Your Email:

Subject:

Message:
Entry: An Imaginary Edmund Burke Link: http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/an_imaginary_edmund_burke#27392 Post contents: McBrown, I'm all for pragmatism. But the definition of what is or is not "working" can't be answered without some attention to the questions addressed by political philosophy: what should government do or not do? What purpose does organized society have, if any? I think abortion is not "working" for instance, because I think it's a great evil. I think affirmative action is not "working" because I think it's based on a faulty premise about the necessity and desirability of equal outcomes. Lots of politicians are pragmatists, but, as such, they go back and forth without rhyme or reason on different, often contradictory, policies. McCain, above all else, prides himself on his pragmatism. It's his lack of coherent principle that is the problem. There is a modest practical importance to this issue; very radical changes are being defended as fundamentally conservative because they are Burkean. They are anything but, and Burke is being distorted by these writers to promote their pet projects. Let them defend gay marriage or whatever they want on its authentic merits, but let's not pretend these proposals are not what they are: radical ones with unknown indirect consequences. Sent at: 2008 09 07