Pragmatism is all the rage. It could be the word of 2026 if we make it to December. Mark Carney didn’t invent it in his myth-busting Davos speech but if Carlsberg did words, that’s how it would do it. A David circling the Philistine Goliath before a roomful of billionaires and elites, promoting a “realism” that is both “principled” and “pragmatic”. And getting a rare standing ovation for it.
News headlines confirm the word’s world domination ever since. Japan: an island of pragmatism in a sea of drama. Brussels, edging towards pragmatism over nuclear energy. Tusk in Kyiv: security, energy, economy and a new pragmatism. It has infiltrated every area from “judicial pragmatism” (the president of the European Court of Human Rights) to Steve Borthwick’s Rugby World Cup strategy (“A lesson in pragmatism and plagiarism”) and – surely the clincher – a candidate’s manifesto for the Trinity College students’ union presidency (“From Protest to Pragmatism: Jacob Barron’s Vision for the SU”).
It makes sense in a shattering world. Pragmatism implies reasonableness, openness, flexibility, compromise. There are no absolutes, no final answers. Nothing can be detached from its context. Focus on outcomes rather than process, on real-world consequences over theory.
Although Stripe’s John Collison didn’t use the word in his viral Irish Times essay, he was hailed for pragmatism-adjacent terms such as “difficult trade-offs” and the ultra-slippery “common sense”.
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That’s the appeal of pragmatism; it can mean almost anything to anyone. Carney tempered the word by coupling it with “principled” and few doubted his good faith. When he landed in Davos he had just firmed up minor trade deals in China and Qatar involving electric cars and canola seed. “We actively take on the world as it is, not wait around for a world we wish to be,” he said. In other words, stop pretending that such deals are about anything but self-interest. Good luck, Jimmy Lai.
That’s pragmatism in a nutshell. A middle power forced into an urgent pivot from its nearest neighbour and largest trading partner (responsible for 62.2 per cent of trade compared with China, its next largest, responsible for just under 8 per cent) has little choice.
What Carney did so eloquently was find creative ways of saying needs must; as in “calibrating our relationships, so their depth reflects our values”. Meanwhile, ordinary Canadians with so much to lose are boycotting US products off the shelves and taking their holidays anywhere but the US. That’s worth the attention of an Irish audience who may be wondering when we propose to calibrate our relationships to reflect our values.
Do our values reflect the abduction and detention of five-year-olds such as Liam Conejo Ramos (whose deportation the US is seeking to expedite); the street execution of American citizens; Trump’s violently racist clip portraying the Obamas as apes; the five-month detention in a Texan Ice facility – described by Joyce Carol Oates as a “concentration camp”- of Seamus Culleton, an Irishman with no criminal record married to an American?
[ Ice detention camp, where Irishman is held, under scrutiny for unexplained deathsOpens in new window ]
Imagine how Americans would react if, say, Emmanuel Macron was using goon squads to snatch US citizens off the streets of Paris for criticising him? Are Americans aware that visa requirements for the US now include a surrender of all social media from the last five years? Do they know that just 14 per cent (according to internal department of homeland security documents obtained by CBS) of the hundreds of thousands of human beings grabbed by regime thugs are violent criminals?
Every one of these examples is abhorrent itself. Every single one demands a Canadian-style recalibration of our relationship with the Trump White House. Yet we discuss the niceties of the St Patrick’s Day invitation as if it were a mere diplomatic courtesy.
Last Friday, Conor McGregor – fit by Trump standards to represent the Irish nation in the White House last St Patrick’s Day – posted pictures of himself knee to knee with US health secretary Robert F Kennedy. With great deliberation, this White House has shattered all courtesies, civilised norms and traditions.
Fewer than half of us believe the Taoiseach should accept the St Patrick’s Day invitation to the White House, according to last week’s Irish Times/Ipsos B&A opinion poll. By a two-to-one margin, we do not want Trump invited to Doonbeg for the Irish Open this year. Reconciling the two positions in practical terms – for a narcissistic golf nut whose ego, to quote himself, required that he win the 2020 election – would make for an intriguing workshop.
The presentation of shamrock to the White House, a tradition that began as an Irish effort to improve US-Irish relations after the second World War, is now about as symbolic as a Melania meme coin. It’s true that by accepting the invitation, we are no worse than many other states who’ve had to grovel to the king. If Volodymyr Zelenskiy can do it, repeatedly, without punching someone in the face, so can we. But he in all his desperation has never debased himself by sidling up to the Oval throne with a bowl of sunflowers.
With the Obama clip, a line has surely been crossed. As with many rogue regimes, a level of diplomatic engagement can surely be maintained without the studied humiliation of presenting our national emblem to an autocrat.
