Interesting piece, Ben. Like you, I appreciate Dewey’s pragmatic approach. Do good for its own sake, because it makes the world a better place. And it makes you happier, too. That is enough of a motivation for me.
Thanks for an interesting piece. One thing I find appealing about incrementalism as you describe it, is that it is the attitude most compatible with the prioritization of human life and welfare (even if misery abounds in society as you find it). The reason being that all alternatives (the "from the roots" approach, per your article) make the ideal society so desirable, so mystically superior, that any amount of coercion or violence is warranted to reach the goal (Marx's sinister breaking-eggs-to-make-omelettes metaphor). All revolutions produce untold misery and immense mass graves. Hence, any societal reorganization that demands a revolution is highly suspect - if you care about human life.
I haven't read James or Pierce. From the little I've read, Rorty and Dewey do seem to normatively favor equality in a redistributionist left-wing sense. Though, of course, that opens up plenty of questions.
I think they offer more guidance on how to think about process than outcome. They legitimize the fact that in a democracy we're often facing "right vs. right" kind of disputes about tradeoffs and conflicting values. Those normative questions will never have one Final Answer because they don't have One Final Answer.
That can sound like a bit of a cop out and not useful, but I think the current moment we're in shows why that's useful and actually cuts against a common illiberal tendency that people have.
Our own politics now are so polarized that they have this quality of each side trying to permanently vanquish the other. If we could just have beaten Trump, we would bury all of his movement's followers and their concerns. If MAGA can stomp out wokeness, the concerns that animate it will all go away forever.
Democracy and commitment to the process is itself a valuable guide to a just society, or at least a necessary starting place.
Interesting piece, Ben. Like you, I appreciate Dewey’s pragmatic approach. Do good for its own sake, because it makes the world a better place. And it makes you happier, too. That is enough of a motivation for me.
Thanks for an interesting piece. One thing I find appealing about incrementalism as you describe it, is that it is the attitude most compatible with the prioritization of human life and welfare (even if misery abounds in society as you find it). The reason being that all alternatives (the "from the roots" approach, per your article) make the ideal society so desirable, so mystically superior, that any amount of coercion or violence is warranted to reach the goal (Marx's sinister breaking-eggs-to-make-omelettes metaphor). All revolutions produce untold misery and immense mass graves. Hence, any societal reorganization that demands a revolution is highly suspect - if you care about human life.
Yes, but…is pragmatism (Dewey, James, Pierce, Rorty) just a form of philosophical nihilism? How do they guide us in conceiving a just society?
I haven't read James or Pierce. From the little I've read, Rorty and Dewey do seem to normatively favor equality in a redistributionist left-wing sense. Though, of course, that opens up plenty of questions.
I think they offer more guidance on how to think about process than outcome. They legitimize the fact that in a democracy we're often facing "right vs. right" kind of disputes about tradeoffs and conflicting values. Those normative questions will never have one Final Answer because they don't have One Final Answer.
That can sound like a bit of a cop out and not useful, but I think the current moment we're in shows why that's useful and actually cuts against a common illiberal tendency that people have.
Our own politics now are so polarized that they have this quality of each side trying to permanently vanquish the other. If we could just have beaten Trump, we would bury all of his movement's followers and their concerns. If MAGA can stomp out wokeness, the concerns that animate it will all go away forever.
Democracy and commitment to the process is itself a valuable guide to a just society, or at least a necessary starting place.