Ideology versus Pragmatism?

I happen to be a pragmatist both in the everyday sense of the word meaning that we should solve problems in practical ways and in the philosophic influences that shaped my own values. I did my undergraduate thesis on John Dewey's philosophy with which I was mightily impressed both with his sense that all persons are potential geniuses in their own ways so that education should be directed to finding and unlocking that genius and with his insight that 'democracy and education' are inextricably linked. Neither can exist without the other.

I also derived my sense of justice from William James' notion that the best outcome of things is to try to "satisfy at all times as many demands as we can." Justice as respect for persons meant for me listening to claims and demands and then trying to satisfy them unless they conflicted with other equally valid claims or vital public interests.

I recall getting a book to review (I forget by whom -- not Daniel Bell's The End of Ideology) during the Kennedy years which claimed that the U.S. was a nation free of ideology -- ideology being the term invented by Marx to chastise corrupt bourgeois allocation of public resources by wealthy partisans according to their own selfish interests. It is with some distress, then, that I see the term, ideology, lightly tossed around these days with its arbitrary and generally ad hominem ascriptions of "right" or "left" to opponents. Such ascriptions do not begin explorations of the social or public interests. They simply end deliberation with accusations hurled back and forth across stages, podia, TV screens. The upshot is the loss of candid exploration of basic facts and searches for solutions to problems to be discovered thereby -- pollution, global warming, energy and other resource depletions, exploding populations, exploding weapons directed at enemies with their inevitable harms both to the attackers and to those attacked (all too often innocent bystanders -- that vile euphemism, "collateral damage").

I see this mentality being absorbed by some of my students who are bound in by the confines of a party line on this or that issue -- gay marriage, abortion, war and peace, whatever. I encourage my students to do in depth critical research into issues of concern to them. This generally permits breakthroughs for them from the superficial platitudes that too often distort this or that problematic matter. However, the blinders of the ideological labels belie critical thinking on issues of vital concern to our future generations. I assume what we are seeing is a hangover from the Cold War with some of its warriors still hunting for new enemies now that their old ones have been vanquished. Needless to say xenophobia -- fear of strangers -- is extremely dangerous in a time when WMD or lesser weapons are, indeed, all too readily at hand for those bent on doing harm to others. One of my summer jobs engaged me as an assistant to a blaster and I know how easily one can blow up almost anything with maximum harm to any in the vicinity. Those bent on waging ideological battles, say against Muslim fundamentalism with a political fundamentalism of their own, are begging for trouble down the line.

Such is not the way to peace and good will in this season of rebirth. What do you think?
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"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort
to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy)
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Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
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