not simply a statement about power relations. Credible
responsesto criticismrequirethat we accommodateourselvesto moreexpan-
sive communities."Theonly wayin which we can reactagainstthe disapproval
of the entire communityis by setting up a higher sort of communitywhich in
a certainsense out-votesthe one we find"(Mead 1934, 167-68). Becauseselves
correspondto communities,to be cut off fromwidercommunities-for exam-
ple, an internationalcommunityof the scientificallyminded-is to be blocked
fromthe realizationof one'spotentialities,that is, the self one could become.
It is also to be cut off from the kind of "enlargedmentality"that helps one
place one's own situation in perspective,which Hannah Arendt, following
Kant'slead, so stronglyadvocates(Arendt 1982, 70-77). These widercommu-
nities should be understood in terms of generalizedothers that are more
inclusive, and they can be more inclusive because they operate at "higher"
levels of abstraction.Generalizedotherscan be thought of as connected with
groupssuch as "political parties, clubs, corporations,"but they can also be
But we cannot assertour rights unless we are viewed and view ourselvesas
active participantsin the communitiesthat observethese rights.The doctrine
of separatespheresis a threatto just this sort of participation.Needless to say,
such a doctrine would violate Mead'segalitarianimpulses,impulsesthat are
directlylinked to his commitmentto the actualizationof each and everyone's
socially redeemablepotentialities. It should be noted, however, that given
Mead'scommitment to the latter, he could easily defend voluntarysegrega-
tion-for example, at a woman's college-if it contributed to individual
development, for instance, in terms of building self-confidence and critical
skills. But ideally such segregationwould be a means for Mead, never an end
in itself, never an excuse for permanentseparatespheres.
For Mead, as for Habermas,greater"socialization"leads to more, not less,
individuation.4Membershipin variousgroupsenhances one's individualityby
increasingthe rangeof one'sexperience.Modem democracy'spromiseis that
it will providethese new possibilitiesforself-development,not for the few,but
for the many.
To keep IreneTuftsMeadat home wouldhave been to deny her the self that
wasclearlywithin society's(and thereforeher) powers.No doubtMeadwould
have viewed such an occurrenceas a form of injustice, for readilyrealizable
potentialities were being denied. Mead drew,as did Marx,on a set of Aristo-
telian assumptionsabout the relationshipbetween potency and act. In the
democratizedhands of Mead and (young) Marx, the relationship between
potency and act was articulated in terms that allowed them to condemn
societiesthat preventedthe actualizationof sociallyredeemablepotentialities.
III.
NOTES
1. In his recentbookJohnDeweyandAmericanDemocracy,
RobertWestbrookargues
that Deweyshouldbe viewedas a radicalprogressive.
He suggeststhat Mead,Jane
Addams,andRobertBourneshouldbeplacedinthesamecamp(Westbrook 1991,189n).
Meadwas indeeda radicalprogressive.
2. Fora discussionof these themes,see Mead (1932) and Aboulafia(1986).
REFERENCES