Vizzer wrote:

Priscilla wrote:

Mindset about past events does not appear to readily take firm root in opinion about history in the making.

I was thinking about this the other day when reading On the Constitution of the Church and State by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Like many of his generation (such as his friend William Wordsworth) the young Coleridge had been an enthusiastic supporter of the French Revolution in 1789 to such an extent that he espoused not only liberal ideals but even radical and revolutionary ones. He went so far as to describe himself as being 'a genuine sans culottes' at that time.

Spin forward 40 years and both Coleridge and Wordsworth were then to be seen as outspoken opponents of the Catholic Emancipation Bill of 1829. They were now espousing not only conservative views but positively reactionary ones too.

Or at least that is how we might see it from a 21st Century perspective. On the Constitution of the Church and State (1830) is certainly a rambling tome. The author of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan etc really should have stuck to poetry. But contained within it are some genuinely challenging points based on a commitment to legal consistency. His basic argument is that the proposers of the Bill do so out of desire 'to produce tranquillity' (particularly in Ireland) and he does not deny that the proposers are 'reasonable men'. He asserts, however, that their reasonable proposal is not based on principle but rather he suggests that it is based on cowardice:

With confidence, therefore, I re-assert that only by reference to a principle, possessing the characters above enumerated, can any satisfactory measure be framed, and that if this should fail to produce the tranquillity aimed at, it will be in vain sought in any other.

It reminds one that reasoned arguments can be found on either side of any political discussion. Deciding which side (if any) one comes down on can so often be based on quite random variables based on personal experience. The age of utilitarianism in the middle decades of the 19th Century would see the concepts of principle and expediency become increasingly polarised with reason being appropriated by either side. This is a phenomenon which has arguably lasted until the present day.

Vizzer,

"It reminds one that reasoned arguments can be found on either side of any political discussion. Deciding which side (if any) one comes down on can so often be based on quite random variables based on personal experience. The age of utilitarianism in the middle decades of the 19th Century would see the concepts of principle and expediency become increasingly polarised with reason being appropriated by either side. This is a phenomenon which has arguably lasted until the present day."

I see in your last paragraph two  different parts:
First:
"It reminds one that reasoned arguments can be found on either side of any political discussion. Deciding which side (if any) one comes down on can so often be based on quite random variables based on personal experience."
Second:
"The age of utilitarianism in the middle decades of the 19th Century would see the concepts of principle and expediency become increasingly polarised with reason being appropriated by either side. This is a phenomenon which has arguably lasted until the present day."
Am I right?

""It reminds one that reasoned arguments can be found on either side of any political discussion. Deciding which side (if any) one comes down on can so often be based on quite random variables based on personal experience."

This year we have again compulsory (in Belgium) polls for the municipalities and I guess (have to check) also for the provinces. And especially in the cities and also on the countryside they are a foreshadowing of the choice of the federal (the whole country) polls of next year.
And yes all parties have "reasoned arguments" in their program but a lot of populism too. The populism content differs perhaps from the extremes: far right and far left to the more moderate centrum, traditional still the christian democrats, the socialists and the liberals. For me the extremes were always not my kettle of fish, perhaps as you said; can be based on quite random variables from personal experience and in my case from reading history...as for instance the thread about "Hannah Arendt" here on this forum some threads earlier...and I reckon the Greens, allthough sometimes also populist, but who is it not, with the Socialists.
Then comes the choice between the tripartite.
The socialists are still too extreme for me, as they will still as their communist brothers, make the "State" compulsory and regulating for each aspect of life, as for instance economic behaviour of its citizens.
The liberals seem to be the other side of the coin, just the opposite of the socialists.
Remains the christian-democrats, who take a bit of both sides, perhaps more from the centrum left, while if one lets do the capitalists the average citizen will be always the dupe.
And it is in my eyes not surprizing that Merkel still have a large chunk of the voters in Germany.
And from that I will vote for the "centrum" in both polls.
But I can easely understand that I am only one of the few, who reason about their choice, most follow what the populist say or what comes most in the papers. As I see it on the moment in my inner circle, from lets say 100 people, most are not interesting in politics and are by that an easy target for slogans, as explained in my "Hannah Arendt" thread here on the same forum.

"The age of utilitarianism in the middle decades of the 19th Century would see the concepts of principle and expediency become increasingly polarised with reason being appropriated by either side. This is a phenomenon which has arguably lasted until the present day."

