Abstract

Što bi moglo poći krivo u liberalizmu, već je poodavno nagovješteno. Jedan od najvećih liberalnih mislilaca, John Dewey, napisao je niz tekstova u svojoj »kasnoj fazi« u kojima je jasno ukazao na apsolutistički defekt liberalističke doktrine koji je nevjerojatno aktualan i danas. Taj nam uvid može poslužiti kao upozorenje što bi liberali trebali izbjeći u budućnosti. U tekstu se analiziraju mogućnosti otvorene Deweyjevim ključnim stavom da se liberalizam mora obraniti od vlastitih esencijalističkih, odnosno apsolutističkih pretenzija. Jedan takav »de-esencijalizirani« liberalizam počiva na inspirativnom uvidu da »individuum nije ništa fiksno , dano. On je nešto što se postiže, i to ne u izolaciji« već samo u širem društveno-kulturalnom kontekstu. U tom smislu, liberalizam ima smisla samo ako je liberalni socijalizam.It seems that it has for long been anticipated what, actually, might have gone wrong with liberalism itself. One of the greatest thinkers of liberalism, John Dewey, had written extensively about this topic in his “late works” where he rather precisely described what he termed an absolutist defect of liberalist doctrine. This potent description, in author’s view, is still plausible today. Dewey’s insight can serve us as a particular warning about what contemporary liberals, faced with “neo-liberal” deviations should avoid in the near future. This text is particular analysis of various possibilities opened by Dewey’s key insight that liberalism indeed must defend itself from its own essentialist, that is absolutist intentions. Such a “de-essentialized” liberalism resides on Dewey’s inspirational insight that an “individual is nothing fixed , given, but it is achieved, not in an isolation” but in a specific wider social and cultural context. In that sense liberalism is meaningful only if it is the liberal socialism