The word "pragmatic" is starting to pop up more and more frequently again. It is generally never defined, but is very often used in interesting ways. Hence, this is a look at the meaning of "pragmatic" from the viewpoint of an aging "American".
Getting the dictionary out of the way - one is as good as another for this in my opinion - pragmatic
Definition of PRAGMATIC
1 archaic
a (1) : busy
(2) : officious
b : opinionated
2 : relating to matters of fact or practical affairs often to the exclusion of intellectual or artistic matters : practical as opposed to idealistic
3 : relating to or being in accordance with philosophical pragmatism(see pragmatism)
So, googling practical gives:
prac·ti·cal/ˈpraktikəl/
Adjective:
Of or concerned with the actual doing or use of something.
(of an idea, plan, or method) Likely to succeed or be effective in real circumstances; feasible.
So lets drop past that
impractical orange separator and proceed.
To be complete, I should mention the Pragmatic Sanction even though it is
Not our "Pragmatic"..
From the wikipedia:
The Pragmatic Sanction of 1713 (Latin: Pragmatica Sanctio) was an edict issued by Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI to ensure that the throne of the Archduchy of Austria could be inherited by a daughter.
link
The Habsburgs were "failing" and Chuck was the last male Habsburg. He wanted to keep the throne in the family by passing it on to his daughter and avoid the kind of thing that happened in Spain (The War of the Spanish Succession) even though Salic law precluded female inheritance. This "pragmatic" solution to the inheritance problem led to his elder daughter Maria Theresa succeeding him (and thereby causing the War of the Austrian Succession, oops).
Also not our "Pragmatic".
Any fans of Pierce, James, Dewey and Quine out there? Also from the Wiki Philosophical:
Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition centered on the linking of practice and theory. It describes a process where theory is extracted from practice, and applied back to practice to form what is called intelligent practice.[citation needed] Important positions characteristic of pragmatism include instrumentalism, radical empiricism, verificationism, conceptual relativity, and fallibilism.[citation needed].
Fine, love it personally, but not what we're about here.
A Wee Digression on "Compromise"
Those nasty old definitions above don't mention compromise. That is as it should be. There is nothing inherently pragmatic about compromises or compromising and no necessary connection between pragmatism and compromise. It is true that there might be instances in which a compromise or a little horse trading could be a or even the pragmatic solution to a problem, but neither is a required element or component of the other. Neither is in any way necessary to the other.
End of Digression
In the dictionary portion above ye squiggle, we see a contrast between the practical and the idealistic. This seems to cause some to suppose that one must reject the ideal and the idealistic in order to be pragmatic. In extreme cases, some adopt the idea that if one rejects the ideal one will have, perforce, attained the pragmatic. This is not correct.
Ideally. a bridge should support both the static load of its own structural material, and the live load of the anticipated traffic across it. As a practical matter, it must also support both loads. A bridge which cannot support both loads is not pragmatic, it is a failure.
Should somebody purloin the appropriate implement for pounding tent stakes, it can be pragmatic to use any of a variety of other instruments, but pounding the shit out of your thumb in the process is never pragmatic, regardless of the fact that it far from ideal.
Things aren't pragmatic, Solutions are
Missing, or perhaps assumed in the dictionary usages is the small matter of a problem. Chuckie the Habs was trying to find a workable or pragmatic solution to a problem, the lack of a male heir. Lacking the perfect or ideal solution, the ability to create such an heir mucho pronto, he used whatever tool was to hand, in this case, an edict.
I'm nearly 66, and for as much of my life as I can recall, pragmatism has related to doing things and most importantly, to problem solving. The colloquial usage has always been one of "making do" or "jury rigging". (I suspect that the later "OK, let me take a hack at it" phraseology eventually led to "hacking" and "hacker" in the non-pejorative sense.) If you are nailing up some siding and somebody steals your claw hammer, you can get by with a ball peen hammer if you are careful and really concentrate on your task. That is pragmatism, using whatever is at hand to get the job done. There is no need to have or use the perfect tool.
A great example comes from an old Vice-Grips(tm) ad. The nut holding a trailer hitch ball fell off on the road and was lost. The driver could've dumped the trailer and driven for hours to find a nut and return in the hopes that the trailer was still there, but the driver faced with this problem pragmatically clamped vice-grips very tightly where the nut belonged and went on his way. The problem was creatively solved without the proper replacement part, using whatever was at hand to get the job done.. That is the essence of pragmatism.
So, as a last example, imagine that you are going camping using a wall tent, and at your campsite either break a tent pole or discover that it is already broken. There are a wide variety of pragmatic solutions to the problem. One can tie a rope to the right part of the tent and toss it over a tree branch and then tie it off. One can lash the pole together and deal with the loss of length by lashing in a stick of some kind or propping it up on something.
Available materials and inventiveness are the only limitations on the possible pragmatic solutions.Simply saying "screw it, lets go to a motel" is not a pragmatic solution, it is bailing, running away from the problem, avoiding the problem, and not solving the problem. A course of action in the face of a problem which does not solve the problem is not pragmatic with respect to the problem.
I hope this helps.