I hope you now have that hymn earworm firmly embedded in your head, John. Curse me all you want.

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.

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!

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.

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?