Louis Menand’s article “The Return of Pragmatism” in the October 1997 issue was most enlightening. Suddenly it is easy for me to see how our courts and our schools have degenerated as they have.
Pragmatism (a.k.a. relativism) throws logic aside, replacing it with feelings, and all of a sudden ends are used to justify means.
The errors of pragmatism are easily avoided by applying the methods of Karl R. Popper and others. Popper devised an epistemology in the 1930s that has grown and is now widely accepted by some of the best minds of our time. The Popper approach says that theories about the world must be constantly tested via deductions. Then, a theory remains true and is strengthened as more and more deductions pass tests. (Theories are the basis of all thought and action, such as: Each morning I test some theories about my car when I turn the key in the ignition switch.)
Popper’s book The Logic of Scientific Discovery is a must read for anyone interested in the operation of knowledge and thought. Perhaps Holmes, James, and Dewey would have been Popper adherents had they been exposed to his methods in their formative years. Oh! Had this been the case!
Scott Mansfield San Gabriel, Calif.
The Perils of Pragmatism
Given the pragmatists’ influence on our society, should we really be shocked that our own government has periodically annulled the rights of its citizens on the grounds of alleged practicality? When Japanese-Americans were stripped of their liberty and property during World War II or when unsuspecting citizens were exposed to dangerous levels of radiation during the Cold War, weren’t those just the “felt necessities of the time”? Such is the result when principles and abstractions are viewed as mere obstacles to our collective whim.
We seem to delight in condemning the sins of the past while refusing to embrace any clear moral principles that might prevent us from repeating them. We denounce absolutism in politics, and then we complain that our elections consist of choices among lackluster candidates whose beliefs can hardly be distinguished. Louis Menand is certainly correct that pragmatism has had a powerful effect on American philosophical thought in this century. However, his article is far too sympathetic to a philosophy that has put into practice numerous bad ideas and is partially responsible for the public’s cynicism about modern politicians.
Andrew Dalton Ann Arbor, Mich.
In Praise of Saratoga
There could not be a more appropriate recipient of the first Great American Place Award than the city of Saratoga Springs, New York (October). I warmly congratulate Mayor J. Michael O’Connell and all the people of Saratoga Springs and also commend American Heritage for instituting this aptly named annual tribute.
Our administration is committed to fostering heritage tourism, one of the fastest-growing segments of our resurgent economy. We are doing it through partnerships with local governments and the private sector—a collaboration which is clearly symbolized by this award.
The city of Saratoga Springs has been a place of history, beauty, celebrity, and healthful recreation for nearly two centuries and will continue to be as long as the springs flow, the horses run, the music plays, and the people care.
We have innumerable “Great American Places” in New York, and we look forward to being in the winner’s circle again and again.
George E. Pataki Governor of the State of New York Albany
Bound to Be Big
The writer of the piece on how our government got so big, in the September issue, seems intent on proving that that growth did not occur just because of the philosophies and actions of “liberal progressives” but must equally be attributed to the doings of “right-wing conservatives” (how I hate the expropriation, mis-use, and conversion to jargon of those good and useful words). It is characteristic of much intellectual activity in the United States that blame must be apportioned. The inevitable consequence is to fail to reach the truth. The growth of bureaucracies has next to nothing to do with political philosophy. It is, as C. Northcote Parkinson declared and explained in his Economist article of 1955, followed by his books Parkinson’s Law in 1957 and Parkinson: The Law in 1979, rather the result of a law which can be treated scientifically, subjected to critical analysis, and expressed mathematically. It applies not only to governments but equally to industries, hospitals, unions, dioceses, and, in fact, all administrations set up for any purpose.
Parkinson’s first example was a British one: Between 1914 and 1928 the number of Royal Navy capital ships fell by 68 percent and sailors (officers and men) by 31 percent, while dockyard workers rose by 9.5 percent, dockyard officials and clerks by 40 percent, and Admiralty officials by 78 percent! His researches cover many other areas of activity and span much longer periods of time than that inaugural example. What is important is that the expansion in the number of government bureaucrats took place at a steady annual rate through the tenure of Tory, Labour, and Coalition governments! It’s not the government, stupid; it is Parkinson’s law.
Dr. Robert W. M. Frater Bronxville, N.Y.
Best Bessie
Susannah McCorkle’s superb biographical essay on the Empress of the Blues, Bessie Smith (November), is by far the most gripping account of Bessie’s life so far—and I have read them all, including Chris Albertson’s. I first heard Bessie wailing “Trombone Cholly” (1927, with Charlie Green, to whom the title of the song refers) on a jazz recording broadcast from Hartford, Connecticut, when I was a four-teen-year-old away at prep school in 1961; by the end of that year, 1 had all four Columbia albums of reissues, and in subsequent years I bought the entire award-winning collection of remastered recordings which Columbia sponsored.
I discovered Billie Holiday the same year. Billie acknowledged Bessie’s influence—“I always wanted Bessie’s big sound, and Pop’s [Louis Armstrong’s] feeling,” she wrote—and when Carmen McRae died a couple of years ago, I felt that the world had reached the end of an era. Who was left among singers, except Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, and certainly Rosemary Clooney, who knew Billie personally and had heard her sing in person? Billie was like a last link to Bessie, and Carmen was the clearest link to Billie. McCorkle allays those fears. It is ironic that she writes as if she is in the shadows of these vocal giants, for she is one of the most original jazz vocalists of our own era, although on a more subtle and refined plane, and like Bessie and Billie, her style resists easy definition. With this article she proves that she is also a talented and accomplished writer, worthy of the task of de-mythologizing Bessie’s life.
James Carmichael via e-mail
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