One quick thought, although late to this party, and I really like Prof Foland’s idea about idealism for finding the goals. And pragmatism for working toward them. And it fits with what I wanted to say after reading your post and other comments:

Seems to me that “empathy” is part of an “ethic of care” rather than an ethic of rules and regulations (springing from ideological assumptions perhaps). To me the most important thing about empathy is that is brings us to our common humanity. To the dignity of each and all.

Obama, in my view, sees the larger picture. He is not constrained by the “picture” that people used to go to war or whatever the issue might be. His mind says… hey, we don’t need to “see” things that way just because that’s the way they’ve been seen in the past. Let’s take a larger perspective. Let’s put that issue into a larger perspective – and now we can see it differently.

And I suspect the larger perspective is what I have called the “ethic of care” or “our common humanity” and a search for “win-win” policies. So I’m suspecting that in making his choices for people to lead as part of his team, he’s looking for people who can make those leaps – who can revision a new or better “playing field” which allows for win-win, based on empathy for our common humanity.

But when you use the word ideology, you’re invoking a more cynical concept.

OK, accepting for sake of argument that when it comes to FP, cynicism reigns. But the reason Americans remember “Icht ein Berliner” (and Germans, and everyone else) is that it reached beyond cynicism. This is why Kennedy was great. It’s also one reason why the Right canonized Reagan–with his “tear down this wall” and “ash heap of history”. These were ideological statements that resonated deeply with many americans.

Again, imo, Obama won’t be a great president unless he articulates an ideology. Nor will he repair our standing internationally without clear ideological statements that demonstrate that Bush policies are truly repudiated and gone. Simply being competent and pragmatic won’t take him and us back where we want to be, internationally.

Call it vision–great. But when you use the word ideology, you’re invoking a more cynical concept.

There’s a big difference between no ideology and no vision and simple competence.

Wiki sez:

An ideology is a set of beliefs, aims and ideas, especially in politics. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things (compare Weltanschauung), as in common sense (see Ideology in everyday society below) and several philosophical tendencies (see Political ideologies), or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to all members of this society.

I agree competence doesn’t even enter into the equation. But I may differ with you on “vision” and “ideology”. To me, they are largely similar.

I’m arguing that americans want more than competence. they also want an american ideology.

Should anyone have an interest, back in August I wrote up some of my (mathematics-inspired) thoughts about the intersection of pragmatism and idealism; at the time, it was pointed towards the Georgia debacle. It tries to lay out a framework for making decisions about the “best path to maximization” that I mention above.

My own conclusion:

This is, as it turns out, just a math problem. The result is the Kelly formula. When the expected value of the stake is positive, you stake a fraction of your resources…

However, when the expected payout is negative (i.e. bp-q is negative), you do nothing….

Let me put it another way. If an Administration is arguing that one side is all SAL [Sweetness And Light] and the other side the Prince of Evil, that our foreign policy is to support people who are SAL, and that by intervening we might be able to improve the SAL of the world–even if you uncritically accept all of those assertions, that is still not a case for any particular action one way or another.

But, to some degree, a straw horse has been made here, that the arguments about ideology and pragmatism are concentrated on foreign policy – which I don’t think is true. And that is the first step to misunderstanding why the questions of ideology are coming up.

When I wrote this, I was responding to Glenn, who was talking specifically about foreign policy.

Frankly, I agree with Ian that everyone is either a keynsian or a monetarist, and frankly, I’m disturbed about Rubin’s presence in the neighborhood.

As to domestic policy (note, I did say I was going to return to this), Obama has nominated a number of people who are progressives in the domestic policy sphere. Obviously, there are some big ones still open, there, but some of the key figures are very progressive, or very keen to implement health care and the like.

My point here was that the treatment of ideology (as distinct from beliefs or values or world view), we wouldn’t want Obama to ascribe to ideologies that govern US foreign policy.