Pragmatists and Deontologists.

I have surmised that there are two chief styles of people:

Pragmatists and Deontologists.

This is no new distinction.

For the pragmatists, the ends justify the means used to arrive at those ends; they do every-

thing in pursuit of a result.

Yet the Deontologist is not looking for results to be met.

He has goals, but so long as he does all that he needs to to feel morally justified in the pursuit of these goals, he rarely if ever feels disappointed by outcomes that do not accord with his Platonic pre-conceptions.

His means justify his ends. If he is ever disappointed it is only that not all people are all so Deontologists. And this dis-appointment appears Immanently Mutual. The pragmatists all so expect all others to be pragmatists, but for different reasons.

Yet who is right? As I shall demonstrate, the Deontologists are.

The chief dis-advantage of being a Deontologist is that of being a victim of parasitism and futility. One operates in a mode of constant vigilance and exhaustion. There is no rest for the Deontologist, even in sleep. No authorities exist externally to tell you when you are on or off the clock; if a value holds true now, its value is practically eternal. It can only be ignored is [sic; “if”] super-

ceded by a Higher value.

The Deontologist lives there-fore in a shroud of personal but private conscience, often miss-understood, miss-

treated, and under-appreciated.

She is condemned for hypocrisy when she acts in the face of a paradox. She is condemned to elitism when she must assess the character of one person against that of an other.

She is charged with egoism when she puts her values before the expectations of others.

And not only does she operate with religious fervor and with out guarantee of a reward. She all so has no promise that even her enter-

prises to help others will come to fruition. She must own up to the fact that the pursuit of her values may wreak more havoc than peace,

more harm than good. But the alternative – the abandonment of these values, is intolerable, so even in tragedy she is no more than a victim.

She is justified and vindicated.

The means justify the ends.

The advantage of course of being a Deontologist is that one is never wrong. The voice of the mass, the group, and the other are all silenced before the monarchical conscience.

Yet it is a popular miss-

take to think that she did not take those voices in to consideration and concern.

Every moral imperative that she hears is filtered through an elaborate and tricky system comprised of all the other imperatives. She has immunities developed against dogmae that would limit the scope of her caring, and she cares little to flatter the dogmatists just to attain the End of a polite but ingenuine correspondance. This constant conflict pro-

duces ‘her values’, and when she elevates her values above all else she is not in any way being selfish. She sees beyond the immanent limitations of the Group and the people that she ‘wants to please’, her attention extending to innumerable people with whom she had had encounters, and over an inestimable time-span that super-cedes and engulfs not only the interests of her surrounding peers, but of her own well-being as well.

As a result she all so tends to rely more readily up on [the] Intuition. The Intuition is a well-

spring of the Soul and a window in to the Sub-

Conscious. Given the sheer breadth of imperative in-

puts with which she needs to deal, it would be ridiculous to expect them all to remain Conscious.

Ultimately, the Deontologist is only accountable towards his own self. The external world is outside of his control. Taking personal but private responsibility for his own actions, the Deontologist holds others to the same standard. He knows that the ‘consequences’ of his actions upon others’ lives is not his own fault, for it is in Their choice to respond to him, and in so far as they run the risk of making a poor choice, he cannot be blamed.

They will have to know for their selves that the choice was miss-

informed, and he has no shame correcting them and learning from their miss-

takes.

A cynic might argue then:

How are we to discern the Deontologist from the socio-

path? From the manipulator?

From the cheat?

Well, first one must re-call that ‘internally’ the Deontologist is not un-empathic at all. She never seeks her own interest, and her values are drawn pretty much entirely from the needs of other people. Yet the danger seems really to exist for HER. How is SHE to discern other Deontologists from manipulators?

Simply put, it takes one to know one. When two Deontologists meet they need no introduction.

No conflict of interest exists. If they are compelled* to agree, it is a delightfull and illuminating surprise. Where they dis-agree, it is an exciting challenge, provoking, in-voking, but not with out the deepest Trust and Availability.

This is be-cause each of them knows that at any point through out the day she is only accountable to her self, not the other. The other is merely there to provide Ideas. And since each member feels self-

motivated to spread Ideas, they never truly dis-appoint one an other.

Oh were it so with Pragmatists. Yet by nature it can not be.

Pragmatists require validation constantly from others. The other becomes a means of which the pragmatist’s self-

conception is the end, and to meet the end that is the other’s needs one must use the means of flattery. Two pragmatists engaged in dialogue are really involved in a form of projection. This I have witnessed to my terror betwixt lovers. *[*] In this sort of ‘relation-

ship’, each partner seeks to find the projection that the other finds most pleasing, until both are satisfied and their selfish appetites satiated. Yet as with all pragmatic dis-course the benefits are short-lived, corrosive, and superficial.

The problem occurs (or incurs?) at the moment of honesty.

Consider a situation betwixt a pragmatic Capitalist and a pragmatic Marxist. The one, hoping to flatter the other, tells him ‘I am a Marxist’. Yet her audience hears: She believes her self to be of superior opinion Capitalists such as my self. The dis-

appointment becomes obvious.

The Marxist notes the futility of her attempt. The means used to meet her own end in turn were not the ends that her partner desired.

Usually such correspondances end with bitter politeness.

The pragmatists hide much, and so little gets resolved.

They part with a gesture as sterile and kurt [sic(k)] as a fist-

pump. Yet what is retained is glowering disappointment.

The pragmatist, having ex-

pended so much time in pursuit of this End – the perfect relationship –

refuses to believe her time to have been spent in vain. Oh, were it so that she could enjoy the easy conscience of the ever-

disappointed Deontologist.

Upon the shroud of lingering intransparency are projected the manic strobe-

lights of delusion. She craves more than any thing else the attain-

ment of that End, if not simply the retention of a façade that can never satiate her desires. And all pre-

tense towards her being a ‘practical’ person falls apart for her entire global Audience to see.

[T.B.C.]

Dm.A.A.

*or is it ‘impelled’?

**Alanna, you knowwhy I say ‘terror’ here. I might say ‘horror’.