{"id":5801,"date":"2008-12-12T11:25:07","date_gmt":"2008-12-12T18:44:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=5801"},"modified":"2008-12-12T11:25:07","modified_gmt":"2008-12-12T18:44:55","slug":"pragmatism-idealism-lincoln-douglass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=5801","title":{"rendered":"Pragmatism, Idealism, Lincoln, Douglass"},"content":{"rendered":"

Musing on pragmatism versus idealogy, Ta-Nehisi writes<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Lincoln may well have been a great president, but on arguably the most vexing question facing this country, his record is mixed. He opposed slavery as an institution, but also opposed equality and voting rights for blacks. To my mind, his thoughts on race were pedestrian, ordinary, and unimpressive. He was, in a word, pragmatic.<\/p>\n

The true ideologue was Frederick Douglass–mostly because he really had no other choice, if he wanted to live free. Pragmatism doesn’t allow you to physically resist slavery as Douglass did. Pragmatism doesn’t tell you to flee North. It’s principle–and what is ideology, but a core of unmoving principles–that made Douglass an abolitionist. It’s principle that told Douglass he had the right to love whoever he wanted. Meanwhile pragmatism gave us one the most cowardly and shameful acts in this country’s history–the retreat out of the South, which left blacks at the mercy of a thugocracy.<\/p>\n

As Hayes <\/a>reminds us, we should be skeptical of those who make a fetish of pragmatism.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>My reflex is to agree with Ta-Nehisi, but on second thought I wonder if his discussion isn’t missing the point a little. Ta-Nehisi argues persuasively that Lincoln’s opinions were wrong and deplorable. But the defense of pragmatism would be that Frederick Douglass (or a white abolitionist who shared Douglass’ views) could not have been elected and would not have brought slavery to an end as quickly.<\/p>\n

In other words, the argument for pragmatism isn’t that pragmatists are better people<\/em>, but that they bring about better outcomes<\/em>.<\/p>\n

But that’s too simplistic. With hindsight, it’s easy to point to whoever won out and say “see? Pragmatists succeed.” Pragmatic Lincoln, once he had no choice, ended slavery — but he never would have brought himself to the state of having no choice. It was the much-hated abolitionists, by refusing to give in to what seemed politically viable at the time, who had brought the country to that impasse.<\/p>\n

Edited to add: <\/em>Nor was Lincoln a pure pragmatist; he did have ideals which were important, even though he compromised them. (There were pragmatists who were firmly committed to maintaining slavery, after all; it was good for the country that Lincoln wasn’t one of those.) Douglass, for that matter, played the hand he was dealt as well as any pragmatist could have. In the end, being “pragmatic,” beyond the basic level required to not run the economy to the ground in the pursuit of an empty ideological agenda, is only meaningful based on what goals are being pragmatically sought.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Musing on pragmatism versus idealogy, Ta-Nehisi writes: Lincoln may well have been a great president, but on arguably the most vexing question facing this country, his record is mixed. He opposed slavery as an institution, but also opposed equality and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[93],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-race-racism-and-related-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5801"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5801\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}