They Say: "Don't Let the Perfect be the Enemy of the Good!"

[Land Shark]

So often, we hear: "Don't let the Perfect be the enemy of the Good!"

But if what they are calling "Perfect" is more particularly described as reasonable and consistent, and if what they call "Good" can be more particularly described as inconsistent, illogical or half-assed, isn't the reasonable and consistent pretty much always "the enemy of" the unreasonable, the inconsistent, the illogical or the merely half-assed?

Under those situations where "the Good" can be fairly described in more particular terms like those above, I (rhetorically) wonder what it means to not allow the Perfect to be the enemy of the Good?

I answer: it means to become friends with contradiction and friends with the cognitive dissonance of tacitly accepting that the illogical is somehow on good terms with logic and the logical.

on edit: I'm not claiming that under no circumstances may one hold one's nose and vote for something anyway. But I am saying that the perfect is always the "enemy" of the Good, or rather the perfect always calls out to the good to get its act together the right way. But, I note that it is the supporters of the merely "Good" that must hold their nose at their own compromise - they clearly should not be holding their nose at "the Perfect" or at the supporters of the "Perfect."

[derby378]

1. That sort of reasoning only works in the military

I think it was a Soviet naval officer who came up with the original version: "Better" is the enemy of "good enough."

[Land Shark]

3. Another corollary is "good enough for government work" (in other words, not very good at all) nt

[kentuck]

2. kick

:kick:

[leveymg]

4. Excellent riposte to a lame and overused truism - how good is it, anyway?

Perfect doesn't exist, not in the real world. Few sane people mistake the two.

It's an admonition to always accept inferior results. Enough of that bullshit. We don't accept it from our enemies, why should we accept it from our avowed friends, particularly those who we helped elect?

[2 Much Tribulation]

5. Perfect may not exist in real world, but it is the guide-star for good actions. Example:

Perfect honesty doesn't exist in the real world, but if we abandon the guide-star of the ideal of Honesty (all ideals being in a sense "perfect") then we are not just lost without a moral compass, but wouldn't know ourselves when we were lying or telling the truth and thus would meet the definition of pathological liar.

[leveymg]

6. I know a lie when I hear it, but don't claim to be perfect.

Why does one need to consult with some hierarchy of ideals in order to function in the real world? Moral reason operates on a much more intuitive level than that. Thank goodness - or am I being too referential there?

[Land Shark]

7. It seems your response "don't claim to be perfect" implies both the ideal as well as your status

relative to that ideal. So, perhaps the concept is not so threatening to you since you just gave a perfect example of its operation. The threat, or at least perceived threat, is from those who would dispense with ideals per se as "pollyanna" or something - this leaves people lost and disoriented. One may, of course, freely choose their own ideals but we all have ideals, and we all have overlap on some of the basic ideas.

I think you're right that moral reason is hard-wired and operates more intuitively and evensometimes at the level of emotion. But that doesn't mean that it doesn't have a cognitive level or can't be processed cognitively or philosophically.

[leveymg]

9. The perfect is ineluctable on every level, otherwise it wouldn't be an Aristotelean ideal

Never said it was threatening, just unrealizable by us mortals. That's what makes it so attractive for some who wish to make a better world, and why it sucks to settle for so much less.

It particularly sucks that it's not only ineluctable, its in-electable in America, and ideals have so little practical impact in our politics.

[Land Shark]

17. Even though not perfectly achievable, nevertheless we're screwed without it

That's the paradox of the perfect and why the example of stars is good: we will never perfectly reach the stars, but must use them to guide our course (or else we're lost at sea).

I disagree that ideals have so little practical impact, because I think everyone is nearly always guided by ideals, even if the ideal is hedonism. What you observe as ideals having insufficient practical impact on politics I would counter (seeing the same thing as you, I suspect) as SUBSTITUTION of non-democratic ideals such as the values of business for the high democratic ideals that we all expect to see and that public servants have a duty to live out, but instead they bow to things like business interests. High democratic ideals = UP-holdingthe Constitution. (not just complying with minimums or trying to lawyer one's way around it...)

[leveymg]

20. What distinguishes this time from the New Deal is not the lack of ideals, but too much money

and too much importance given to it by those who have plenty of it, and their insufficient understanding of what it is to be without it.

That is why either Citizen's United must be reversed, and real campaign finance imposed, or the Supreme Court and the rest of the Government of the United States are doomed to increasingly destructive irrelevance. Profitable disorder, creative destruction, managed chaos, Disaster Capitalism.

