Increasingly, I've been hearing a very common complaint among non-conservatives which is that conservatives tend to be closeminded and stubborn against creative thinking. Their rugged individualism has gotten the best of them, and people don't believe in the objective value of church, families, businesses, or private clubs. Behind the scenes, these organizations resort to pragmatism to bully individuals around for not conforming to the powerful, popular, or politically correct.
In contrast, people have looked towards government as the great liberator against this pragmatic bullying in the private sector. Non-conservatives don't necessarily have something against the private sector. What they have is something against pragmatists who have corrupted the private sector for their own special interests.
Now, conservatives are complaining about pragmatism being taken by government to expect people to conform, but non-conservatives are looking at conservatives as if they're hypocrites. This is especially when non-conservatives deny objective reason and refer to moral relativism and emotivism. Pragmatic conservatives will do the same thing in the private sector when bullying individuals around, so non-conservatives believe that conservatives are getting what's due.
To be clear, Russell Kirk, one of the most renowned conservatives ever, noticed this, and strongly suggested that conservatives reject pragmatism:
The Russell Kirk Center: Enlivening the Conservative Mind by Russell Kirk
I would furthermore suggest that any conservative who identifies as a pragmatist should read this book in order to change one's mind: [ame=http://www.amazon.com/Pragmatism-Progressivism-Postmodernism-David-Depew/dp/0275965244]Pragmatism: From Progressivism to Postmodernism: David Depew, Robert Hollinger: 9780275965242: Amazon.com: Books[/ame]
In contrast, people have looked towards government as the great liberator against this pragmatic bullying in the private sector. Non-conservatives don't necessarily have something against the private sector. What they have is something against pragmatists who have corrupted the private sector for their own special interests.
Now, conservatives are complaining about pragmatism being taken by government to expect people to conform, but non-conservatives are looking at conservatives as if they're hypocrites. This is especially when non-conservatives deny objective reason and refer to moral relativism and emotivism. Pragmatic conservatives will do the same thing in the private sector when bullying individuals around, so non-conservatives believe that conservatives are getting what's due.
To be clear, Russell Kirk, one of the most renowned conservatives ever, noticed this, and strongly suggested that conservatives reject pragmatism:
The Russell Kirk Center: Enlivening the Conservative Mind by Russell Kirk
Some years ago I remarked in the course of a speech that conservative imagination is required in our time. A man of business in the audience retorted, We dont need any imagination: were practical. Thats what I mean...
...Ballot-box victories are undone in short order, if unsupported by the enduring art of persuasion. A political movement that fancies it can subsist by slogans and by an alleged pragmatism presently is tumbled over by the next political carnival, shouting fresher slogans...
...The principal demarcation among American conservative groups today, it seems to me, is the gulf fixed between (on the one side) all those conservative men and women who, taking long views, argue that intellectual activity and rousing of the imagination are required urgently; and (on the other side of the canyon) all those professedly pragmatic persons who think of a conservative government as one that keeps in office by serving or placating certain powerful interestsand so prevents worse from befalling those in the seats of the mighty.
I would furthermore suggest that any conservative who identifies as a pragmatist should read this book in order to change one's mind: [ame=http://www.amazon.com/Pragmatism-Progressivism-Postmodernism-David-Depew/dp/0275965244]Pragmatism: From Progressivism to Postmodernism: David Depew, Robert Hollinger: 9780275965242: Amazon.com: Books[/ame]