Obama's Pragmatism
Chris Hayes has an excellent meditation on the subject in the latest issue of The Nation.
One thing I was disappointed not to see in the article: I’ve been told on good authority that one of Obama’s nicknames in law school was “prago,” as in “pragmatist.” This sounds pretty implausible, I’ll admit. “Prago” sounds too much like a condiment. That said, I spent years of my life being referred to as “Raekwon the Chef,” so who know?
Back to the essay, which is, among other things, a critique of the fetish for pragmatism (per se) and a defense of ideological politics.
There’s another problem with the fetishization of the pragmatic, which is the brute fact that, at some level, ideology is inescapable. Obama may have told Steve Kroft that he’s solely interested in “what works,” but what constitutes “working” is not self-evident and, indeed, is impossible to detach from some worldview and set of principles.
As the essay draws to a close, Chris offers a defense of a pragmatic approach to implementing progressive change, drawing on the hope that Obama’s incrementalism is rooted in the left tradition and that his pragmatism includes an “openness to the possibility of radical solutions.”
My minor objection to the piece is that I think Chris is too dismissive of Sunstein’s theory of Obama, i.e., his notion that Obama is a deliberative minimalist.
Obama adviser Cass Sunstein took to the pages of The New Republic to defend his onetime University of Chicago law school colleague from charges of flip-flopping. “Obama has not betrayed anyone,” he wrote. “The real problem lies in the assumption, still widespread on both the left and the right, that Obama is a doctrinaire liberal whose positions can be deduced simply by asking what the left thinks.”
For Sunstein, the fact that Obama’s views “have never been simple to characterize,” that he is a “minimalist” who “prefers solutions that can be accepted by people with a wide variety of theoretical inclinations,” is his defining trait and chief virtue.
Chris then outlines his persuasive objections to this kind of deliberative minimalism, but he gives us no reason to believe that this doesn’t reflect Obama’s normative instincts. I can think of a not-good reason, namely that Sunstein could be reflecting his own sensibilities (the ideas of “judicial minimalism” and “incompletely theorized agreements” are among Sunstein’s key theoretical contributions). Oddly enough, a really huge number of people of all political and ideological stripes come away from long interactions with Obama believing that he thinks exactly as they do, hence Obama’s Sphinx-like magnetism. All the same, Sunstein isn’t the only person who argues that Obama is a deliberative minimalist — I’ve heard this from a few people, and it doesn’t strike me as crazy. The Sunstein thesis fits the facts better than most.
Briefly, Chris name-checks Glenn Greenwald in an interesting way:
For one thing, as Glenn Greenwald has astutely pointed out on his blog, while ideology can lead decision-makers to ignore facts, it is also what sets the limiting conditions for any pragmatic calculation of interests. “Presumably, there are instances where a proposed war might be very pragmatically beneficial in promoting our national self-interest,” Greenwald wrote, “but is still something that we ought not to do. Why? Because as a matter of principle—of ideology—we believe that it is not just to do it, no matter how many benefits we might reap, no matter how much it might advance our ‘national self-interest.’”
Of course, Obama established his foreign policy bona fides in part by emphasizing that he does not oppose all ways — only “dumb” wars. Which is to say, Obama has no ideological objections to an aggressive foreign policy, one that would involve striking deep into Pakistan if the circumstances demanded it, or taking military action against an intransigent Iran. This could all be political posturing. If it’s not, I think it lends credence to Sunstein’s thesis.
We can all agree, however, that the answer to this question is basically unknowable. Even if Obama has a very long presidency full of consequential decisions, I’m pretty sure we’ll still be debating this question.
Briefly, Chris quotes John Dewey at the tail end of the piece:
For him, the crux of pragmatism, and indeed democracy, was a rejection of the knowability of foreordained truths in favor of “variability, initiative, innovation, departure from routine, experimentation.”
