Too many idealists

[Poki]

Balance is good just like everything in life

 

[ZNP-TBA]

Balance is good just like everything in life

I disagree. I don't think a balanced treatment of one's wife by buying her a car one day and beating her the next day is particularly good.

 

[Poki]

I disagree. I don't think a balanced treatment of one's wife by buying her a car one day and beating her the next day is particularly good.

That's not balanced. Is a car really worth a beating to you? Now a guy beats his wife one day and someone else equivalently bigger and meaner beats the shit out of him for it. That's balanced so is not doing it in the first place.

 

[Litsnob]

Too many/much of anything is by definition not a good thing. At least we can see the bias in the question right from the start. Nobody is pure realist or pure idealist and we just hope and attempt to get the balance right. There will never be agreement, there will never be peace, but we have to at least try for it.

 

[Lark]

As long as a society has abundance (1st worlders) there will be those who have the resource of 'time' to spend on idealism. If you're too busy putting food on the table or moving up the socio/economic ladder you will prioritize your time differently. It's a Maslow thing

e.g. Hurricane Karina, if you lived there when it happened do you think the idealists were idealizing? Hell no they weren't, they were busy finding food/water, shelter, a gun

It's also why 3rd world poverty is so intractable. They need socio/economic/political change but they are too busy surviving to care/worry about politics.

That we even have the time to debate, discuss these kinds of matters just goes to show ya

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs

Pssst. I've mentioned this before in some other thread... but the above is why feminism doesn't and won't work in 3rd world countries and why it's so prevalent in 1st world countries.

Personally I like Maslow and think that hierarchising can be useful means of conceiving of human needs and the drives towards their satisfaction, although, what do you think about case such as persons experiencing anorexia? Or perhaps that is not exactly the example I'm looking for, what about aesthetic persons? Such as those who for spiritual reasons deny themselves the basics of the pyramid?

 

[Masokissed]

Society is too realistic and people are too idealistic. Turn it around and it might work.

 

[Ursa]

Why equate realism with pragmatism? Maybe realism is a healthy balance between pragmatism and idealism.

 

[Kanra Jest]

Too many idealists. Yes.

Need to balance out with more realists.

We need to be more logical as a culture. Not so stuck on our ideals to a blinding degree that we cannot compensate.

 

[ataru]

Are too many idealists instead of realists toxic to society?

Depends on what you mean

 

[Kullervo]

Idealism can mean a lot of different things. Many people, myself included, are highly idealistic in how we view ourselves, yet we don't view the world around us in such a light.

What jix is talking about, I suspect, is progressive Utopianism. This is basically the belief that history is directional, and man is on a spiritual journey towards a state of moral perfection. Progressives of this sort (the majority of them now, I think) believe that advances in technology are proof that fundamental changes in the human condition are also possible. In other words, such people imagine that it will be possible to eliminate war, famine, disease, hatred, and so on, if we can only change X, Y and Z beliefs. From one angle or another, I've critiqued this mentality ever since I was first here. This ideology has been put into practice before (e.g. the USSR, Communist China, Cuba and North Korea) and the people who had it forced upon them suffered greatly. History teaches us that Utopians almost always make the problems they set out to solve worse. "Lofty ideals gone wrong" is a constant refrain in dystopian fiction like 1984.

The current conflict in the Middle East is a case in point. Most progressives/neocons/warmongers assume there aren't any real differences between the people living in Syria, Iraq and Libya, and them. Thus, they dreamed of "spreading democracy" and pitted insurgents against the dictators who oppressed them, in a hope that we'd all see an outburst of new, oh-so-multicultural Marx and Friedian reading Arab nations. Fast forward to today, and we have created power vacuums left and right, unending civil wars and a warlike theocracy which uses chemical and biological weapons against its enemies. As I, of course, predicted...

Have the Utopian crowd listened and learned? Of course not.

This is the problem. We are fighting an upwind battle against totally irrational people who can't be reasoned or negotiated with.

 

[Mole]

Idealism can mean a lot of different things. Many people, myself included, are highly idealistic in how we view ourselves, yet we don't view the world around us in such a light.

What jix is talking about, I suspect, is progressive Utopianism. This is basically the belief that history is directional, and man is on a spiritual journey towards a state of moral perfection. Progressives of this sort (the majority of them now, I think) believe that advances in technology are proof that fundamental changes in the human condition are also possible. In other words, such people imagine that it will be possible to eliminate war, famine, disease, hatred, and so on, if we can only change X, Y and Z beliefs. From one angle or another, I've critiqued this mentality ever since I was first here. This ideology has been put into practice before (e.g. the USSR, Communist China, Cuba and North Korea) and the people who had it forced upon them suffered greatly. History teaches us that Utopians almost always make the problems they set out to solve worse. "Lofty ideals gone wrong" is a constant refrain in dystopian fiction like 1984.

