I think that every time someone discovers, or declares to another, that they are an "-ist," they should take a breath and check that identity label against their actions and beliefs. These approaches to activism (pragmatism or purism) are, like so many things, unclear markers on an ever-shifting spectrum. It's almost always healthier to think of one's activity in terms of verbs instead of nouns.
A superb read. I suspect that one's identity as a purist or pragmatist changes depending on the issue at hand. I could never imagine myself agreeing to 'a little bit of death penalty,' for example, or 'just a small war then.' But when it comes to climate change, say, incremental improvement is all we have.
This was a good read, glad to see this brought into the discussion. One thing I think it could’ve done more in-depth in is the purist vs pragmatist’s narrative and line of reasoning around the desired activist changes. A purist may want everyone to support the changes they seek by convincing them to have the same moral judgement/belief as them. The narrative they choose matches the immediate reasons why they want the change. However, this can sometimes work to their detriment. Those who were already not on board with the desired change and feel alienated by the purist activist’s application of values to situations are not going to be persuaded by the narrative—they feel left out from the discussion. Like they either have to agree wholeheartedly with the action and reasoning, or they’re a naysayer, and have no role in the outcome aside from preventing it. A pragmatist, on the other hand, may seek to meet those detractors on the morals and values they themselves support.
So if, say, a conservative is against an activist cause because they’re worried about security and safety, an activist is not going to convince them to support their cause by arguing on the grounds of equality, empathy, or identity. The purist may not give up their narrative, and will fail to convince them.
The pragmatist, in contrast, may identify that their opposition values security and safety, and they must adopt an argument that addresses these value categories. It’s on them to show that the desired change may improve life in these categories.
Without understanding the “category”of values the other side cares most about addressing for a given topic, one can end up furthering polarization and wasting time and energy committing to an argument that—even if well-conveyed and proven—will not win over the other side because it failed to address their concern.
Failing to understand to meet someone at their own values also means one can easily be backed into defending something that is out-of-touch with the main publics’ interests and harms their case, simply because they feel an obligation to defend on the grounds of their values. (We see this with Christopher Rufo backing the left into a corner defending CRT, an issue not pushed from the bottom-up or their own base, but selected and brought to the spotlight by Rufo as a divisive manufactured scapegoat.)
This is a great conversation to be had in 2025. I've listened to a few of Rutger Bregman's podcast interviews lately as he promotes his book, Moral Ambition, and enjoyed his take on the "6 myths of the noble loser" idea, which I think you are touching on a bit in this post. He often brings up the British abolitionist movement and how, by focusing on the plight of the white sailors instead of the actual slaves, they managed to influence the end of the trade.
Regardless of how you slice it, the world is changing for the worse. Too many people, not enough resources shared equitably or harvested sustainably. Lots of talk but not enough action to compensate for the liabilities. The sad thing is everyone understands the issues but, thanks to wealth hoarding, the potential game changers are focused on their own self interests at the expense of everyone else.
That feels like a defeatist attitude. There are more potential game changers than just the wealthy. Many, many more. Do one extra thing to change the game today than you otherwise would. I'll do the same.
You are right. I'm a 72 years old white male who has lived on both sides of the equation and have watched the whole thing unfold. Doing one extra thing is OK, but it is mostly a feel-good approach at this point given very few others follow suit. Reminds me of the "pay it forwards" trend that was popular for a while. What I can say is I do little things every day to make the world a better place but, of course, it doesn't compensate for dozens of open pit mine, clear-cutting, or relentless expansion into wild places by people just trying to feed their kids and survive until tomorrow. Most people are reactionary and live in a comfortable bubble until it pops. Eventually, we are too smart for our own good, meanwhile satisfying basic instincts like hunger which were adaptive early in our history (up to 10,000 years ago), but are now maladaptive, yet unchanged. I never would have imagined "food shows" 60 years ago when my family was just trying to keep food on the plate, or billion dollar professional sports teams, and a lot of other stuff. We are moving out on a limb that must break at some point.
