I was hoping to hear a bit from the rest of y’all on the question of idealism v. pragmatism, so let me cut through the obscure pretentiousness of my last post and ask a question:
Have you had to decide between doing what’s obviously right to you (at the risk of being marginalized and limiting your impact in the world) and making compromises but thereby maximizing your ability to influence change? As one example, I have a few friends who see their decision to stay in Mormonism in these terms. My decisions to join and then leave the LDS Church fall into the idealist category, while some of my choices to pursue a career in IT definitely fall into the pragmatic category (for me–I’m not saying that this applies to others).
7 responses so far ↓
1 Lessie // Jul 25, 2008 at 10:57 am
Okay, I’ll give it a go. My idealism was what drove me to pursue a degree in the liberal arts in a society where few people value the liberal arts anymore. I graduated with a bachelor’s degree (the new high school diploma, it would seem) and was wholly unmarketable. I didn’t get the degree only to be marketable, but I was under the impression that it would help. The pragmatist in me is now reconsidering my bid for graduate school (since I’d want to stay in the liberal arts) and leaning towards staying at my current job where I can perhaps move slowly up our promotion ladder and earn a decent, honest wage doing something I think I could see myself being decently happy at for the next forty years.
Unfortunately, it still feels like a surrender right now, rather than an acceptance of life as it is.
2 Matt // Jul 25, 2008 at 11:32 am
Yes, idealism. It was the force behind my love of mormonism and is the force behind my leaving it. But also pragmatism because in both cases you give-up somewhat on your pursuit of pure truth in favor of human relationships. I really think these two concepts are yin-yanged.
In the end, I want the ideal but strongly suspect that negotiation is the path and I’ve come to strongly doubt any claim to an ideal which does not leave room for a great deal of pragmatism.
Example: I’ve come to feel very strongly that Mormonism is a cult. However, my ancestors joined out of idealism of some form and, though I’m tempted to cut myself off from people in the leaving as they did in the joining, I’ll be patient and negotiate. I’ll be pragmatic for the sake of my family. I’ll negotiate between the two ideals.
Isn’t this negotiating between conflicting ideas the essence of pragmatism?
3 JohnW // Jul 25, 2008 at 11:38 am
My choices are never something that I can color with just one brush. My choice of majors in college was mostly pragmatic but slightly about ignorance. My choice of college was idealistic (is being egotistic a form of idealism?).
My career choice was rooted in idealism (get paid for what I’m interested in?!) and ended up in pragmatism (get health insurance).
Never one thing.
4 xJane // Jul 27, 2008 at 10:37 am
I was thinking recently about idealism vs. realism. My motto has often been “cynics and idealists alike think that they’re realists”. I more often brand myself with the cynic label than with the idealist, but I am one, even when I hate to admit it.
Most of my life has been guided by my idealism, especially the broad strokes. In the short term, small choices are pragmatic. My college majors (& minor) were certainly idealistic: I had no clue what I’d do with them, just knew they were what I wanted. My relationship choice also completely idealistic (damn the consequences) and I paid for it. Only what I see as short-term choices (where I’m living, where I work) end up being pragmatic.
I would say that my religious & political choices, too, have been idealistic. When I was a Republican, it was because I thought that was the best thing to be. When I became a Democrat, it was because I thought anything was better than Republican. And when I turned Green, it was because nothing could be better than that. Even when it excludes me from choices I’d like to help make.
The pragmatic choices are the littler ones: who I voted for in each case.
As to your broader question (How do you decide between what’s right and what’s going to happen right now?), it changes in each case. But I do weigh the effect of my actions; you can bet I won’t be voting Green this year!
5 Zach Alexander // Aug 2, 2008 at 6:09 pm
I’m pretty thoroughly pragmatist, I think. I’m still in the middle of thinking about these questions, but here’s an inner analogy that I’ve been taken with for awhile now:
Imagine the executive of a large organization – president, governor, CEO, nonprofit director, whatever. That person will have a number of different advisors, each with their own areas of expertise: a lawyer, an accountant or CFO, public relations, human resources, etc. And each of them will give advice as to what is “best” in the slice of reality they’re concerned with: the most legally safe course of action, the most financially sound, the best for the organization’s image, etc.
But the director’s job is to strike some kind of balance between all these people. And I see the individual as like that, with the different regions of our mind/brain as the advisors. The ethical part of me tells me I should be a homeless Franciscan so I can avoid supporting wars by my taxes, but I would have to shut out the rest of my mind to do that, in a way that seems a little perverse.
And yet some of us admire people like St. Francis – because they exemplify one thing in its perfect form, like an artist who is totally devoted to his or her art to the exclusion of all else. And both of those are valid paths, but I don’t think they’re for me.
6 wren // Aug 2, 2008 at 8:35 pm
“Do what is right, let the consequence follow…”
I hope you now have that hymn earworm firmly embedded in your head, John. Curse me all you want.
7 xJane // Aug 4, 2008 at 9:34 am
Zach: I like your take on this. I’ve often tried to figure out why it is that I can’t be St. Francis (or Buddha), as much as I admire him. I love having birds eat out of my hands (enjoying the training of the doves living in the tree near my new apt), it’s very pastoral; but I still need to stand up, get online, write posts, eat, go to work, and so on. The birds aren’t going to feed me (no matter how
insaneholy I get). And at the end of the morning (that’s usually about how long it lasts), I realize that today will not be the day that I forsake all earthly possessions. It’s nice to think of it as an executive decision, rather than a cop-out, or a surrender to a material world.Leave a Comment