

Nedstarkism - webjac
http://webjac.com/2013/07/nedstarkism/

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jhh
It reminds me of German sociologist Max Weber's famous passage in his essay
"Politics as a Vocation" (1919):

"We must be clear about the fact that all ethically oriented conduct may be
guided by one of two fundamentally differing and irreconcilably opposed
maxims: conduct can be oriented to an 'ethic of ultimate ends' or to an 'ethic
of responsibility.' This is not to say that an ethic of ultimate ends is
identical with irresponsibility, or that an ethic of responsibility is
identical with unprincipled opportunism. Naturally nobody says that. However,
there is an abysmal contrast between conduct that follows the maxim of an
ethic of ultimate ends--that is, in religious terms, 'The Christian does
rightly and leaves the results with the Lord'\--and conduct that follows the
maxim of an ethic of responsibility, in which case one has to give an account
of the foreseeable results of one's action.

[...]

If an action of good intent leads to bad results, then, in the actor's eyes,
not he but the world, or the stupidity of other men, or God's will who made
them thus, is responsible for the evil. However a man who believes in an ethic
of responsibility takes account of precisely the average deficiencies of
people; as Fichte has correctly said, he does not even have the right to
presuppose their goodness and perfection"

Source: [http://anthropos-lab.net/wp/wp-
content/uploads/2011/12/Weber...](http://anthropos-lab.net/wp/wp-
content/uploads/2011/12/Weber-Politics-as-a-Vocation.pdf) (public domain)

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kamakazizuru
I do believe the intelligent folk around here can handle a discussion on
pragmatism vs. righteousness without needing a sugar coating of b.s. pop
culture labelling it nedstarkism....

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webjac
You're right. Funny thing though, my wife made up the name watching Game of
Thrones. Ever since then we've been calling it "nedstarkism" in the family.
We've been using it for a couple of years now, it was not meant to be
sugarcoating, it's just the name we've been using for it :)

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aa0
Another such dilemma is lecturing vs querying. In the quest to explore the
topic of Righteousness vs Pragmatism, the author becomes deceivingly director-
like. It'd be more pragmatic of him to explore the topic without spewing out
one-all advice

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webjac
Thanks for your comment. After reading your comment I re-read it and you're
right, I was to director-like. Anyway it's already done, but I'll keep in mind
to have a more exploratory tone in future articles. I, by no means, was trying
to give directives. The whole article itself goes against the idea of
following established rules, I'm no one to tell anybody what to do or how to
act

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aa0
It's all good mate, it happens to the best of us. Being objective is tough to
maintain when writing pieces out of passionate opinion. I thoroughly enjoyed
the article and do think your advice is mostly spot on except towards the end.
I can reiterate the article if you are interested in my disagreements.

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warcode
I always felt that "My rights end where yours begin" was the perfect center of
pragmatism vs righteousness.

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webjac
Nice policy

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numeromancer
Of course, his list of rules on when not to be pragmatic are subject to change
at any time.

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webjac
Hehe, don't think of it as rules, think of them as guidelines. I tried to find
the things that I've found are eternal, but then again, I'm no super-wise man

