Prickly City by Scott Stantis for February 08, 2009

The dominant philosophy of our age is Pragmatism. You may think that simply means being practical, and who’s against being practical? But Pragmatism as a philosophic movement is based on the principle that there are no principles, and the one fixed truth that there is no fixed truth. Whatever works is true but what is true now might not be in a few years/days/minutes.

But how can you know what works? How can you know what to try? Well, try SOMETHING. ANYTHING! This explains the frantic Bush/Obama response to the current fiscal crisis and Obama’s demand that we put aside principles as a hindrance to results. Good luck with that.

Note that in the hands of its most adept political practitioners, Pragmatism tends to result in certain recurring patterns, especially the pursuit of whatever you can get away with (like Nixon or LBJ) or whatever feels good (like Clinton getting you-know-what in the Oval Office).

Worse yet, by reneging on their responsibility to provide principles to guide our lives, Pragmatist philosophers turn the ball over to the religionists who feign certainty via faith and make it appear that anyone who holds to principles is an unthinking dogmatist. Like in this cartoon.