This, for what it’s worth, is exactly what a lot of people on the non-left fear about the extension of state power — that it will squelch this learning process. Government in the New Deal era was famously agile and risk-taking, and it had many striking successes. But of course it also had a lot of failures, which led to the demands for transparency and accountability that have over time made government less risk-taking and agile.
Obama may have told Steve Kroft that he’s solely interested in “what works,” but what constitutes “working” is not self-evident and, indeed, is impossible to detach from some worldview and set of principles.
That’s pop-philosophy, and right as far as it goes. It’s also completely irrelevant in politics, where what works is what achieves power.
— JA · Dec 12, 04:45 PM · #
Pop-philosophy? This is just true. There is no proposition expressed by “No Chile Left Behind works”…works for what? The goal of all politics is not achieving power: Bush had power, but some of his moves did and did not work.
— John · Dec 12, 05:55 PM · #
The goal of all politics is not achieving power
The achievement of power is the condition precedent to wielding it; in all politics, power is the first and last necessity — a neutral concept, and obvious.
— JA · Dec 12, 06:35 PM · #
At the risk of attracting the all-seeing ethical eye of Sanjay, I have one more thing to add (because seriously, I have nothing to do today).
Why do I think Hayes is right but tedious? Because — of course Obama’s pragmatism is a pragmatism of means. What else would it be?
To spend hundreds of words unpacking this point while lathering it with over-the-counter ah-ha’s, is almost by definition philosophy for popular consumption. Well written, to be sure.
I also find it, well, fascinating that Hayes (implicitly) admits that he would sacrifice the nation at the altar of some deontological godhead. Maybe pragmatism isn’t so bad after all.
— JA · Dec 12, 07:46 PM · #
No. no, JA, it’s cool, an hour later is a reasonable enough time to’ve had a new idea. It’s the “post five minutes later with a follow-up” thing that’s creepy.
— Sanjay · Dec 12, 09:02 PM · #
Well, to me, anyway.
— Sanjay · Dec 12, 09:04 PM · #
Which is not to imply that there isn’t something admirable in having thought through all the angles of what you’d like to say about something for the next many hours, and cogently laying it out, then sitting back satisfiedly, content in the breadth of your thorough, concise response which needs no future edits.
— Sanjay · Dec 12, 09:07 PM · #
I also find it, well, fascinating that Hayes (implicitly) admits that he would sacrifice the nation at the altar of some deontological godhead. Maybe pragmatism isn’t so bad after all.
Whether you’re not understanding Hayes or I’m not understanding you, one of you apparently needs to spend a few hundred more words unpacking their point. ;) But in saying that “Principle is often pragmatism’s guardian”, Hayes seems close to explicitly denying what you say he implicitly admits.
On another note, the part I found strange about Hayes’ piece is the lack of distinction between issues. The case against unchecked pragmatism is a lot easier to make, both in terms of history and theory, when you’re talking about slavery, war, or torture, then it is when you’re talking about financial regulation or monetary policy.
— Consumatopia · Dec 13, 05:49 AM · #
“Dewey was not entirely wrong when he called pragmatism the ‘philosophy of democracy’. What he had in mind is that both pragmatism and America are expressions of a hopeful, melioristic, experimental frame of mind”
— Richard Rorty · Dec 14, 04:46 AM · #
A fundamental confusion about Obama’s pragmatism is afoot. He is not only a pragmatist in the narrow sense of the term, that is, one who uses tools at hand to accomplish an end. He is also a philosophical pragmatist. In this regard, Sunstein’s view of Obama as an “empiricist” is itself too “thin” to explain Obama’s position. Hayes is on the right track when he invokes Dewey, but he doesn’t follow it out.
I offer the following:
“Obama’s Pragmatism (or Move over Culture Wars, Hello Political Philosophy)”
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/mitchell_a/2008/12/obamas-pragmatism-or-move-over.php
Also at http://msa4.wordpress.com/
— Mitchell Aboulafia · Dec 20, 07:45 AM · #