A problem with pragmatism

At an event the other night, I spoke to a person who proclaimed he had no ideology. I asked him what principles he used to guide his life's decisions. He fumbled a bit at the question but recovered and said, "I do whatever works at that moment."

I said, "Oh, you're a pragmatist."

He puffed himself up and said yes. He then went on to wax at great length about how pragmatism was our reality, and it was a good thing too. He told me he travelled a lot, had seen things, and that's why he was a pragmatist. As my eyebrows rose higher and higher, he explained he'd been to places and had seen people living in a desperate state. He seemed to conclude that pragmatism, practised here, and not there (where ever there was) was the reason we lived well and they (whoever they were) didn't.

I walked away from that conversation depressed, wondering how an educated person could let pragmatism muddle his thinking so badly. (For anyone who wants to understand why some countries are rich and others poor, they might want to start with P.J. O'Rourke's book 'Eat the Rich.')

A while later, I sat next to someone who was a big fan of Ayn Rand and I concluded maybe there is hope after all.

Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged, the second most influential book ever written according to the Library of Congress, says pragmatism is the opposite of principles. Pragmatism is action resulting from a short-term impulse and for a pragmatist, facts are derived from group consensus. Principles, in contrast, are general truths that other truths depend upon and most important, principles are based on the facts of reality.

If someone says or does whatever is convenient at that moment and doesn't think independently for himself is it really such a big problem? 

According to Rand, an independent thinker does not sacrifice his beliefs for a momentary benefit and stays focused on the facts of reality; he sticks to his principles. For the pragmatist, conformity is more important than living in reality.

Although it might seem easier to cling parasitically to the beliefs of other people and say whatever, whenever convenient, the pragmatist is depending on other people to guide his life. The inability or unwillingness to distinguish between fantasy and reality leaves a person floating around in a mass of muddled delusions.