Of Hedgehogs and Foxes

In the midst of our quadrennial conflict between Left and Right, we are also engaged in a less obvious but perhaps equally important conflict between Ideology and Pragmatism.

Obama is clearly a pragmatist, both in his thinking and his temperament. He looks at situations and tries to get as much information as possible from as many points of view as possible, then seeks to move forward in the most effective way to accomplish a realistic goal. This is not to say that he is not a man of the Left, by and large. But I would argue that he is not first and foremost a man of the Left.

George W. Bush is an ideologue, as have been most of the powers in the Republican party and commentariat over the past generation. They are committed to the Party and to some core principles which are easily and clearly articulated : low taxes, American exceptionalism in foreign affairs, anti-choice on abortion, and so forth.

Ideologues find it easy to articulate their principles in binary terms - yes/no; pro/con; right/wrong; good/evil.

This is as much a mental style as it is a matter of political convictions.

There have been times in our history and in the history of other countries when the Left was predominantly ideological - Russia in 1917 comes to mind - and the Right more pragmatic.

The foreign policy of the first Bush administration was eminently pragmatic and non-ideological. "Realpolitik" - the archetype of pragmatism in foreign affairs - is indeed more a phenomenon of the Right in America than of the left.

Ideologues tend to view pragmatists as unprincipled and even immoral. Pragmatists tend to view Ideologues as fanatics (which they are! [hey - it's my blog]).

To put it another way: Ideologues are hedgehogs and Pragmatists are foxes.

All this is obvious enough.

Here's my point:

In this election we are not only seeing a Leftward swing of the pendulum. We are seeing a realignment of the political culture, away from Ideology and towards Pragmatism.

Where does this leave John McCain?

Interesting question! The answer: hopelessly conflicted. He can't decide whether he is one or the other. He seems to have the instincts of a pragmatist - but his sense of honor seems to conflict with his own temperament. He seems to think that an ideological approach is more pure, consistent and therefore honorable, whereas the pragmatic approach is less so.

Just as Tolstoy was (according to Isaiah Berlin in his great essay) a fox who wanted to be a hedgehog, so in his way is McCain.

And so, he swings (rather wildly at times) between the two dispositions.

(If he were a clock, he'd keep crazy time. Time would lurch forward a day or two, then get freaked out and back up, then it would drag for a while until it got bored and then lurch again. At 4pm on Tuesday it would suddenly become 6am on Thursday, then back up to Wednesday afternoon... all would proceed normally for a while - sixty seconds to a minute, sixty minutes to an hour, twenty-four-hours to a day... not so fast Buster - now, suddenly, it's last week!)

These are developing ideas - I hope to expand on them in the coming days.

Happy Halloween!