Something I touched on briefly earlier was a sense of pragmatism I had when it came to some proposals coming from (or supported by) Governor Schwarzenegger. In that entry, I put it this way:

So on these two issues, I'm on Schwarzenegger's side. Does that make me a Schwarzenegger Democrat? Of course not. I'd be worried about myself if I just parroted the Democratic party line on all issues. I like to think of myself as a "Democratic-leaning independent," though I'm sure none of my friends would describe me that way.

I had a chance today to think some more about this pragmatism while reading Rising Tide, an article in The New Republic by Daniel Sarewitz and Roger A. Pielke Jr. Sarewitz and Pielke speak with disdain for those environmentalists who would use the tsunamis as scare tactics when talking about global climate change:

A December 30 article in Salon portrays the effects of the recent tsunami as "visions of just the kind of tumultuous weather that scientists have long viewed as a symptom of global warming." A day later, Sir David King, Britain's chief science adviser, told the BBC, "What is happening in the Indian Ocean underlines the importance of the Earth's system to our ability to live safely. And what we are talking about in terms of climate change is something that is really driven by our own use of fossil fuels."

Global climate change is real, and developing alternative energy sources and reducing global carbon-dioxide emission is essential. But the claim that action to slow climate change is justified by the rising toll of natural disasters--and, by extension, that reducing emissions can help stanch these rising losses--is both scientifically and morally insupportable. To minimize damage from tsunamis and the like, we need to focus not on reducing emissions but on reducing our vulnerability to disasters.

I agree with Sarewitz and Pielke's point. The pragmatist in me demands that issues be discussed rationally and without scare tactics, even if I support a certain position. When I reached this conclusion while reading the article, I began to think about where this pragmatism comes from and what it means to be a pragmatic liberal.

Being an engineer is closely linked to being a pragmatist. As an engineer, you learn how to look at things from a certain orderly perspective, and to make conclusions from rules and facts. (This is not to say that being an engineer does not require creativity; in fact, being an engineer requires a great deal of creative thinking.) This use of rules and facts that is fundamental to engineering is inherently pragmatic--you do not let extraneous, exaggerated or flawed rules/facts affect the solution.

Most engineers would recognize the feeling of elation I achieve whenever I find an elegant solution to a problem that meets all of the parameters required by the problem. This feeling of elation makes it easy to try to do the same thing for solving the problems of the world. You try to find some base rules--"people should not suffer," "we have a responsibility to consider the impact of our decisions of future generations," etc.--and then try to extrapolate from these in an orderly process to reach conclusions about all sorts of different policies. These rules, once discovered, should be fundamental and not changeable at whim.

From this grows my hyper-sensitivity to hypocrisy. Hypocrisy comes whenever a person discards an old "rule" in their beliefs in favor of a new "rule" because the end result of applying the old rule was distasteful. Whenever a conservative argues that states' rights mean that the federal government cannot get rid of Jim Crow laws, he is establish a "states' rights" rule. But when he sees that this "states' rights" rule would lead to assisted suicide in Oregon or medicinal marijuana in California, he discards the old rule and asks the federal government to step in.

As a liberal, my opinions in the above cases is the reverse of the conservatives. I believe the federal government should be involved in outlawing Jim Crow, but should not be involved in state issues like assisted suicide and medicinal marijuana. These positions could be just as open to the "hypocrite" tag I easily applied to the conservative positions. The pragmatist in me, though, works to find a solution to this problem.

I found the solution by adding another rule on top of the base set of rules I have developed to look at the world. This added rule is that "the federal government defines a minimum set of rights that states cannot curtail, but the states can provide a more expansive view of these rights." This rule does not contradict any of the rules that I used in the past, and is something I can believe in fundamentally (not just because it leads to a certain conclusion in one particular case).

(I could also get into issues of the Fourteenth Amendment explicitly allowing the federal government to interfere in the states when it comes to civil rights versus the preposterous claim that medicinal marijuana affects interstate commerce, but we'll leave that alone for now.)

There is a bit of chicken-and-egg problem: Am I an engineer because I'm a pragmatist, or am I a pragmatist because I'm an engineer? Not surprisingly, my answer is "both." I was attracted to engineering because of a pragmatic way of thinking, but studying and gaining experience as an engineer has reinforced my sense of pragmatism.

The other thing I realized after reading the Sarewitz and Pielke article was that I am secure in my liberality. I have no problem criticizing other liberals when they do something that I disagree with, and it does not make me any less of a liberal. As Sarewitz and Pielke say, it is "scientifically and morally insupportable" to claim that individual natural disasters can be attribute to global warming. (It is particularly tempting when natural disasters seem to happen in close succession, such as the huge mudslide in La Conchita. I understand that most scientists agree that climate change is real and is something we need to do something about. But trying to scare people into supporting regulations angers me as much as the Bush administration using fear of terrorism to justify unrelated policies.

Lakoff's Don't Think of an Elephant criticized liberals who think that all they need to do is educate people, and that the people will naturally support liberal positions. I admit that there is an allure to that way of thinking, but I agree with Lakoff's assessment. It is important to note that he was not advocating deception, though--and that is what people using the tsunami for political gain are doing. What he was advocating was framing. That is, instead of simply presenting the fact that climate change can have detrimental effects, it can and should be tied to something more emotional but still factual--such as leaving a better planet for later generations.

There was a time--even within the last few months--when I was not as secure in my liberality. I would have a tremendous internal struggle whenever I disagreed with other liberals. But as I've realized that being pragmatic isn't a bad thing and as I've become more comfortable with what I believe, I no longer mind letting a healthy dose of pragmatism get in the way of supporting every liberal goal, tactic or priority.