The Intersection of Politics and Progress
Pragmatism has political valence right now, at this point in history, but that is due to the current answer to the questions of what our goals are with politics. In this paper we are going to explore if pragmatism is a tool that always gets us to the same place when we leave behind the excess doctrines of our modern era. I will argue that as a tool used to identify optimal routes of thinking, pragmatism can be used broadly, but not uniformly to varied ends.
I would like to start with a thought experiment. This experiment I call the “generation ship.” Imagine that humanity is embarking on a multi-generational voyage in a spaceship on a mission to populate another world. The ship has enough supplies and systems in place to keep the crew alive under very strict circumstances. The crew is a team of fit people that have been selected based on their ability, personality, and fertility. With the stated goal of surviving the journey intact, democracy would not be the most useful system to operate under. The danger of a charismatic leader being voted into power that does not have the acumen to ensure policies are followed and situations are addressed in a mission driven way is too great. This generational ship must operate under a system of rule that is strict and utility driven. Thus the most pragmatic political position would not be democracy.
Now that I have shown that this ship is best run in contrast with libertarian freedoms we can add to the scenario. Let’s say the denizens of the ship decide that we must have freedom of autonomy. Are we then allowed to let passengers smoke cigarettes? In a limited atmosphere with possibly high concentrations of combustible materials does one have the right to smoke a cigarette? I would argue that in space, on a long voyage with a stated goal of maximizing survival potential, is not the place to be engaging in talks of the right to light up a Kool. A further example would be that of sexual reproduction. Would a female passenger have the right to a hysterectomy? With a stated goal of repopulation and omitting the possibility of growing humans in futuristic techno-wombs, should a woman have autonomy over her reproductive rights? Let’s not forget we are all on the spacecraft called Earth, but I digress that point for now.
In his book “Philosophy and Social Hope”, Richard Rorty describes a time in his life when he would escape into the hills of his youth to identify numerous species of wild orchid. In his recount he explains that those orchids must have been special. They must have been purer and more refined than the menacing orchids of other places. He reveled in his effort, botany book in hand at his decision that these were the best and most sexy flowers to ever grace his awareness. He then spent the rest of his career, like many of us do, showing his juvenile self to be a total fool.
The wild orchid is a beautiful analog for the compliments we pay ourselves when we come to a conclusion and say “yes, this is the closest we can come to ‘Reason and Truth.’” Rorty goes on to explain how he spent much of his early career in academia searching for “the divided line”, the place that exists “beyond hypotheses.(Rorty)” He realized, as I do now, that the value of the orchid wasn’t that it was the best or most attractive orchid in existence, but it was his process of discovery that gave the orchid it’s veneer of purity.
Allow your mind to reflect on the purpose driven denizens of our generation ship. Are these brave souls concerned that they ought not to light a cigarette? I submit that our fated explorers are in the agreement that the process which they are to undertake is more consequential and thus more worthy than the few moments of respite that tobacco may offer.
It is fair to say that the government must best serve the people. It seems fair to say that the government must best serve the will of the people to deserve the name democracy. And it seems apt that the most adept body at discovering the will of the people must be the people themselves. But these phrases haven’t had to butt heads with evil concepts such as advertising, racism and unnecessary wars. The concept of the rule of the people exists well in an enclosed system where one’s nation is paramount and nationalistic tendencies are seen as the most good. So when the question is asked of the masses, what ought we to do for the masses, the masses will respond with a necessarily standard answer. Necessarily that answer won’t be highly, specifically educated enough to make the best decision. When asked if I can smoke on a spaceship, that answer must not be a casual “sure.”
A potential rejection of a pragmatic system of governance would be that it would allow for a sort of relativism that has the potential to allow injustice to persist in the world. I think that this is true when we look at historical injustices with a modern lens.
The ancient Greeks in Athens did not allow women to vote (yet for some reason we still called it a democracy). This is because women were thought to be inferior to men and were not formally educated (this malaligned thinking has been corrected in the modern world). When we speak narrowly about a system of governance that aims to do the best for its people is it prudent to allow the uneducated half of the population to vote? Hilary Putnam in his paper “Reconsideration of Deweyan Democracy” talks about “What is Agreeable to Reason” as championed by C.S. Peirce(Putnam). It would seem that our Athenian friends were acting in accordance with what was agreeable to the reason of the day. This is because the paradigm of ‘the fairer sex has no more use value than their uterus’ was not adequately challenged.
What we find in our Athenian example is the inadequate usage of the scientific method (one they admittedly did not have access to). The experiment of the educated woman was never run. So did they engage in a pragmatic way? The problem was governance and the solution was men. Given that they didn’t have the tools for the job to be completed to our modern standards, yet they engaged with the problem the only way they knew how, I would say that their fair share of problem solving was applied to the question.
Our modern sensibilities are cultivated with the tools that are available to us. The future generations will do the same. They may arrive at a different and more accurate solution than we have to the same questions that we ask today. And if the scientific method is applied accurately, that schema will be better.
It seems reasonable to say that the facts of our reality are being examined to a greater and greater measure as our instruments for detection achieve more accuracy. Those facts such as, there is no biological or social reason to not educate women, are being vetted and incorporated into our modern understanding and the prudence of the political system. It seems possible that further exploration into what is the best way to govern mankind, may yield the answer; they should not govern themselves. If that is the reasoned position through extensive research, then that would be the most pragmatic way forward.
Let us one last time set our attention on our fargazing explorers in the generation ship. Wouldn’t the best outcome be to allow a perfectly rational artificial intelligence to be the ruler of the ship. Given the situation and the stakes, would submitting to the draconian rule of an unwavering consciousness actually be the best way to ensure that the mission is completed? This system would require no talk about rights or personal tastes and would only seek to accomplish the most fantastic of human endeavors; to colonize another world. But what sort of humans are we to seek to accomplish a human achievement with human ingenuity yet leave the thing behind that makes us human; our emotional connection to what is right.
The questions I posed about the spaceship are questions best left to the people of the future. Our present would be the past in which we didn’t have the access to the tools that best inform the situation at hand. Our solutions to modern problems will no doubt seem as barbaric to them as our current system is to that of the people that coined the phrase barbarian. But perhaps that is the beauty of the pragmatic way, its never ending search to create a new path forward.
Works Cited
“Trotsky and the Wild Orchids.” Philosophy and Social Hope, by Richard Rorty, Penguin Books, London Etc., 2000, pp. 3–20.
Putnam, Hilary. “A RECONSIDERATION OF DEWEYAN DEMOCRACY.” Heinonline.org, 10 Feb. 2015, 13:54:57, heinonline.org/. PDF
