 We can understand Dewey this way. In working out what to do, individuals and groups are confronted by dilemmas about what to do. Some of us (such as a gang of thieves, in Dewey’s example) address these problems in ways that promote certain kinds of growth and development (you can flourish as a thief) but ultimately frustrate their members and their own goals, since these activities inherently generate conflict with other individuals and groups. It is only a democratic community, Dewey believes, which allows each member fully to realize her potentialities without conflict and coercion. For the individual, democracy means having a share in directing the activities of the group, while for the group it demands liberation of the potentialities of the individual members in harmony with their common interests. Yet even at his most optimistic, Dewey doesn’t imagine away differences of opinion, conflicts of interest and value pluralism as ineliminable features of social and political life. Even when his epistemological standards are adhered to, “[d]ifferences of opinion in the sense of differences of judgment as to the course which it is best to follow, the policy which it is best to try out, will still exist” (The Public and Its Problems, LW2, 362).  Democracy as public discussion is viewed as the best way of dealing with the conflict of interests in a society: