1. Contrast Sumner’s Social Darwinist brand of liberalism with the social welfare liberalism of Croly.
2. Discuss the idea of equal opportunity in Sumner and Croly. What do you think the ideal of equal opportunity entails for its achievement? To what extent is it achievable?
3. Are equality and liberty complementary or opposing ideals? Be sure to consider how some of the authors in this and in other sections of the course did (or might have) responded to this question.
4. Goodwyn believes that capitalist industrialization has followed an anti-democratic path, a path the Populists valiantly resisted. What are the chief indications of this loss of democracy? Do you think Goodwyn is right, or has he understated or overstated the problem?
5. Dewey declares that the “prime difficulty” in the way of democratizing industrial society “is that of discovering the means by which a scattered, mobile and manifold public may so recognize itself as to define and express its interests” (146), or how “the Great Society may become the Great Community” (147). What are the main tenets of the theory of communicative democracy that he outlines as a solution to this? Is this theory relevant today?
6. Explain Dewey’s theory of a democratic science. Is there a real tension in it between the freedom of the individual to conduct research according to their own insights versus the democratic regulation or control of research? If you think there is, how might it be resolved (or by what criterion should the competing claims of the individual and society be balanced)?
7. Compare Stanton and Addams’s descriptions of the middle classes and of working and poor people. Contrast Addams’ belief in the need for communication between classes and solidarity across classes with Stanton’s assertion of the superior political competency and (therefore) rights of middle class women. Alongside this (quite real) difference were there also similarities in their views of desirable relationships between classes?
8. How did the Hull House experience contribute to the development of feminism?
9. Your question (please discuss with me before proceeding).