It reminds me of German sociologist Max Weber's famous passage in his essay "Politics as a Vocation" (1919):<p>"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.<p>[...]<p>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"<p>Source: <a href="http://anthropos-lab.net/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Weber-Politics-as-a-Vocation.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://anthropos-lab.net/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Weber...</a> (public domain)
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....
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