Principle is a joint. Laws are the bones. Principles and laws together are the sceletons around which bodies are built.

Pragmatism is soft. It’s the meat. It gives in under pressure. Yet it enables action. Priciples don’t enable action, they don’t block it either, they just restrict it. Under principles not every move is allowed.

The bones are different. They give structure, yet bones without principles encroach. Joints are needed so that the bones can be bent. Laws are supposed to be bent, but with principles intact. With principles broken, one is in deep shit.

Principles without pragmatism are dead. Pragmatism without principles is not dead, but is an amoeba. Nothing very complex comes out of an amoeba.*

Spineless people are the ones without the keychain. The spine is an amazing column made of bones, the vertebrae, and the joints between the bones, the vertebrae discs. The vertebrae and the discs form a chainlike structure of principled flexi-rigidity, truly and amazing combination of laws and law-bending rules, that is the actual keychain to life of modern animals, the vertebrae from fish onwards to lizards, aviary, and mammals.

Now go, and try to liken the above metaphoric symbolism to national states, the judicial system, and maybe put in business as well. Have fun.