350. Purists in the Ointment

Get a rash — of pollutants in the atmosphere, of terrorists in the sky, of Trumpists in the presidential campaign — go for the ointment, and oh no, there's a purist in it.

Purists are one-value absolutists, sold on a single principle and never to be bought out.  Like absolute freedom of speech, by which they plague ACLU boards, or by the absolute purity of nature, by which they plague environmental groups, or by absolute dedication to liberal values, by which they plague the Democratic Party.

Right now the rash of Trumpists has our closest attention, and deservedly so.  It's virulent, and spreading.  Hillary goes for the practical remedy, Co-optation Ointment, and lordy it's full of  Bernie Sanders flies.  You'll never apply it smoothly, Hillary.

ACLU boards know all about purists.  In 1940 they insisted, against the majority, on the right to keep communists on their board no matter what the evidence of the Communist Party's intent to overthrow democratic governments by infiltrating their liberal institutions.  There were to be no blacklists, no giving away liberty for security.

In 2004 they threw the board into turmoil over lists of suspected supporters of terrorism, to be taken as guides to hiring.  No lists, no lists of people who shouldn't be allowed on airplanes, no lists at all.  As for keeping suspected terrorists out of the ACLU in order to hang on to a revenue privilege from the government, "no amount of money is worth violating our principles'' (NYT, 7-31-04).

The environmentalists, I see, have been blessed by the willing departure of one of these purists, or (to experienced committee members) pains in the ass.  For leading activist Paul Kingsnorth the movement had quit worrying about "protection of the non-human world," nature, and had started worrying about social justice, human beings, something called sustainability. "I withdraw from the campaigning and the marching, I withdraw from the arguing.... I withdraw from the words. I am leaving. I am going to go out walking" (London  Review, 8-11-16).  A rare case of a fly unsticking itself from the ointment and bugging out on its own.

A purist is a species of sluggard, an unwilling thinker.  Get one principle that guarantees your virtue and whew, back to your bed.  No more of those painful distinctions and gravelly specifics.

That's bed for the mind.  The body can go on to throw blood into files, burn down ROTC buildings, or trash research labs.  Carrying its goodness guarantee in the other hand.

The purist reasons not by logic but by association.  He tastes ideas.  A no-fly list "smacks of" blacklists.  He hears sounds of evil.   A terrorist list "evokes eerie echoes of our McCarthy-era past" (Stan Furman, ACLU).  He is the opposite of the accountant, demanding the specifics of every action, balancing the cost against the benefit, and facing all trade-offs.  Our most impure thinker.

I don't know how many purists there are on Hillary Clinton's staff, but by her failure to take the practical remedy, moving clearly and firmly to the center (where she can turn unhappy Republicans into Clinton Republicans) she shows that there must be a few, with some influence.

What they need is a sales pitch on our ointment.  It smells bad, it often stings, but it works.  You just have to get it on in time, with an even smear.  You can't do that if there are a bunch of flies in it.  So, purists, get with the treatment or get off Hillary's staff.