Pragmatism Is Stupid

If there's one ideology I can't stand above all others, it's pragmatism.

People just brutally assert that what they're doing is practical, or what you're doing isn't, but they never consider that what's practical depends on what you want to achieve.

I think this is the core of not just social anxiety, but social decay and dysfunction in general. Rather than talk about what matters, people simply want to exercise themselves to get things done, and they pressure others to conform behind appeals to emotion, popularity, misery, and absurdity. They don't consider that different people are different, so everyone doesn't automatically want to do the same thing.

You usually hear after this that people have problems with authority, but what's really happening is authority just has problems with people. Authority insists on objectifying people into tools so authority can get stuff done.

I suppose socially anxious people have experienced this quite often because we get intimidated easily, and over time, people learn that we're intimidated, so they do it again and again.

If there's one ideology I could purge from personal psyche, it would be pragmatism. That way, people don't simply presume it's OK to mandate that others participate in social activities. Instead, they realize that it's up to each person to get involved. Anything less than unanimous consent is coercion.

That's another thing. Pragmatists get burden of proof backwards on purpose as well, claiming that if you don't go along, then you're coercing everyone else for holding them back. They really don't care, and have this pent up drive to constantly do battle in dominating leadership among others, and of course, they want you to crack in telling them to just stop so you make a fool of yourself.

Stupid pragmatists.

I think that sums it up pretty well. If I'm not mistaken, another stupid philosophical belief of pragmatists is "whatever works". So by that logic, the state could literally execute 30 million random people for the purpose of lowering crime and if crime drops in the aftermath, it's justified. Hey. It works.

I'm confused, do you disdain pragmatism because some claimed they were a pragmatist, and then pressured you/others into doing things a certain way, or are you against the idea that the most direct, and least costly, ways to an end are generally the best?

In any case, the idea that pragmatism is a form idealism is a bit silly, since pragmatism eschews the use of ideals in place of doing what is necessary to get a goal done. That is, the idealist in me would demand I find a girl who liked me for me, despite of my social anxiety, but practicality made me force myself to change myself in un-ideal, but realistic ways, and as a result I found a girl I liked 2 years ago, asked her out a year and a half ago successfully in no small part because of the realistic goals I made and the pragmatic methods I used to achieve said goals, and as of 8 days ago successfully asked her to marry me.

Pragmatism works.

If it didn't, then it wouldn't be very pragmatic, would it?

I guess there's room for more than one ideology. Stupid extremists.

This stuff all sort of disintegrates into a blur if you look at it long and hard enough.

I'm not a fan of authority, but then I'm one of those rare (right) libertarians on SAS. We're generally depicted as lunatics ready for induction into the tin foil hat society for valuing freedom in all areas.

You'd best learn to toe the line & do as the powers that be demand, lest you get tossed into the lunatic category with me.

To be clear, I'm not a libertarian. Libertarians don't realize that they advocate cultural relativism through unmitigated free markets where consumerism dominates everything. Ergo, people begin to compromise on the very properness required to respect private property and rights to privacy.

This is the real reason libertarians can get tossed in the loony bin - it isn't that you're nuts. It's that you're vulnerable, and insane people look at you as a target to project their own insanity onto.

Good luck with your relationship.

My understanding is relationships where one partner is encouraged to change typically don't last. The changed is usually too submissive for the changer, and the changer gets bored, cheating on the changed.

Alternatively, the changed gets frustrated, and the changer refuses to deal with that frustration.

Yes, pragmatism works. Pragmatism doesn't live.

Pragmatism is the most extreme ideology of all. It's just nobody notices.

It denies the fact-value dichotomy, embraces radical empiricism, and demands instrumentalism.

In other words, the abstract character of personhood is completely dismissed, and goals are supposedly just obvious. People are discouraged from thinking before they act, encouraged to simply live in the moment.

Of course, this creates conflict, and pragmatism just doesn't care. It expects the weak and strange to simply surrender to the strong and normal.

I relate to this, in the workplace, I do I do.

Makes sense to me.

Eh, that's a pretty terrible outlook on life you have. How about the changed doesn't mind the changes that better them in life as a whole, making them more happy in general. Even if the relationship failed, I would still be a better, more confident, and more put together person thanks to the ways I worked to improve myself.

Are you one of those people who believe that your humanity is something ethereal, that the real you does not exist in the neuronal connections of your brain? It's a fair belief, but the empirical evidence you seem so strongly against imply otherwise, with damage to specific areas of the brain changing the very humanity of a person. Who we are as people is tied to our bodies, and the separation of mind/body is only due to our natural desire to categorically define things, which pragmatism wants us to recognize.

Also I'm not sure where you get the idea that people are encouraged to live a knee jerk lifestyle, rather than think their actions through; the obvious truth that we do not know all and the reliance on instrumentalism run counter to this notion.

Empiricism is emotivism. The only way empirical evidence can naturally imply anything is if it evokes feelings.

The sky is blue. Whoopdeedoo.

Right-libertarians aren't all insane. If you watch them long enough you can see a major division between people who really have no empathy and people who have been trained to suppress their concern but still have flashes of empathy and independence much to the consternation of their would-be sociopathic shepherds.

Utilitarians (aka most pragmatists) ARE insane, but for a higher cause. Many people find us terrifying because we'll consider any potential solution to a moral dilemma and analyze it like its a math problem where we need to minimize bodycount and harm done while maximizing utility. You need to be a little bit crazy to attempt to take on that responsibility and the moral hazard associated with taking extreme action, but I think the world needs more of the right kind of crazy.

So what would be best? The opposite of pragmatism? Wouldn't that be Existential Absurdism -the position that reality is essentially absurd and has no meaning in and of itself.

You need to define this "pragmatism" you're talkin about. LonelyJew was right to be confused because you and him (and me) seem to have different definitions of what "pragmatism" is. And it's not clear if you mean an actual philosophic idea or just certain people's interpretation of the idea. Do you have an essay or an article that's supporting this interpretation of "pragmatism" you're attacking? Or any any specific example of someone supporting this "ideology"? It's not clear if you're attacking pragmatism in the sense of "being practical" (which is not normally an ideology) or pragmatism in the William James sense (also not an ideology) or in some other sense of the word.

Right libertarians often subscribe to conservative social views which are contrary to actual libertarianism. Why would you identify yourself as a right libertarian as opposed to simply a libertarian?

That is completely hyperbolic. That wouldn't be a pragmatic solution to solving crime as the cost to society of 30 million dead people would be far greater than the slight reduction in crime garnered by their deaths. Pragmatism isn't singlemindedness.

It's my understanding that UltraShy is sort of a Ron Paul type libertarian who has conservative economic views and supports things like legalizing weed and gay marriage. I'm not sure why he said right libertarian either but he's definitely a libertarian.

(correct me if I'm wrong UltraShy)