You say "feel-good" like it's pejorative. Of course your one thing doesn't eradicate suffering for humanity. Doing an extra kind act and showing others that it "feels good" to do it is what a real "pay it forward" attitude should look like. I'm 44 years old myself, and I recently had to work very hard to shake off crippling nihilism and fatalism that I had been experiencing for most of my adult life. I refuse to go back simply because there is inevitable suffering in this universe.
I hope you have happier, kinder years ahead of you.
I don't agree that suffering is a thing. We play the hand we are dealt. Speaking as someone whose family on both sides ranched/farmed in southeastern Wyoming, life was never intended to be the "heaven on earth" that Americans seem to be searching for or generational wealth provides to a certain percentage of the population. I recently noted that this country uses more drugs and has more elective surgeries than every other country put together. But I really look beyond the human perspective. We are not the focus of the Universe, except in our own minds. Life is more than people and their personal comfort. Earth is the community. People are just one of the elements of the larger whole, not the beginning or the end. Far from fatalistic, I rather look forwards to joining all my non-human friends when I return to where I came from. I was fearful child, but most people remain fearful adults and it drives their decisions. Like Mike Tyson (of all people) said (to paraphrase), if people believe in God and an afterlife, why are they always running scared? Climate change is just nature's way of bringing things back into balance, and people, if they survive, will learn once again how to live sustainably and thoughtfully with the rest of the planet. I actually enjoy my time here more now than I did when I was younger, even with all the chaos I never imagined I'd see in my lifetime. Hopefully you will continue to grow as well. Learning never stops.
You probably think I'm arguing with you, but I'm not. Among my older thoughtful friends, we all agree that by the time you figure out what you ought to be doing, it's too late to do it. My greatest regret is that America is a youth-oriented culture. The elderly people (like me) who should be guiding young people about how to make good decisions are mostly exploiting young people in order to pad their own wallets. For instance, the military-industrial complex knows that they have an inexhaustible supply of young kids who will jump at the opportunity to fight foreign wars, and the kids who stay here will gladly work in oil fields or anywhere they can get a living wage, albeit at the expense of future generations. It's sad but, as I say, it will self-correct with time. What we do is not sustainable humanity-wise, but will greatly benefit some of the other species waiting in the wings.
Great read .
I think that every time someone discovers, or declares to another, that they are an "-ist," they should take a breath and check that identity label against their actions and beliefs. These approaches to activism (pragmatism or purism) are, like so many things, unclear markers on an ever-shifting spectrum. It's almost always healthier to think of one's activity in terms of verbs instead of nouns.
A superb read. I suspect that one's identity as a purist or pragmatist changes depending on the issue at hand. I could never imagine myself agreeing to 'a little bit of death penalty,' for example, or 'just a small war then.' But when it comes to climate change, say, incremental improvement is all we have.
This was a good read, glad to see this brought into the discussion. One thing I think it could’ve done more in-depth in is the purist vs pragmatist’s narrative and line of reasoning around the desired activist changes. A purist may want everyone to support the changes they seek by convincing them to have the same moral judgement/belief as them. The narrative they choose matches the immediate reasons why they want the change. However, this can sometimes work to their detriment. Those who were already not on board with the desired change and feel alienated by the purist activist’s application of values to situations are not going to be persuaded by the narrative—they feel left out from the discussion. Like they either have to agree wholeheartedly with the action and reasoning, or they’re a naysayer, and have no role in the outcome aside from preventing it. A pragmatist, on the other hand, may seek to meet those detractors on the morals and values they themselves support.
So if, say, a conservative is against an activist cause because they’re worried about security and safety, an activist is not going to convince them to support their cause by arguing on the grounds of equality, empathy, or identity. The purist may not give up their narrative, and will fail to convince them.
The pragmatist, in contrast, may identify that their opposition values security and safety, and they must adopt an argument that addresses these value categories. It’s on them to show that the desired change may improve life in these categories.
Without understanding the “category”of values the other side cares most about addressing for a given topic, one can end up furthering polarization and wasting time and energy committing to an argument that—even if well-conveyed and proven—will not win over the other side because it failed to address their concern.
Failing to understand to meet someone at their own values also means one can easily be backed into defending something that is out-of-touch with the main publics’ interests and harms their case, simply because they feel an obligation to defend on the grounds of their values. (We see this with Christopher Rufo backing the left into a corner defending CRT, an issue not pushed from the bottom-up or their own base, but selected and brought to the spotlight by Rufo as a divisive manufactured scapegoat.)
