Idealism vs. Pragmatism

Idealism: The focus on the ideal, the goals

Pragmatism (also ambiguously called "materialism", though the word "materialism" can have different meanings): The focus on the material, the means

Sometimes both can be combined ("Copyleft: Pragmatic Idealism"): https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/pragmatic.html

But the most extreme form of pragmatism comes with the death of idealism itself, because then when someone is focuses solely on the means without regard for ethics, it will lead to the logical (but by no means ethical) conclusion that the only way to change material conditions is to imitate the oppressive system itself and perhaps even further increase its means of oppression (as Hitlerism has done in Germany), because if someone does not care about ethics at all then they have no reason to actually aim for positive change but only a reason to "win" even if it comes from the huge cost of many deaths and if even if it comes to PERPETUATING the oppressive material conditions, because achieving oppressive power over others inevitably requires becoming one with the system and perpetuating the oppression[1]. Hence, the most extreme form of pragmatism also comes with the death of pragmatism itself, since without focus on ethics one can not end oppression and therefore can't lead radical change of material conditions, and without idealism one can not establish ethical ideals like true democracy that would allow a system to be stable and resistant enough to avoid collapse.

Therefore, any focus on means (pragmatism) HAS to come from ethical goals, else one's means will simply imitate the oppression because imitating the oppression is the easiest short-term way to get to the top of the hierarchy and therefore will always be the logical (but by no means ethical) "solution" when ethics aren't considered

[1]. to roughly quote someone: "our current society can now be viewed as consisting solely of aspiring Hitlers: everyone who means anything in our highly competitive capitalist society has to master the essential skills of lying, manipulation, populist rhetoric, abuse of power, dirty political games, propaganda (marketing), scaremongering and a myriad of others."

For an extreme example of what abandoning ethics entails, take Marxism for example, its name itself already shows a lack of trust in ethics by building a cult-of-personality by naming an ideology after a person (with derived concepts having the name of other tyrants added (e.g. Marxism-Leninism-Maoism), and not only this, Marxism wants a monopoly on concepts like "socialism" and "communism" (which by these terms' clear definition of focus on social-oriented goals and communal ownership/democracy would require ethics to be achieved, hence I do not call Marxist States communist or even socialist) Marxism simply takes the most "pragmatic" stance possible through pseudoscience that "justifies" their advocacy for violence and oppression, to the detriment of ethical goals. When Stalin himself defined his """socialism""", he made that clear ( https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1906/12/x01.htm ):

> Proletarian socialism is based not on sentiment, not on abstract "justice," not on love for the proletariat, but on the scientific grounds referred to above.
> That is why proletarian socialism is also called "scientific socialism."

And indeed, what we see is a complete abandoment of ethics:

> Listen to what Marx said: [...]
> > "What elasticity, what historical initiative, what a capacity for sacrifice in these Parisians! After six months of hunger . . . they rise, beneath Prussian bayonets. . . . History has no like example of like greatness! If they are defeated only their 'good nature' will be to blame. They should have marched at once on Versailles, after first Vinoy and then the reactionary section of the Paris National Guard had themselves retreated. They missed their opportunity because of conscientious scruples. They did not want to start a civil war, as if that mischievous abortion Thiers had not already started the civil war with his attempt to disarm Paris!"

> [...] They missed their opportunity because of conscientious scruples. [...]

And that's why they say the "Paris Commune" failed, because to them it wasn't cruel enough, and in this they show that they have no focus on social goals at all but merely on proving their pseudoscience right to the detriment of everyone, and this is proof that if one focuses on winning on the short-term to the full detriment of ethics it will always lead to the advocacy of horrible methods such as violence and oligarchy. And indeed, this is what we see, most (if not every) Marxist State uses extreme violence and brutality in order to succeed in the short-term, but without concrete ethics such as democracy that would allow a stable system actually based on social-goals (socialism) most Marxist States in the world collapsed in under a century. And the lack of ethics is not a side-effect, it is deliberate, Marxism sees the only way to change society is to become the oppressor and hence they don't actually end the oppression and therefore their exclusive focus on pragmatism to the detriment of all other goals ends with the death of pragmatism itself, and indeed, by Marxist standards a revolution has to be necessarily violent: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1872/10/authority.htm :

> [Anarchists] demand that the first act of the social revolution shall be the abolition of authority. Have these gentlemen ever seen a revolution? A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon — authoritarian means, if such there be at all; and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of this authority of the armed people against the bourgeois? Should we not, on the contrary, reproach it for not having used it freely enough?