Pragmatic Rationalism Explained Again

“One cannot fully grasp the political world unless one understands it as a confidence game, or the stratification system unless one sees it as a costume party. . . . . Finally, there is a peculiar human value in the sociologist’s responsibility for evaluating his findings, as far as he is psychologically able, without regard to his own prejudices likes or dislikes, hopes or fears. . . . . To be motivated by human needs rather than by grandiose political programs, to commit oneself selectively and economically rather than to consecrate oneself to a totalitarian faith, to be skeptical and compassionate at the same time, to seek to understand without bias, all these are existential possibilities of the sociological enterprise that can hardly be overrated in many situations in the contemporary world. In this way, sociology can attain to the dignity of political relevance, not because it has a particular political ideology to offer, but just because it has not.” -- Sociologist Peter Berger in his 1963 masterpiece, Invitation to Sociology, commenting on the poison that ideology typically is for most people most of the time, which modern cognitive and social science has now shown to be basically true

“Time as cyclical, especially when married to the idea of fate and destiny, is inherently conservative, protective of the established social order, established political authority, and dominant traditions. .... In addition, with time as cyclical, the debate between advocates of democracy, such as Aristotle, and those who advocated aristocratic rule, such as Plato, is stable. Nothing new will alter that debate as human nature is fixed and our natures either suit us for democracy, as some have it, or for aristocracy as others have it.” -- Psychologist George Marcus commenting in chapter 3 of his 2013 academic text book, Political Psychology: Neuroscience, Genetics and Politics, on the difficulty of mindset change and hinting at why pragmatic rationalism is such a difficult concept to explain

Context

Over the last 8-10 years I have tried multiple times to explain my political ideology, pragmatic rationalism (PR). PR is built around four core moral values and those four morals are grounded in knowledge from modern cognitive and social science. The morals are not based on any political, economic, religious or philosophical ideology or mindset that I am aware of. They are based on the science of human beings and their minds as they are understood today as individuals and as social creatures.

I revise PR ideology or concept as various criticisms and suggestions arise and as I learn more from relevant science as it progresses. The last major revision was adding core moral value 4, reasonable compromise as a bulwark against authoritarianism. I did that about a year ago. The PR concept has been mostly stable since then.

At first, I thought that the PR concept was brain dead simple and easy to explain and be understood. I figured that most people would easily get it. Now, I believe it is hyper-complex and almost impossibly hard to grasp because the concept is counter intuitive to most non-scientists and maybe even most scientists. I grossly underestimated how hard it is for the human mind to simply be open to and grasp what I now believe is a deeply counter intuitive concept related to politics. I sometimes refer to PR as an anti-biasing and/or an anti-ideology ideology. I naively thought that 'simple' labeling would clearly convey the essence of what I was talking about. It doesn't.

This OP flows from flack and distrust I got from an OP about a week ago about the Common Sense Party and my own clearly esoteric and largely inscrutable brand of politics. It is so inscrutable that apparently most leftists think its far right and most rightists seem to think its far left. In fact, it is far neither.

Pragmatic rationalism: Version ~ #6

PR is built on four core moral principles that (1) seem to be the most anti-biasing beliefs that most people can at least aspire to adhere to based on science, and (2) most people already believe they agree with at least in theory. Value #4 seems to be increasingly rejected by American conservatives and populists as tribalism, polarization and distrust ramps up on the right. That poison seems to be rising on the left, but isn't yet nearly as pronounced.

The morals are (i) fidelity to trying seeing fact and true truths with less partisan bias, (ii) fidelity to applying less biased or partisan conscious reason to the facts and truths, (iii) service to the public interest based on factors including the facts, truths and sound reason, and (iv) willingness to reasonably compromise according to political, economic and environmental circumstances point to.

Service to the public interest means governance based on identifying a rational, optimum balance between serving public, individual and commercial interests based on an objective, fact- and logic-based analysis of competing policy choices, while (1) being reasonably transparent and responsive to public opinion, (2) protecting and growing the American economy, (3) fostering individual economic and personal growth opportunity, (4) defending personal freedoms and the American standard of living, (5) protecting national security and the environment, (6) increasing transparency, competition and efficiency in commerce when possible, and (7) fostering global peace, stability and prosperity whenever reasonably possible, all of which is constrained by (i) honest, reality-based fiscal sustainability that limits the scope and size of government and regulation to no more than what is needed and (ii) genuine respect for the U.S. constitution and the rule of law with a particular concern for limiting unwarranted legal complexity and ambiguity to limit opportunities to subvert the constitution and the law.

Some comments

• Service to the public interest and many of the concepts it includes are essentially contested. There is thus no authoritative definition or agreement on definitions or when and how they may apply in various circumstances. That is an unavoidable aspect of politics and why reasonable compromise is necessary in a democracy. In a dictatorship, plutocracy or other non-democratic form of government, definitions and compromise are at the whim of the person or people in power. 

• The first enumerated factor in the mindset is reasonable transparency and responsiveness to public opinion. No other political, economic, religious or philosophical ideology I am aware of elevates either transparency or respect for public opinion to a place of central importance. 

• The goal, "a rational, optimum balance between serving public, individual and commercial interests based on an objective, fact- and logic-based analysis of competing policy choices", is my attempt to bake core moral values 1 (respect for facts and true truths) and 2 (respect for less biased conscious reasoning) right into the concept of service to the public interest. No other political, economic, religious or philosophical ideology I am aware of elevates facts and less biased reasoning to a place of central importance.

• PR is predicated on persuasion, not coercion or brute force. People can accept it reject it as they choose. People can envision all sorts of horrors from PR. But since we've had all sorts of horrors from everything else that I am aware of, there's no basis in reality to level an argument that PR is somehow worse. The core moral values are selected because based on science, they will tend be anti-authoritarian, anti-kelptocratic, anti-liar and anti-incompetent.