The Unreality of Expediency
Frank Chodorov
[Originally appeared as an editorial in the November,
1941 issue of The Freeman. Reprinted in, Fragments,
October-December, 1966]
Between the fellow who insists on judging every experience in the
light of principle, rather than from the point of view of expediency,
and the one who refuses to look behind the scenes and calls himself a
realist, there will always be a never-ending argument. Using the terms
in their popular, rather than philosophical, sense, the idealist (or
intransigent) toward whom the realist (or pragmatist) is rather
scornful, has a better claim to an understanding of the reality of
things than has his opponent. That is, if reality is measured in
ultimate results.
The realist finds protection from hobgoblins by pulling the blanket
over his head; the idealist turns on the light and looks under the
bed.
The realist accepts what is as the stepping-stone for whatever
advance he hopes to make. The status cannot be denied, regardless of
how it happened to be. He treats it as the only reality and proceeds
from there. But the unreality of that position unfolds in its own
consequences; for if the status is a mass of shifting sand, that which
is built upon it is doomed to collapse. Security cannot be based on
insecurity.
To which the realist replies: the problem of meeting the present
exigency permits no course based upon principle. We are faced with a
fact not a theory, is the aphorism.
QQuite true. The idealist also recognizes the incongruity between
what should be done and what most be done, between principle and the
necessities of life. Sometimes, as in the case of Socrates, existence
itself is forfeit to the principle. In a similar position is one who,
following out the principle of natural rights (that is, if he accepts
it as basic), refuses to take up arms against his fellow man; or the
worshipper of God as the principle of goodness whose faith is
unimpaired by the prevalence of evil in God's world.
But even if he chooses to accept a forced agreement with environment,
rather than hopelessly to revolt against it, the idealist does not
compromise his principle. Nor is it sophistry when he argues that
acceptance of the agreement enables him to further the principle
itself. His choice may be criticized on the score of judgment or of
courage; but so long as he recognizes the contradiction between
behavior and principle, and guides his thinking and his life along the
pattern of principle as closely as conditions permit, his integrity
can hardly be questioned.
It is when he rationalizes his compromise, and twists the principle
into its opposite in order to salve his conscience and flatter his
ego, that he loses caste; it is then that the idealist becomes a
realist.
For instance, taxation is legalized robbery; the idealist, rather
than become ineffectual through incarceration or by ascetism, permits
himself to be robbed in order that as a member of society he may call
its attention to the robbery. The realist, on the other hand, accepts
taxation without question and tries to find a perfect system of
taxation; which is completely unrealistic because nothing perfect can
be built on a rotten base.
The private appropriation of rent is a denial of the inalienable
right of all men to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The
intransigent insists upon that principle even though he must suffer
along with his fellow-men the consequences of the private
appropriation of rent. He could withdraw from society to avoid doing
so; or he might choose to become a rent collector himself and use the
proceeds to further knowledge and acceptance of the principle. He
never rejects or questions its validity. The expedient fellow, on the
other hand, hopes to find within the scheme of land monopoly a way to
obtain the inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness, a procedure which is quite impossible, and therefore
unreal.
War War is the product of an economy of poverty. The idealist,
whether he refuses to bear arms or enlists for the immediate purpose
of protecting his fireside, never loses sight of the cause of war. His
thinking remains real. On the other hand, the realist seeks refuge
from the reality of principle by denying it "for the duration"
in order to justify his enthusiasm for a particular war; or he may
conveniently reject what he formerly accepted in the light of "new
evidence."
It all sums up to this: The idealist is always true to himself; the
realist is true to nothing but expediency, which is ephemeral and
therefore unreal.
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