Posted on 07/07/2002 11:25:38 PM PDT by Askel5
I guess it didn't occur to me to think of as "totalitarian" our finishing the job -- I'd have backed Patton all the way to Moscow -- by staying put for a bit instead of beating it back home and leaving the vacuum into which the left rushed in.
I'm not sure I'm ready to concede a "duality" of pragmatism. Maybe it's still a failure on my part to understand.
Using his example, I don't think it would have been "totalitarian" for us to remain in place and -- for a short time, anyway -- extend the Justice and authority of our Constitutional Republic such that we could rout the last of the aggressors and allow the aggrieved some opportunity to reclaim their rightful land or property or otherwise obtain justice.
However forceful our occupation would have been, I still don't see it as a totalitarian "ideology" based and circuscribed -- as it would have been -- on the objective truths by which (ostensibly) we fought a Just War in the first place.
In fact, I'd probably argue we failed in our obligation to see the Just War all the way through by not doing so.
Headed home ... I'll check the stacks and see if I can't get a handle on "pragmatic" once and for all before coming back.
I guess it didn't occur to me to think of as "totalitarian" our finishing the jobThat is because you were looking at it (you won't like this) pragmatically. ;-)
I don't think that in general you think nations should be threatening to nuke other nations. It would be rather totalitarian of us (exercising autocratic powers, controlling aspects of a nation via coercive measures), to be threatening to nuke the hell out of another nation.
But in the context of World War II, when there was a greater good to be obtained and a ready excuse for doing so, it would have been quite pragmatic of us to advance our cause at the expense of the communist Soviet regime.
It also would have been right and good, and prevented quite a few problems down the road; generally these are the defining characteristics of wise, moral pragmatism. The key to it is that the basis for decisions has to be grounded in morality.
Maybe I just wish there were different words entirely for the Good and the Evil pragmatism ... the one based on circumstances and the one based on intent.
"In the present year of grace 1908 the term "pragmatism"--if not the doctrine--celebrates its tenth brithday. Before the controversy over the mode of philosophy designated by it enters upon a second decade, it is perhaps not too much to ask that contemporary philosophers should agree to attach some single and stable meaning to the term. There appears to be as yet no sufficiently clear and general recognition, among contributors to that controversy, of the fact that the pragmatist is not merely three but may gentlemen at once."
I. Pragmatist Theories of Meaning
1. The "meaning" of any judgment consists wholly in the future experiences, active or passive, predicted by it.II. Pragmatism as an Epistemologically Functionless Theory concerning the "Nature" of Truth.
2. The meaning of any judgment consists in the future consequences of believing it.
13. The meaning of any idea or judgment always consists in part in the apprehension of the relation of some object to a purpose.
3. The truth of a judgment "consists in" the complete realization of the experience (or series of experiences) to which the judgment had antecedently pointed; propositions are not, but only become, true.III. Pragmatist Theories of Knowledge, i.e., of the Criterion of the Validity of a Judgment.
4. Those general propositions are true which so far, in the past experience, have had their implied predictions realized; and there is no other criterion of truth of a judgment.IV. Pragmatism as an Ontological Theory
5. Those general propositions are true which have in past experience proved biologically serviceable to those who have lived by them; and this "liveableness" is the ultimate criterion of the truth of a judgment.7. All apprehension of truth is a species of "satisfaction"; the true judgment meets some need, and all transition from doubt to conviction is a passage from a state of at least partial dissatisfaction to a state of relative satisfaction and harmony. This is strictly only a psychological observation, not an epistemological one; it becomes the latter by illicit interpretation into one of the two following.
8. The criterion of the truth of a judgment is its satisfactoriness, as such; satisfaction is "many dimensional," but all the dimensions are of commensurable epistemological value, and the maximum bulk of satisfaction in a judgment is the mark of its validity.
9. The criterion of the truth of a judgment is the degree in which it meets the "theoretic" demands of our nature; these demands are special and distinctive, but their realization is none the less a kind of "satisfaction". 10. The sole criterion of the truth of a judgment is its practical serviceableness as a postulate; there is no general truth except postulated truth, resulting from some motivated determination of the will; "necessary" truths do not exist.
11. There are some necessary truths, but these are neither many nor practically adequate; and beyond them the resort to postulates is needful and legitimate.
12. Among the postulates which it is legitimate to take as the equivalent of truth, those which subserve the activities and enrich the content of the moral, esthetic, and religious life have a co-ordinate place with those which are presupposed by common sense and physical science as the basis of the activities of the physical life.
6. Temporal becoming is a fundamental character of reality; in this becoming the processes of consciousness have their essential and creative part. The future is strictly nonreal and its character is partly indeterminate, dependent upon movements of consciousness the nature and direction of which can be wholly known only at the moments in which they become real in experience (Sometimes more or less confused with 3.)
Says Lovejoy, "Each pragmatism of the thirteen should manifestly be given a name of its own if confusion in future discussion is to be avoided." p. 28 ; )
Askel, are you familiar with a writer named Count Leon de Poncins? He has a book called State Secrets which deals with Teheran, Yalta, the infamous Morganthau plan, Harry Dexter White, and the Sorge spy ring. Don't know if there are any links to this info on web, but the book deals with just the question raised in your post.
Kuehneldt-Leddihn is one of my favorites, too. The only book I've read by him is in German, titled, Die Falsch Gestellten Weichen. If i'm not mistaken, this is the German edition of the book you quoted from. (In it he recounts the events of the Vendee during the French revolution (chilling reading) and gives his take on how the debacles of the modern age have effected each country of Europe/Christendom).
I wish I could have met the man, too. Do you know that Kuehneldt-Leddihn, Russell Kirk, and James Burnham once wrote regular columns in National Review at the same time? Those were the glory days of that magazine. The current NR is a shadow of its former self.
I think the word you both are looking for is "imperialist".
It is my opinion that there is nothing wrong with imperialism, then or now, when the empire extends rather than reduces the scope of individual rights. Patton should have marched on to Moscow. MacArthur did good in Japan. Bush can do good in the Middle East if he watches his moral barometer.
On target.
From Book News, Inc.
An erudite, if eccentric, feat of historical/philosophical legerdemain by virtue of which "leftism" more-or-less subsumes every belief and act to which the (explicitly) right-wing author objects, including liberalism (commonly understood), fascism, communism, socialism, egalitarianism, atheism, democracy ("democratism"), even homosexuality (it's subsidized by liberal democracy). His alternative is "rightism", i.e. religion (Christian, preferably Catholic), tradition, monarchy, elitism, and personal freedom. Preface by William F. Buckley. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.
Can you just feel the love? </sarcasm>
Wow ... that means a lot coming from you. I agree, of course, but it almost makes me cry to hear you say it.
That sounds vaguely familiar.
Great post and thread.
I would love to see W govern by moral principle rather than short-sighted pragmatism, but I hold little hope for it. While he appears to be (and I believe he is) a moral individual, his policies are driven by sheer political pragmatism. Such policies may foster short-term political gain, but they cannot result in long-term moral good.
And are you honestly suggesting that Bush extend America (the empire) to the ME? While the pragmatic side of me argues for Patton's march, I think that a moral imperative could have been argued at the same time. The current war on terror is almost opposite, with the moral argument being stronger and the pragmatic reasons being lesser. Though our government dismisses the moral elements because of its own moral abdication, the real evil lies not in the weapons of mass destruction, but in the ideologies of those who control them. Unfortunately, these ideologies are shared by many whom we (pragmatically) call allies.
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