A Man Must Do What He Must: Hammett's Pragmatism (2009)(thrillingdetective.com) |
A Man Must Do What He Must: Hammett's Pragmatism (2009)(thrillingdetective.com) |
"Nobody thinks clearly, no matter what they pretend. Thinking's a dizzy business, a matter of catching as many of those foggy glimpses as you can and fitting them together the best you can. That's why people hang on so tight to their beliefs and opinions; because, compared to the haphazard way in which they arrived at, even the goofiest opinion seems wonderfully clear, sane, and self-evident. And if you let it get away from you, then you've got to dive back into that foggy muddle to wangle yourself out another to take its place.”
I didn't recognise the quote, but the author seemed familiar (Dashiell Hammett), so I looked it up and found this fascinating essay on the relationship between how Hammett's detectives thought, how Hammett himself thought, and what changed over the course of his career as his philosophical views shifted from pragmatism to Marxism.
Here's food for thought, had Ahab time to think; but Ahab never thinks; he only feels, feels, feels; that's tingling enough for mortal man! to think's audacity;
God only has that right and privilege. Thinking is, or ought to be, a coolness and a calmness; and our poor hearts throb, and our poor brains beat too much for that.
Because you cannot be both?
Marxism is a tradition of thought associated with left Hegelianism, which was an opposition to right Hegelianism. Without the latter, there might not be a basis for the former.
Right Hegelianism might be weighed as a pre-condition for Pragmatism, because it reasons that contradictions will negate themselves if sufficiently pursued, whereas Left Hegelianism reasons that the pursuit is unavoidable.