Principle and Pragmatism
Everyone has principles – ideas they believe to be true regardless of how their application affects specific situations in the world. For some people, these principles are based in religion or ideology, which demand unquestioning adherence to certain baseline propositions as the cost of entry into the community of believers. The more traditional and authoritarian ideologies do not welcome inquiry or examination of core principles, because doing so might expose certain inconsistencies, biases, or preposterous details which would tend to dispute the verity of the entire belief system, or at least limit its claims to universal truth.
Sometimes it is comforting to suspend the critical faculties in this way, in order to experience the benefits of sanctity and community that the belief systems offer. These beliefs offer comfort in times of life transition and support for making difficult decisions. But for most mundane transactions, people tend to rely on their own observations and experience, and on the practical wisdom of value-neutral methods of evaluating outcomes. Insisting on the verity of fundamental principles that are in basic conflict with the way the world actually works is, after all, a proven recipe for failure and catastrophe. Maintaining a proper balance between principles and pragmatism is therefore a sensible survival mechanism in a complex and uncertain world.
Until recently, American culture has maintained a balance between personal principles and public pragmatism. This balance is necessary to the smooth functioning of democracy because democracy is fundamentally and irreducibly pragmatic. Belief in democracy implies a willingness to submit your principles to debate and scrutiny. Science, religion, interest groups, ideologues and individuals can all press their cases equally in the forum of public opinion, and the public, through its representatives, is entitled to choose the course it wishes without prejudice. All parties who participate in a democracy are then obliged to accept decisions approved by popular consent as legitimate (outside of certain specific objections that can be raised within the Constitution) by virtue of being democratically enacted, even if the popular will goes against certainly closely-held beliefs or interests.
Tolerance of divergent or critical views is essential in a democratic society, because, under the system, it is highly unlikely that anyone will get everything they want all the time. All rational participants therefore quickly develop the ability to gracefully accept compromise, and occasionally defeat, as a necessary sacrifice to the smooth functioning of an otherwise-worthwhile form of government.
That’s fine if your worldview accommodates give-and-take, and if your belief structure is agile enough to accept that other people might legitimately see things differently. But these are not the habits of mind cultivated by fundamentalism – and by this I mean not only religious fundamentalism, but any political ideology of the Left or Right that shares the characteristics of inflexible dogmatism.
If certain things are True with a capital “T,” then compromise of any sort is illegitimate. Political defeat cannot be accepted, or explained as a failure to persuade a sufficient portion of public (or to make common cause with enough other interest groups to form a majority). It becomes a failure of the people to recognize the Truth, or perhaps an inherent failure of democracy that it requires consultation with people who are unworthy to participate in the decision-making process by virtue of their lack of belief.
The basic problem is this: Democracy by its own principles must accommodate fundamentalists as one of many competing interest groups, but fundamentalists are under no obligation to accommodate democracy. If constitutional government becomes a barrier to the triumph of Truth and Right, then its principles, however much honored in rhetoric, are merely implements to be used in service of the greater purpose. Eventually, it should become clear to any fundamentalist who thinks about it that democracy as a system is a poor substitute for authoritarianism, in that democracy permits the chance – some might even concede the likelihood – that fundamentalist doctrine may fail in the forum of public debate.
As American society becomes increasingly polarized by the prevalence of fundamentalist doctrines on both ends of the political spectrum, people face a difficult choice. Do you advocate for a system that consistently produces compromises and unfavorable outcomes, or instead become complicit in the undermining of democratic government by endorsing the agenda of absolutists who, in word and deed, have no interest in debate or persuasion? People within absolutist movements have powerful motivations to stick to their guns. In addition to the appeal of the ideology itself, there’s the comfort of belonging to a community of common interest and in the sanctity of unquestioned rightness. Masculine discourse frowns on compromise, and those who engage in a more complicated exploration of issues are demeaned as “elites” lacking in moral clarity.
There is no natural constituency for deliberation and openness, much less compromise, unless the virtues of community consensus are championed and the historical success of the democratic process of policymaking is made the subject of public attention. Unfortunately, the atomization of American culture over the last 30 years – largely the product of ill-conceived ideological movements and identity politics on the Left – has eviscerated historical memory and demeaned the idea of a common community and common interest as sentimental propaganda. Ironically, the very “moral relativism” and “postmodernism” decried by the Right has done more to erode the foundations of moderate government than the most ardent fundamentalists could ever have hoped to accomplish. The cynical gaming of the system by Right-wing opportunists and fanatics – and the lack of a genuine conservative Establishment to put their destructive radicalism in the proper context – is a direct result of cultural movements unleashed by witless advocates of “liberation ideology” (largely warmed-over Marxism).
If the consensus behind pluralistic popular government cannot be restored, our “liberated” society of self-absorbed and short-sighted interest groups will be easy pickings for disciplined and motivated fundamentalists who have already shown a keen aptitude for divide-and-conquer tactics.
Democratic, humanist values are at a crossroads. By their very nature, they must entertain questions and challenges to their own core principles from philosophies basically opposed to the idea of free moral choice and tolerance – either from the perspective of religious fundamentalism or collectivist identity politics. But, under attack, they must muster a defense, and their advocates must be prepared to re-fight all the old battles and restate all the central ideas that made liberal democracy an attractive proposition to a world grown tired of the endless clash of absolutes.
More good thoughts on this idea in this article, "The Liberal Spirit in America," by Peter Berkowitz, in the Policy Review.
11:50:17 AM 
|