[Land Shark]

22. Interesing point. nt

[PurityOfEssence]

8. Once again: much as ideologues are trouble, AT LEAST YOU KNOW WHERE THEY STAND

The ham-fisted appeasers (note the oxymoron...) like Rahm Emanuel are possibly well-meaning apparatchiks, but maybe they're just straight-out corporatists out to co-opt and eviscerate liberalism and progress because they WANT to.

There are those who approach politics like religion: there's an assumption that must be justified even in the face of obvious proof to the contrary. Certain people are "good" and "once-in-a-generation" leaders even if their policies are little more than window-dressing and their command dynamic is one of ducking positions on things and not sticking their neck out when it really counts.

Asking permission from those who are dead-set against us is foolhardy, and it's embarrassing when one has a sizable majority. It makes one wonder about the true intentions, and it makes one less respectful of the alleged courage of the people in charge.

It's one thing to be constantly harangued into accepting this molly-coddling of the conservatives as some kind of pragmatism, but to also be expected to have awe for the panache and chess-playing genius of those who can't even seem to deal directly with those who would destroy them is a hell of a stretch.

Any good negotiator knows that you start from a position well in advance of what you will be satisfied with so a few compromises still leave you in an acceptable position. Barack Obama is so terrified of being labeled "weak" that he has to pursue an idiotic disaster in Afghanistan. He's so scared of being portrayed as a socialist that he's fool enough to proudly proclaim that it's somehow honorable to have 90% of the stimulus monies go through private industry. It goes on and on, and it reeks of Bill Clinton. This is the kind of image paranoia one would expect from an actor, yet Ronald Reagan (supreme asshole that he was) didn't give a tinker's cuss what certain people thought of him. Now THAT'S a damning comparison...

[G_j]

10. great things happen when aiming for the stars

silly as that sounds, any great artist, musician, athlete, scientist etc. will tell you that by aiming for "perfection" you live up to your highest potential.

[Land Shark]

16. Exactly as you explain in your reply. yup. nt

[Starry Messenger]

11. Sounds like something straight out of a corporate training handbook.

I hate that phrase. It shows a failure to understand the role of negotiating high. It means don't disturb your betters with your nitpicky demands, but take what they allow you to have and call it ice cream.

[leveymg]

12. If you take what they hand you, that just might be a just dessert. Ice cream it ain't.

Ice cream is close to ideal. Pizza, music and sex, too. Sometimes.

[johnaries]

13. That's an awfully big "IF", and it doesn't apply to any recent case I

can think of. What I see s a lot of misinformation being thrown around even as people refuse to see the "good".

I believe in Progress. Three steps forward and two steps back is still a step forward. As Mick sang, "you can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you just might find you get what you NEED."

[BrklynLiberal]

14. Guess we need working definitions of "perfect" and "good" before we subscribe to that saying.

[Land Shark]

15. Naw. The definitions happen whenever somebody else uses the phrasein the title of the OP

There is no general definition. The phrase is abused all over the place, mostly as a substitute for thought and argument.

Or, perhaps I should have started the title above with Yup, instead of Naw. I'd say usually that which is called "good" is inconsistent ahd half-assed and therefore at war with the reasonable and consistent "perfect" alternative. But, since the phrase can be used in any context, yes, we do have to wait for its use in a particular context.

Nevertheless, I think the perfect is always calling out to the merely good to improve itself, so that seems to me to always be true. (It may not be heard, but it calls! :) )

[izquierdista]

18. Don't let the barely adequate be the enemy of the marginally effective!

[BrklynLiberal]

19. Excellent translation

[Starry Messenger]

33. This!

[Boojatta]

21. If Palin is perfect and McCain is merely good, then why shouldn't Palin

be McCain's enemy after he threw away Palin's chance to graduate from Governor of Alaska to Vice President of the USA? I am truly sorry about McCain's time in captivity in Vietnam, but I don't see how that excuses his failure to once and for all time put to rest the rumors by proving that he isn't an immigrant, but is eligible to hold the office of President.

[alfredo]

23. A person with political opinions like me would never be elected.

So I guess I find the one closest to where I am politically. They just happen to be Democrats. 99.9% are to the right of me, but what can I do?

[Land Shark]

24. define with principled clarity what it takes to earn your vote, then stick to it

I"m not so sure someone like you can't be elected. At least with enough charisma. ;) Since I haven't met you in person I'm agnostic on that. ;)

[alfredo]

30. I smoke dope, hang out with some old Marxist, been

promiscuous, lived in a tent, dropped out of society for a decade, refuse to shave, I have a dirty mouth, class warrior, hate wearing a suit, and don't like being around those who do.

[Land Shark]

36. You've not mentioned your actual platform other than "class warrior" so I wouldn't rule it out

in any event, as soon as you get a plurality plus one vote, you win the election. Class warrior, if handled with finesse, is not per se a losing platform at all (in a fair, transparent election at least) It's just populism, with a few doses of steroids.

