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Ideology and Pragmatism: Philosophy or Passion?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

John P. Diggins
John P. Diggins*
Affiliation:
University of California, Irvine
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Extract

In “Politics, Ideology, And Belief Systems” Professor Sartori has undertaken the Sisyphean task of drawing up conceptual schemes to distinguish the political mentalities of the pragmatist and the ideologist. His “Hypothesis” poses the curious proposition that “ideology and pragmatisms qua ‘political cultures’ are related, respectively, to the ‘cultural matrixes’ rationalism and empiricism.” (p. 402) When political scientists put forth hypotheses, students of history are usually not far behind with their arid facts and pale negations. Sartori's hypothesis is an intriguing theoretical formulation of a central issue in twentieth century politics; whether it is historically valid is the concern of this article. For the question that remains uppermost as I read his article is simply who are the ideologists and who are the pragmatists? Historically considered, if we were to apply Sartori's defining characteristics to a specific context it may very well be that the totalitarian “ideologies” of communism and fascism would have to be judged “pragmatic,” while the mentality of American political behavior may even have to be considered “ideological.” Since I am sure Professor Sartori did not have this ironic interpretation in mind, perhaps some elaboration is in order.

When Marx turned Hegel on his head he not only gave a materialistic base to German idealism but imputed an activistic impulse to political theory. Dialectical materialism is the “actualization of philosophy,” the extension of contemplative thought into real life. And whether regarded as a “knowing-process” or as Sartori's “belief system,” Marxism represented a rejection of both the deductive rationalism of Descartes and the sensationalist rationalism of Locke.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 64 , Issue 3 , September 1970 , pp. 899 - 906
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1970

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References

1 This Review, 63 (June, 1969), 398–411.

2 Wetter, Gustave A., Dialectical Materialism: A Historical and Systematic Study of Philosophy in the Soviet Union, trans. Heath, Peter (New York: Praeger University Series, 1963), pp. 3–41, 256–267, 488–517 Google Scholar.

3 Lichtheim, George, Marxism: An Historical and Critical Study (New York: Praeger University Series, 1961), pp. 234–258 Google Scholar. For a specific rejection of rationalism and empiricism as “invalid” epistemological categories, see Tse-tung, Mao, “On Practice,” in Mendel, Arthur P. (ed.), Essential Works of Marxism (New York, 1961), pp. 499–513 Google Scholar.

4 Lenin, V. I., Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, XIV Google Scholar, Collected Works (Moscow: Foreign Language Publishing House, 1962), pp. 19–39, 138–143, passim Google ScholarPubMed.

5 Hook, Sidney, Towards the Understanding of Karl Marx (New York, 1933)Google Scholar; see also Eastman's, Max criticisms of Hook in Marxism: is it Science (New York, 1940), 299–348 Google Scholar.

6 Reprinted in Cohen, Carl (ed.), Communism, Fascism, and Democracy: The Theoretical Foundations, (New York, 1962), pp. 349–364 Google Scholar.

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9 Stewart, William K., “The Mentors of Mussolini,” this Review, 22 (November, 1928), 843–869 Google Scholar. Although the pragmatic content of Italian Fascism appealed to American liberals, Stewart's claim that Mussolini was familiar with James's philosophy is doubtful. See this author's “Flirtation With Fascism: American Pragmatic Liberals and Mussolini's Italy,” American Historical Review, LXXI (January 1966), 487–506 Google Scholar.

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13 The best expression of these deductive axioms is in Hamilton, The Federalist, No. 31; for a perceptive analysis of Madison's theoetical premises, see Dahl, Robert A., A Preface to Democratic Theory (Phoenix edition, Chicago, 1963), pp. 4–33 Google Scholar; for the philosophical implications, see Lovejoy, Arthur O., “The Theory of Human Nature in the American Constitution and the Method of Counterpoise,” in Reflections on Human Nature (Hopkins, Johns paperback edition, Baltimore, 1968), pp. 37–65 Google Scholar.

14 White, Morton, Social Thought in America: The Revolt Against Formalism (Beacon paperback edition, Boston, 1957)Google Scholar; see especially White's Critique of Dewey's ethical theory, pp. 203–219.

15 The Quest for Certainty: A Study of the Relation of Knowledge and Action (Capricorn edition, New York, 1960), pp. 192–194, 281, passim Google Scholar.

16 The Genius of American Politics (Chicago, 1953)Google Scholar. See also my “Consciousness and Ideology in American History: The Burden of Daniel J. Boorstin,” which will appear in the American Historical Review, February 1971 Google ScholarPubMed.

17 No major American political thinker reexamined the theoretical assumptions of the federal republic as a result of the Civil War crisis, at least not in the terms Sartori has laid down. While southern legalists like Alexander Stephens appealed to the Constitution to vindicate the cause of secession, northern statesmen like Lincoln appealed to Providence only to discover that the causes of the war remained inscrutable—“The Almighty has his own purposes.” (See Wilson, Edmund, Patriotic Gore: Studies in the Literature of the American Civil War [Galaxy edition, New York, 1966] pp. 99–130, 380–437.Google Scholar) At the same time many intellectuals blithely welcomed the war as a purification of. the body politic—Whitman even drew upon Hegel to rhapsodise about a “general soul” that would reveal itself dialectically through the struggle of opposites. (See Frederickson, George M., The Inner Civil War: Northern Intellectuals and the Crisis of the Union [New York, 1965].Google Scholar)

18 The value conflicts, moral antinomies, cultural tensions, and political contradictions between belief and behavior in the history of the American mind have been explored in the works of John Higham, R. W. B. Lewis, Leo Marx, Marvin Meyers, Charles Sanford, Henry Nash Smith, and William R. Taylor. For a review of a portion of this scholarship, see Davis, David Brion, “Some Recent Directions in American Cultural History,” American Historical Review, 73 (February, 1968), pp. 696–707 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 The Liberal Tradition in America (Harvest edition, New York, 1955), pp. 11, 58 Google ScholarPubMed.

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23 This debate, which first appeared in the New International in 1938, has been reprinted in the pamphlet Their Morals and Ours: Marxist Versus Liberal Views on Morality, ed. Novack, George (Merit Publishers, New York, 1966), 57 Google Scholar.

24 Ibid., p. 41; see also Deutscher, Isaac, The Prophet Outcast: Trotsky, 1920–1940, Volume III (Vintage edition, New York, 1965), pp. 438–444 Google Scholar.

25 Ibid., p. 58.

26 Burnham, James and Schactman, Max, “Intellectuals in Retreat,” New International, 5 (January, 1939), 6 Google Scholar.

27 For a masterly synthesis of the various historical expressions of ideology, apart from its behavioral implications, see Lichtheim, George, The Concept of Ideology and Other Essays (Vintage edition, New York 1967), pp. 3–46 Google Scholar.

28 See, for example, Bullock's, Allen comments on Proust, and Dostoievski, in “The Historian's Purpose: Historian and Metahistory,” in The Philosophy of History In Our Time, ed. Meyerhoff, Hans (New York, 1959), pp. 292–299 Google Scholar; and the recent anthology, The Political Imagination in Literature, eds. Green, Philip and Walzer, Michael (New York, 1969)Google Scholar.

29 In addition to the excellent references Sartoricites regarding this problem, see also the debate among Bell, Daniel, Friedrich, Carl J., and Lichtheim, George in the Slavic Review: American Quarterly of Soviet and East European Studies, XXIV (December, 1965), 591–621 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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