Dear Friends,
It seems to me that most people are pragmatists. We have to be. To lack pragmatism is to ensure future insanity. Because when you live in an insane world you must either be pragmatic about it or go crazy.
Since most people are pragmatic we seek to get along in the world with as little interference as possible. As Thrasymachus said. Most people do not want to impose on others. But they are afraid of being imposed upon. That is why most people like the idea of justice… So by his measure most people are good. There are others who are bad. (I.e. They want to impose their will on others).
We are pragmatic in many ways. We add up the costs and benefits to most things we engage in. This is a form of pragmatism. We sometimes don’t fight the good fight because we have determined that it would result in diminishing returns.
To be the avatar of pragmatism one would have to be immune to all the pitfalls that await all of us. Like the sunk cost effect, group think, etc… We all vary in our pragmatism. (Or maybe we vary in our assessment of the cost benefit to a certain action).
Pragmatism breeds happiness. People who are pragmatic give up their anger quickly. They are less prone to hopelessness. These are the antithesis to pragmatism. Because to be angry has a very high cost both in health and relationships. The payoff is not as distinct. So pragmatism says, stop that which give us diminishing returns. To be angry for too long has such diminishing returns that the pragmatist eschews it. Hopelessness is the same. To be hopeless has great cost with no benefit. So why do it?
But pragmatism has costs as well. For example, take a good person living among those who are bad. Machiavelli says that a good man must necessarily come to ruin among so many that are bad. To be pragmatic in such a situation is to become bad enough to fit in. Mencius talked about this very thing.
Mencius said that the “Jen” man (gentleman, lord, Brahman, enlightened man, etc…) strikes the golden mean. When the jen man lives among many that are bad he doesn’t go to the extreme of bad. He seeks the middle ground in that bad land. When the jen man finds himself living among saints, again he looks to the mean of the society that he lives in. Mencius said that Mo Ti would run himself into the ground to help anyone. While Sang Yang wouldn’t pull a loose thread from his cloak although it save humanity. They went too far, claimed Mencius. Aristotle was curiously similar in his philosophy of the mean.
Pragmatic people do the same. Seek the mean in the society they live in. Pragmatic people look at their leaders today (and historically), and see people who make law to benefit their friends, making tax law and don’t pay taxes, regulating banks to make bad loans to people they know cannot pay back the loans then blaming the banks for the failures, have illegal aliens for maids, nannies, gardeners to save money but claim to be hard on illegal immigration, To name a very few examples. A pragmatists may not like what he or she sees. We may not want to emulate the behavior. But pragmatism, Machiavelli, Mencius, and Aristotle all say in unison, “follow the mean.” when the rulers are this corrupt society must be corrupt. Like virtue, corruption flows down from the leaders to the led.
Unfortunately the culture that we find ourselves in is a wretched as it can be. Corruption is endemic in the Elite in government, industry, entertainment and in society. They have been so corrupt for so long it has moved deeply into our society. Political corruption oozes out of government and onto everything government touches. Like a child, the grubbier the hands, the more they want to touch. They even have the gall to call evil good and good evil. Simply by changing the language, abortion becomes choice, freedom of religion becomes separation of church and state, freedom of speech is now too much information, the list goes on and on. I am sure you can think of quite a few I have left out… if you try.
This all adds up to an insane society.
How does this apply to the International Capitalist Party? Pragmatism is the cornerstone of our philosophy. Pragmatic in our view of humanity, pragmatic in our opinions about how to best effect positive change in the human condition, but, not pragmatic in our goal. To be pragmatic about a political goal is, not to fall into the status quo, it is to set a new status quo. Progressives, communists and socialists are pragmatic in their goal, total government, but not in their assessments of people… Unless most people do want to live under a tyranny, in poverty, with no voice or ability to change the situation…