[alfredo]

37. No, my platform is smoking dope, hanging out with Marxist,

and all those other things.

A class warrior Libertine that is media shy would have a tough time at the polls.

[Land Shark]

43. Media shy? Now you're really toast! ;)

But you take some good pictures, so that's the start of a decent media campaign! ;)

[alfredo]

45. Thanks. But turn the camera on me and I want to climb

into a hole.

[BzaDem]

25. The problem is that what you consider to be "inconsistent, illogical, or half-assed" actually isn't.

Of course, the way you put the decision, you are correct.

The problem is not with your straw-man-like decision. The problem is how you apply the question to bills. For example, HCR was clearly reasonable and consistent. It was certainly not unreasonable, inconsistent, illogical, or merely half-assed. If you were to describe HCR as any of the 4 latter terms, you would be wrong in that description. So the problem isn't with your question -- it would be with your application of your question to HCR (if you described it that way).

When most people say "don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good," they clearly mean don't let perfection be the enemy of GOOD bills (such as HCR, FinReg, the stimulus, etc.) Not some hypothetical "unreasonable, inconsistent, illogical, or merely half-assed bills" that don't actually exist.

[Land Shark]

27. As you say: "the way you put the decision, you are correct"

The particulars will dictate whether the bulk of the OP applies with force. It won't always apply. But what DOES always apply is that the Perfect always does call out to the Good to make itself better. But as you imply, what is called "good" is not always illogical or inconsistent.

The majority of the time, in my experience, the phrase "perfect be the enemy of the good" is misused as a substitute for facts and argument, even when the bulk of the OP doesn't apply. It deserves therefore to be retired, IMO.

[BzaDem]

28. Perhaps. But I have seen the phrase used correctly many times.

In fact, I have mainly seen the phrase used in proper ways (such as for HCR and FinReg, both which have a tremendous amount of good).

On the other hand, I rarely see it used in incorrect ways. I could think of some hypothetical where it would be used incorrectly (such as a bill that, say, cuts the number of the insured, or deregulates the financial industry), but I can't really think of when it has been used this way.

[Land Shark]

35. Like I said, all depends on the specifics. It's not misused only in "hypothetical" situations

But let's say you're right and it is not often misused - this approach will move the debate out of the meaningless soundbite used to try to end debate, and get us back to the real issues of what is the good or what is the 'perfect' and does the bill or proposal at hand meet our ideas of the good or the perfect. And that's a good thing, or a perfect thing, isn't it?

[Greyhound]

26. K&R. It also neatly circumvents criticism by implying that the not-perfect is, in fact, good

when most often it is used in discussions wherein the very bad being passed off as the best we could get.

:kick: & R

[Stevenmarc]

29. The mantra of the mediocre

[NuttyFluffers]

31. corollary: "and furthermore, don't let people sell you that bad or neutral is good."

yea, I get what you are saying. compromise can only occur between two different goods or two different evils (or neutrals). if one group attempts too much compromise that changes their actions into no-longer-good, then there is no reason to choose the no-longer-good choice. and people are free to come to their own terms of what defines good and bad in their own best interest (very important point).

no one should be bullied into disenfranchisement.

[AnArmyVeteran]

32. It says in the Preamble, "...in order to form a more 'gooder' union..."

Don't you remember? If perfect is the enemy of the good, then what is good the enemy of? Saying 'perfect is the enemy of the good' is like saying let's just accept any crap we're given and shut up. Any real leaders would not ever make such a ridiculous statement unless they are eager to sell out the people and our country.

[Land Shark]

34. You're right! I looked it up, and it does NOT say more Perfect! ; ) nt

[Arkana]

38. We say that because no bill that ever comes out of Congress is ever, ever going to be perfect.

And yet you and yours disparage them and put them down because they're not.

But Social Security and Medicare weren't perfect when they were passed either--and look at them now.

[Land Shark]

42. Sometimes it seems the patriot act seems perfect, but not in a "good" way. nt

[Joe Chi Minh]

39. Perhaps to aim low is to tempt Providence, since fortune famously tends to favours the brave.

The thought of aiming low and still failing, should be an incentive to pursue courageous goals, shouldn't it?

[SOS]

40. Let the good be the enemy of

lobbyist-written, Wall Street lackey, sell-out legislation.

[LWolf]

41. The "perfect" has never been on the table to begin with.

The lesser evil IS the enemy of the good.

[sendero]

44. Here lately it should be "don't let what you were promised..

... and expecting be the enemy of the might be good".

[AnArmyVeteran]

46. Very true...