Revealing Extremism – Inadvertently
P. Schultz
October 3, 2014
Below is a
link to a David Brooks column on Lewis Mumford and his, Mumford’s critique of
“pragmatism.” In it, Brooks, rather inadvertently, reveals his own extremism,
and a bit of what should be called “pragmatic extremism.”
First, there
is Brooks’ own extremism, which is a kind of moral extremism. Consider the
following:
“Pragmatists often fail because they try
to apply economic remedies to noneconomic actors. Those who threaten civilization
— Stalin then, Putin and ISIS now — are driven by moral zealotry and animal
imperatives. Economic sanctions won’t work. “One might as well offer the
carcass of a dead deer in a butcher store to a hunter who seeks the animal as
prey. ...”
Brooks
contention that Putin and ISIS and Stalin “threaten civilization” is put
forward as if it were self-evident. That is, Brooks does not offer and seems to
think he does not need to offer any argument that this assertion is persuasive;
nor does he seem to think that his characterization of these actors as “driven
by . . . animal imperatives” needs any argument. How could this be? I wonder if Brooks would
also include in these “animal driven” actors the Viet Cong, Castro’s Cuba, drug
dealers, criminals, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, North Korean, to name just a few
of the possible candidates for such a designation? What can justify such
characterizations with so little argument, if not a kind of moral indignation
reflecting a moral extremism?
Second,
note should be taken that by Brooks account the “pragmatists” don’t disagree
with his characterizations but only with his and Mumford’s “policies” for
dealing with these threats. That is, the “pragmatists,” just like Brooks and
Mumford, see threats to civilization all over the place, as it were. And, of
course, once they make this judgment, they too will all-too-soon adopt extreme
measures to deal with these threats. They might do so by “making themselves
passionless, [and] always mak[ing] themselves tepid and anesthetized.” But even
though passionless and tepid and anesthetized, they will be driven to and will
embrace extreme measures.
So,
as the saying has it, we are caught between a rock and a hard place if these
are our only two options. And if that is the case, all will not end well.
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