Who are the patriots: Ideologues or pragmatists?

We are generally familiar with the rock-solid belief in political and religious ideology that characterize many or most hard core liberals and conservatives. Faith in ideology is a source of strength and certitude in their belief. In short, they know they have it all just about right. Their ideological opposition is wrong and therefore responsible for most of the problems. These folks stand on rock-solid principle, black and white reality and the moral high ground. They are respected pillars of the community and towers of strength and truth in troubled times. They are real patriots.

Reality check

OK, that's one way to look at ideologues. It's a fairly common perception among ideologues. That's how many hard core ideologues look at it for the most part, especially conservatives. That's reasonable. If it were otherwise, rock-solid belief in infallible ideology wouldn't make much sense. It is just 8th or 9th grade logic, not rocket science.

M777 howitzer - Afghanistan 2009

Yes, but . . . . 

But what about true, hard core pragmatists? By my definition and that of others, and yet more others, pragmatists don't rely on political or religious ideology to guide them. They tend to see more shades of gray and nuance than black and white. They tend to look for facts, unspun truth and unspun analysis to get at the nature of political problems and issues. They try to see reality for what it is, not for what it should be to fit any infallible political or religious ideology. What could such odious people possibly bring to the party that isn't already there? How can they be considered patriots or courageous in any way, shape or form? Aren't they weak of character, untrustworthy folks with bland spines of Jello® and no real political or moral principles?

Reality check, part 2

OK, that's one way to look at pragmatists. That's how many ideologues probably look at it, especially hard core conservatives. Maybe that's how the majority of the American public looks at it. For the ideologues, that makes sense. If it were otherwise, it would not make much sense to discard belief in ideology. Again, that's just simple logic. We are all on the same page here, right? Well, no we are not. Not by a long shot.

M777 howitzer - Afghanistan 2010

A different way of looking at it

To a large extent, most Americans probably don't think much one way or another about pragmatists. They are distracted by their everyday lives and/or polluted by partisan spin, which is what dominates politics. The word pragmatism is rarely mentioned in politics. No hard core liberal or conservative stands up and thunders to the crowd that they are pragmatic. They are "liberal", "conservative" and/or, for the religious set, "devout", not pragmatic. There is at least one other way to look at pragmatism. From a pragmatic point of view, real political courage and patriotism* generally resides in pragmatists and weakness resides in political/religious ideologues.

* In this context patriotism means having the strength of character to see reality for what it is, regardless of whether it's comfortable. For this discussion, it does not mean patriotism in terms of other kinds of courage, e.g., courage in war or self-sacrifice in another service to the public. The two can be different - they may or may not overlap much.

How could that possibly be? It could be like this. Pragmatists try to face reality for what it is, even if that means (i) accepting uncomfortable realities as true and (ii) logically concluding that uncomfortable political policies should be implemented to address uncomfortable reality. By contrast, what do hard core ideologues usually do? They generally deny, distort or downplay realities (facts) and political policies that contradict or undercut their ideology. That might reasonably be called a lack of moral courage.

Put up or shut up

The blast back from ideologues is obvious: Is there even a shred of evidence that ideology distorts reality and thus impairs politics or makes it ineffective? No there isn't a shred of evidence. There are boat loads of it. Some religious ideologues know (believe) that the Earth is a few thousand years old. Some others know that intelligent design is a true scientific theory, not religious belief, that should be taught in public schools exclusively or on an equal par with the theory of evolution. Those beliefs come from religious ideology or faith, not pragmatic, scientific reality. Many political conservative ideologues tend to be skeptical of or outright deny that global warming (i) is real and/or (ii) humans have anything to do with it. Mainstream science doesn't comport with that, but ideologue skeptics refuse to see it that way because it undercuts their politics. Obviously, ideology can distort perceptions of reality and when it does, it generally (but not always) makes political policies less effective, increases waste and does not serve the public interest.

M777 howitzer - Afghanistan 2009

Pragmatists generally accept reality for what it is, even if they sometimes don't much like it. By contrast, most ideologues accept reality if they like it but tend not to if they don't. Who has the moral courage? Who are the patriots? People who retreat into comfortable ideology and deny reality or people who have the moral courage to face it?