Vizzer after all my years on English language fora, I had still to seek for "expediency". In my Collins paperback they say: "the use of methods that are adventageous rather than fair or just"
Do you mean with:"the concepts of principle and expediency become increasingly polarised with reason"
"principle and expediency" as antagonists? And then: that with reason they got polarized?
If you mean that, I find the real politicians have many times to set back their principles, while they have for reasons to proceed further have to compromise with other politicians on "pragmatic" ways.
In that I see from history:
Bismark's Realpolitik
The pragmatic Charles II
His grandfather the French Henri IV (Paris vaut bien une messe)

And as such I find pragmatism among politicians not such a bad quality as to come to a compromise (as the very well known "Compromis des Belges"

For fear of losing my message (still not using nordmann's recommandation ) I will add the Bismarck link in addendum.

Kind regards from Paul.

Addendum:
https://789839655772307049.weebly.com/realpolitik.html

The Philosophy of Realpolitik



Realpolitik is a strong-minded political philosophy employed by many political thinkers from the Renaissance up until the 20th century. The word is quite literal, Realpolitik just means Real Politic In English, as in practical or actual political practice. The idea seems to be coined by Niccolo Machiavelli, though Realpolitik is the German word that originates from 19th century German writer Ludwig von Rochau.
Realpolitik is the idea of practical government. Though based primarily on power, realism and pragmatism are both exercised by this concept. One could say it evolved from the idea of reason that came about centuries before, even in ancient Greece, where Plato wrote about concepts similar to those employed by Realpolitik.
Unlike prior political philosophy, realpolitik does not follow certain ideologies or explicit notions that are based on moral or ethic concepts

Second addendum.
Forgot to add my comment before tapping on send.

From this survey I find that "Realpolitik" is too strong a form of pragmatism, at the very end there are still "principles" on which one can't compromise. In my humble opinion...

Kind regards from Paul.

PaulRyckier wrote:

Do you mean with:"the concepts of principle and expediency become increasingly polarised with reason"
"principle and expediency" as antagonists? And then: that with reason they got polarized?
If you mean that, I find the real politicians have many times to set back their principles, while they have for reasons to proceed further have to compromise with other politicians on "pragmatic" ways.

My meaning is that someone who claims to act from a position of principle and someone who claims to act in the interests of expediency can both use reason to support their respective positions. The ageing Coleridge in 1830 probably didn't see himself as a conservative reactionary or even as someone who had changed his mind. As far as he was concerned he was being consistent. In his opinion it was the Catholic Church which was a reactionary force and his opposition to Catholic emancipation was merely upholding the liberal order. For him Catholic emancipation was a retrograde step which was an affront to the Whig narrative - i.e. the view that England and the rest of the world was on a upward journey of enlightenment and that superstitions and oppressions were slowly but surely being dispelled and eradicated.

Similarly the proponents of Catholic emancipation would equally have claimed that they too were displaying reason in that by being confident about bringing Catholics in from the cold they were proving the strength of the liberal order and emphasising the triumph of the enlightenment. Both points of view are valid and both are rational in their own way.

Vizzer, thank you very much for your enlightenment, but too late today to reply in an elaborated way...

Kind regards from Paul.

Vizzer,

"My meaning is that someone who claims to act from a position of principle and someone who claims to act in the interests of expediency can both use reason to support their respective positions. The ageing Coleridge in 1830 probably didn't see himself as a conservative reactionary or even as someone who had changed his mind. As far as he was concerned he was being consistent. In his opinion it was the Catholic Church which was a reactionary force and his opposition to Catholic emancipation was merely upholding the liberal order. For him Catholic emancipation was a retrograde step which was an affront to the Whig narrative - i.e. the view that England and the rest of the world was on a upward journey of enlightenment and that superstitions and oppressions were slowly but surely being dispelled and eradicated.

Similarly the proponents of Catholic emancipation would equally have claimed that they too were displaying reason in that by being confident about bringing Catholics in from the cold they were proving the strength of the liberal order and emphasising the triumph of the enlightenment. Both points of view are valid and both are rational in their own way."

Do I understand it well, if I say:

Coleridge was the man of the principles and in my opinion his reasoning was right, while in principle the dogmatism of the Catholic church, who told their members what they had to believe and how to handle, was in direct conflict with the free thought principles of the Liberal movement, which indeed followed the Enlightenment.
We had the same struggle in Belgium after 1830 between the Catholics and the Liberals. And it was only settled in the Fifties, when the then CVP (Christian Volk's Party) became gradually a Socio-democratic party, without the dogmatism of before.
In the Netherlands in the second half of the 19th century it was even worser between the Protestants (and Catholics) and the Liberals.

And the proponents of the Catholic emancipation were expediënt, while they set apart their Catholic dogmatism to go the way together with the Liberals, the Enlightenment way?

And both their attitudes were based on reason?

Kind regards from Paul.