Let's try with this:
quote:
It's how to get there that's the problem.
Exactly so. Everything you wish to achieve is (largely) irrelevant without at least a tentative path to the goal. It doesn't matter how well-intentioned your propositions, if you cannot say "and to attempt to achieve this goal Z, we must start by doing X, which should lead to Y and, finally, Z" then, it's just like saying 1. steal underpants, 2., 3. profit!
Pragmatism: One accepts the world is the way it is right now, one can recognise it is imperfect and that billions of people could benefit from major changes in the way things work, but that if one wishes to make any real difference, one must find a point of leverage - a fulcrum - get behind it and push. But also be careful what the other end of the lever is pushing, that the effects of one's efforts will not be counter-productive and that one is also pushing against the right object; one which stands a chance of moving with the potential wielded, that one is not swimming against the tide. One might be completely right and in possession of the "full facts" but it will do no good in certain situations. One recognises that until any possible future stage when pan-human education levels have reached a significantly higher average than the present (a second enlightenment perhaps, but vaguely utopian and distant) then thing will tend to get done only as a result of violence or populism - carrot or stick.
This is by no means a definition of pragmatism, but it roughly but I would say one who fulfils those qualities (or at least a good number of them) would be pragmatic and, frustrating as it is (since I'm a born idealist), pragmatism is absolutely and utterly essential in making change happen.