Richard Rorty once said “Without pragmatism, not only is nothing ever achieved, nothing is ever even attempted.”
Good afternoon/morning. I would like to thank the judge and timer for being here today. My name is Samara Clark and I have the privilege of defending the negative position in today’s debate round.
My value for the following debate round will be stewardship. Stewardship is defined by Merriam Webster as “Careful and responsible management.”
The resolution states: Resolved, when in conflict idealism ought to be valued above pragmatism.
By negating the resolution, we can best uphold my value of stewardship and be the best stewards of this earth and everything on it.
Contention 1: The resolution is not completely wrong.
I would like to clarify something; I am not attempting to say that the resolution is inherently wrong, or that idealism is evil. However, I can not with good conscience affirm such a sweeping statement, as “when in conflict, idealism ought to be valued above pragmatism.” Is there ever a time where pragmatism ought to be valued above ideals? Or valued equally? If so, the resolution can not be affirmed, because it is an always statement. I would like to contend that there are indeed such times. An example of one such scenario would be in Thomas Jefferson’s first term. The Barbary pirates were a group of pirates that had been terrorizing ships in the Mediterranean sea for many years. If you didn’t want your ships to be taken and your cargo plundered, and your sailors killed, then you had to pay them a fine. When they raised their fine to a fee that America, as a young nation, couldn’t afford, Thomas Jefferson declared war on the Barbary pirates. Doing so he bypassed the Congress and declared war without being approved by any branch of government other than executive. This is an example of where Thomas Jefferson took the ideal of stewardship and national security, and he was pragmatic about it. This is also an example of where that worked, and that worked well. The Barbary pirates lost the war, and the American people, instead of turning on their president were grateful that he had saved them from losing their sailors that the Barbary pirates had at the time, and also from having to pay taxes in order to be able to pay the Barbary pirates fine.
Contention 2: Idealism when valued above pragmatism becomes significantly less useful.
Many people are saying that pragmatism without idealism is useless; I would like to propose that idealism without pragmatism is useless. How are ideals valuable if we are never able to reach them or achieve them? Without pragmatism, that is what happens. We are left with an empty worn out dream that we were never able to reach. An example of this is found in “Gran Columbia” a dream of Simon Bolivars. After he had freed the South American people from the oppressive rule of the Spanish, he wished to unite Peru, Venezuela, and Columbia together to form “Gran Columbia”. He had seen what happened in Europe where there were many different countries close together. There was endless bloodshed and wars. He wanted a better place a place with less wars. However, he was unwilling to do what was necessary to achieve that dream. He held that ideal so high, and yet he wouldn’t work towards it. As a result Gran Columbia fell apart within a few years. The very thing that he was afraid of happening, the wars and bloodshed, happened as a result of his refusal to be pragmatic. William James once said “Pragmatism is such an essential ingredient in an effective presidency. If you’re not pragmatic, not responsive to changing realities, then you will not succeed because you are incapable of it.” This brings me to my third contention.
Contention 3: Times change and the way that we work towards our ideals change as well.
I would like to stress something here; the ideals themselves do not change. However, if we worked toward democracy the same way we did two hundred years ago, our fight would be ineffective. Our founding fathers knew this. This is why they added in amendments, allowing us to change the constitution in accordance with the times. If we did not change, then we would perish. William Douglass said, “Amendments are one of the greatest landmarks in man’s struggle to be free of tyranny, to be decent and civilized.” Why would he say something like that? Because by having amendments, we show that we are smart enough to realize that times change, and the way we work toward democracy and freedom must change as well. “If we are not pragmatic in our thinking, then our best hope will be to stay where we are, because if not we will certainly move back.” That quote is from C.S. Pierce, who many consider to be the founder of pragmatism, and it helps summarize what I’m trying to say. You can not expect to go anywhere on ideas alone. The industrial revolution showed us that what we had been doing for centuries was no longer the best way of doing things. It was no longer the best way to work toward the ideals of quality of life, or the economy. This brings me to my fourth and final contention.
Contention 4: We can be better stewards of what we have if we negate the resolution.
Let me be clear, when I say that we should negate the resolution, I am not saying that ideals are invaluable, or even that pragmatism is always more valuable. I am saying that there are circumstances where we need to be pragmatic in our thinking more so than idealistic. We need to understand that times change, we need to work towards our ideals in a pragmatic way, or we will never achieve them. We have been given a great earth, and many resources. We need to be proper stewards of these things. When we are in a conflict with someone, we need to be idealistic, and know what is right and wrong, we must stick to our ideals, but at the same time, we need to be pragmatic. We must not only hold to our ideals, but we must also do what works in that situation. Without doing so we can never hope to get out of that conflict. I would like to end with a quote from William James who once said “How can you expect to be taken seriously on your ideas alone?”
I have been addressing aspects of my opponents case all along, however quickly I would like to do so in more detail.
