PHILOSOPHY PRACTICED WITHOUT A LICENSE
An argument I seem to encounter a lot is the “pragmatic argument”.[1] Rather than deny violence and suffering our political and economic arrangement causes, to apologize for it on “pragmatic” grounds.[2] To this argument there is no answer. Of course one can, and should, choose to operate in whatever moral universe one likes. If one is going to commit crimes because one believes it will enable them succeeded I would rather they did it without hypocrisy. What I object to is that proponents of this philosophy are almost never observed putting their own recommendations into practice. You'll never hear someone say, e.g., “I'm glad a child was blown to bits in Baghdad today because it enables me to enjoy the freedom of spending two hours a day in my SUV stuck in traffic.”[3] The way the whole thing is set up, currently the relative privilege we enjoy literally comes at this price: among other things, children literally are being murdered for our sake. I think the pragmatist argument is important to confront because it is the only argument that has a shred of truth to it. Arguments about complexity or differing ideology are false— imperial politics isn't complicated; none of us had any trouble understanding the annals of Ancient Rome when we were in Sixth Grade. Furthermore, I think the pragmatic argument provides grounds optimism. It demonstrate people find it harder to be dishonest, significantly harder, than is usually claimed. As for the other arguments, there is only one method demonstrated to work: confrontation with facts. I think failure is decided at the point the argument diverges from facts. Moral judgments and ideological analysis are a trap, an evasion, and need to be recognized as such to be combated.
1.Not to be confused with the pragmatic school of philosophy, of which John Dewey was the most famous proponent. 2.This line of reasoning is often attributed to Machiavelli. But this attribution isn't quite accurate. It's true he was one of the few souls to have ever existed who had the ability to look at politics more or less dispassionately, but he was not a cynic. His opinions on what should be done are what today would be considered humane and liberal. The pragmatic argument it different. It says, tacitly, if we terrorize our fellow man, as long as we are successful, we shall enjoy all the fruits of heaven. If anything this argument is better attributed to Nietzsche, and has hitherto been most accurately embodied by the Nazi regime. It is a modern argument and one, if taken literally, darker than any to have ever preceded it. 3.In fact, you may hear this argument, but it will be cloaked in euphemism. It will never be presented in a fashion that congers vivid images of the real events and actions that are taking place. What you will really hear is, “The price is worth it in order to have allies in the Middle East.” “The price” being children blown to bits and the “allies” being a client government despised by the Middle Eastern country in question's general population—i.e., an anti-democratic puppet government, much like Nazi Croatia.