A few weeks ago, I participated in the following conversation on Twitter, which has had me thinking about the proper role of ideology in politics ever since. It began with a tweet from Jeremy Votaw about how he was tired of dealing with ideologues. Blogger Connor Boyack joined in, and things proceeded from there:
@curtbentley
Me too. But I’m pretty sure we’ve always been a nation of ideologues, occasionally forced into compromise @jeremyvotaw #utpol@cboyack
@curtbentley @jeremyvotaw How inconvenient, that ideology stuff. Great things, continual compromise has brought us…@curtbentley
@cboyack @jeremyvotaw Ideology does all the reasoning up front in the abstract and ignores real world implications.@cboyack
@curtbentley @jeremyvotaw It doesn’t ignore it. It just advocates principled solutions that few are willing to embrace.@curtbentley
@cboyack @jeremyvotaw With emphasis on the “principle” and less emphasis on the “solution”@cboyack
@jeremyvotaw . . . I simply argue that principle should not be sacrificed in pursuit of “solution” simply because it’s agreeable.
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