Below is an excerpt from “Fragments,” my book of essays available at J.S. Scifo on Substack | Substack. This was written in February/March 2023.
So what can save us from the obvious conclusion of my rantings, i.e., the near total collapse of a coherent, sane society. People seek a plan. A way forward. Sadly, like Churchill, I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, sweat, and tears. Or as H.L. Mencken put it: “My business is not prognosis, but diagnosis. I am not engaged in therapeutics, but in pathology.”[1]
People, especially conservative people, believe that pragmatism—what works—is a way forward. I believe that pragmatism is a trap. We have seen this in my home state, where for years Republican elites preached that the party had to drop all of the divisive social issues (abortion, gay marriage, guns, immigration) to ensure its continued relevancy. “There is no Republican or Democratic way to fix a pot hole,” they’d say. The result is that we now live in a one-party state and many of the people who made those (or similar) statements have either left the party (Nathan Fletcher), left the state, or abandoned politics altogether (Mark Kersey). And I can attest, the potholes are more numerous than ever.
As we have seen time and again, people are willing to sacrifice utility in pursuit of a Glorious Cause, which is why Communism survived for nearly a century. It is why the social welfare state persists in our time, despite the evidence that poverty and want persist even after the appropriation of billions (trillions?) of dollars toward their eradication. It is why the public school system survives, more or less in the same form that it has since the early 20th century, despite substantial evidence now stretching several decades that it has failed to produce a literate citizenry (and by that I mean a citizenry that has a broad fluency in history, literature, composition, numeracy, and critical thinking beyond simply being able to read). No, people need a reason to believe that goes beyond simple utility. Or, to once again quote Chesterton, “Pragmatism is a matter of human needs; and one of the first of human needs is to be something more than a pragmatist.”
But what about the moderates, undecideds, and independents who are supposedly so ripe for conversion if only were it not for poor candidates and misplaced priorities? I say forget them. READ THE REST, AT “What is to be done“?
J.S. Scifo is a North County resident who has worked in national and state politics
[1] Notes On Democracy