Pragmatism is an Idealogy

Obama, the mass media, and many others are perpetuating this asinine idea that one can be a pragmatist, but not an idealogue. The implications are that it's bad to have a guiding philosophy of how the world works (an "ideology"), but it's very good to do whatever it takes to "get it right." Nevermind that "getting it right" is a value statement, and hence rigorously ideological. As a subscriber to Time Magazine, I must acknowledge that their writers fall prey to this fallacy of logic on a weekly basis. Time's cover suggests the subtitle: "What Barack Obama can learn from FDR." In that vein, consider the following example:

Roosevelt promised Americans a New Deal, though he was vague about what it
would look like. At heart, he was a pragmatist, not an ideologue. During the
campaign, he vowed to respond to the Depression with "bold, persistent
experimentation." He was open to any ideas that might work.

While not explicit here, the implications are that pragmatism was and is good, and ideology is bad. Some may argue that that isn't what the author is saying, but when you have read as much by this author and Time's political commentators as I have, you would know that they are most definately saying this. Bush is bad, Obama is good. Bush was an ideologue, so Obama must be a "pragmatist." This sort of verbal parrying is useless, though. Pragmatism is an ideology.

Let's just take FDR for example. I quote, "he was open to any ideas that might work." Did that include non-governmental, free-market actions? Does the author mean that FDR would have considered doing very little as an option? To these last two questions, of course not. FDR exemplified the pinnacle of activist government. He wasn't a "pragmatist," he was a statist. FDR believed that the state could remedy most or all social ills, economic ills, foreign aggression, and many other problems. FDR acted as if the state were the final arbiter between humans and their culture.

Now I am not a historian, and so I will not argue whether his policies were right or wrong in light of his day. And truly, FDR may not have really believed that the state was the final arbiter. His policies, however, do reflect that bent. In any case, I am merely arguing that FDR, whatever he was, was not a pragmatist, insofar as we understand the word. Essentially, no one is a pragmatist. We all allow our worldview to shape how we view facts. For instance, two very different men could help someone they love in poverty: one man could directly give the man a hand up in the world and the other could take him to social services so that the government could bail him out. Both are pragmatic in the sense that they expect something to "get done," but they have very different worldviews.

So, beware, reader. "Pragmatism" is now a euphemism for overly-activist government. It's a euphemism for statism (the idea that the state can solve all human problems- which is, at its core, violently opposed to Christianity. For proof: see communist China, communist Russia, Nazi Germany, Cambodia under Pot, Uganda under Amin, and North Korea). And finally, pragmatism is a euphemism for plain, old liberalism. Ultimately, there's no overturning politics as usual. And veiling as pragmatism isn't new. Obama is just a charismatic face on very old ideas. There's nothing new or pragmatic about Obama.

"What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which one can say, 'Look! This is something new'? It was here already, long ago; it was here before our time." Ecclesiastes 1:9-10