This is a great conversation to be had in 2025. I've listened to a few of Rutger Bregman's podcast interviews lately as he promotes his book, Moral Ambition, and enjoyed his take on the "6 myths of the noble loser" idea, which I think you are touching on a bit in this post. He often brings up the British abolitionist movement and how, by focusing on the plight of the white sailors instead of the actual slaves, they managed to influence the end of the trade.
Regardless of how you slice it, the world is changing for the worse. Too many people, not enough resources shared equitably or harvested sustainably. Lots of talk but not enough action to compensate for the liabilities. The sad thing is everyone understands the issues but, thanks to wealth hoarding, the potential game changers are focused on their own self interests at the expense of everyone else.
That feels like a defeatist attitude. There are more potential game changers than just the wealthy. Many, many more. Do one extra thing to change the game today than you otherwise would. I'll do the same.
You are right. I'm a 72 years old white male who has lived on both sides of the equation and have watched the whole thing unfold. Doing one extra thing is OK, but it is mostly a feel-good approach at this point given very few others follow suit. Reminds me of the "pay it forwards" trend that was popular for a while. What I can say is I do little things every day to make the world a better place but, of course, it doesn't compensate for dozens of open pit mine, clear-cutting, or relentless expansion into wild places by people just trying to feed their kids and survive until tomorrow. Most people are reactionary and live in a comfortable bubble until it pops. Eventually, we are too smart for our own good, meanwhile satisfying basic instincts like hunger which were adaptive early in our history (up to 10,000 years ago), but are now maladaptive, yet unchanged. I never would have imagined "food shows" 60 years ago when my family was just trying to keep food on the plate, or billion dollar professional sports teams, and a lot of other stuff. We are moving out on a limb that must break at some point.
You say "feel-good" like it's pejorative. Of course your one thing doesn't eradicate suffering for humanity. Doing an extra kind act and showing others that it "feels good" to do it is what a real "pay it forward" attitude should look like. I'm 44 years old myself, and I recently had to work very hard to shake off crippling nihilism and fatalism that I had been experiencing for most of my adult life. I refuse to go back simply because there is inevitable suffering in this universe.
I hope you have happier, kinder years ahead of you.
I don't agree that suffering is a thing. We play the hand we are dealt. Speaking as someone whose family on both sides ranched/farmed in southeastern Wyoming, life was never intended to be the "heaven on earth" that Americans seem to be searching for or generational wealth provides to a certain percentage of the population. I recently noted that this country uses more drugs and has more elective surgeries than every other country put together. But I really look beyond the human perspective. We are not the focus of the Universe, except in our own minds. Life is more than people and their personal comfort. Earth is the community. People are just one of the elements of the larger whole, not the beginning or the end. Far from fatalistic, I rather look forwards to joining all my non-human friends when I return to where I came from. I was fearful child, but most people remain fearful adults and it drives their decisions. Like Mike Tyson (of all people) said (to paraphrase), if people believe in God and an afterlife, why are they always running scared? Climate change is just nature's way of bringing things back into balance, and people, if they survive, will learn once again how to live sustainably and thoughtfully with the rest of the planet. I actually enjoy my time here more now than I did when I was younger, even with all the chaos I never imagined I'd see in my lifetime. Hopefully you will continue to grow as well. Learning never stops.
Indeed, learning never stops.
You probably think I'm arguing with you, but I'm not. Among my older thoughtful friends, we all agree that by the time you figure out what you ought to be doing, it's too late to do it. My greatest regret is that America is a youth-oriented culture. The elderly people (like me) who should be guiding young people about how to make good decisions are mostly exploiting young people in order to pad their own wallets. For instance, the military-industrial complex knows that they have an inexhaustible supply of young kids who will jump at the opportunity to fight foreign wars, and the kids who stay here will gladly work in oil fields or anywhere they can get a living wage, albeit at the expense of future generations. It's sad but, as I say, it will self-correct with time. What we do is not sustainable humanity-wise, but will greatly benefit some of the other species waiting in the wings.
Too lengthy, in my opinion