The current conflict in the Middle East is a case in point. Most progressives/neocons/warmongers assume there aren't any real differences between the people living in Syria, Iraq and Libya, and them. Thus, they dreamed of "spreading democracy" and pitted insurgents against the dictators who oppressed them, in a hope that we'd all see an outburst of new, oh-so-multicultural Marx and Friedian reading Arab nations. Fast forward to today, and we have created power vacuums left and right, unending civil wars and a warlike theocracy which uses chemical and biological weapons against its enemies. As I, of course, predicted...

Have the Utopian crowd listened and learned? Of course not.

This is the problem. We are fighting an upwind battle against totally irrational people who can't be reasoned or negotiated with.

Yes, The Perfectibility of Man by the Australian philosopher, John Passmore, illustrates your thesis above.

 

[LovecraftianMonstrosity]

Better idealists than many "realists." The deception of realism is in the belief that all outcomes can be controlled. This is not true. Instead, learning tools to help accept uncertainty and teaching others how they may control themselves leads to more harmony than control through force.

 

[draon9]

Are too many idealists instead of realists toxic to society?

The issue is not they are idealistthe issue is they do not want to face reality. We all have our own ideals some will admit theirs more than ideals and some will act on theirs

 

[Lark]

The issue is not they are idealistthe issue is they do not want to face reality. We all have our own ideals some will admit theirs more than ideals and some will act on theirs

What is the difference between ideals, values and principles?

 

[Firebird 8118]

What is the difference between ideals, values and principles?

That's a damn good question. Here's how I usually see it:

Ideals -> what we perceive as perfect or most desirable

Values -> what we believe at the core of our being

Principles -> fundamental truths that form the basis of a system of beliefs (whether personal or spiritual/religious/etc)

 

[Lark]

That's a damn good question. Here's how I usually see it:

Ideals -> what we perceive as perfect or most desirable

Values -> what we believe at the core of our being

Principles -> fundamental truths that form the basis of a system of beliefs (whether personal or spiritual/religious/etc)

And which are real or material and which are not?

 

[Firebird 8118]

And which are real or material and which are not?

Hmm... this probably won't be a satisfying answer, but I don't think any of it is "real". We're all just making it up as we go along, we always have since the beginning.

From where did principles originate? Mainly, religions.
Who created religions? Humankind.
Why did we create them? Because we wanted to figure out why things happen in nature the way they do.

We may think that the principles that guide our day-to-day lives are real, but really they're just stuff that we created and that the majority decided were good things to follow. Honesty, trust, respect, responsibility, compassion... you name it, we made it. And as for our values and ideals, they usually either come from within ourselves or from whatever principles were passed on to us from our elders and peers.

 

[Lark]

Hmm... this probably won't be a satisfying answer, but I don't think any of it is "real". We're all just making it up as we go along, we always have since the beginning.

From where did principles originate? Mainly, religions.
Who created religions? Humankind.
Why did we create them? Because we wanted to figure out why things happen in nature the way they do.

We may think that the principles that guide our day-to-day lives are real, but really they're just stuff that we created and that the majority decided were good things to follow. Honesty, trust, respect, responsibility, compassion... you name it, we made it. And as for our values and ideals, they usually either come from within ourselves or from whatever principles were passed on to us from our elders and peers.

Or maybe the ruling ideas of any epoch are the ideas of the ruling class.

The history of all heretofore existing societies being the history of class struggles, then when this unacknowledged reality is known for a fact mankind can instead begin to write its true history.

Only then will any values or principles have the weight of being material rather than a fable agreed upon.

 

[Virtual ghost]

This entire thread is flawed since you can be idealist and realist at the same time. Realist in understanding current situation and how environment works while setting noble goals for the future is possibly the best cognitive combination you can have.

 

[Firebird 8118]

Or maybe the ruling ideas of any epoch are the ideas of the ruling class.

The history of all heretofore existing societies being the history of class struggles, then when this unacknowledged reality is known for a fact mankind can instead begin to write its true history.

Only then will any values or principles have the weight of being material rather than a fable agreed upon.

Maybe... perhaps even the concept of different social classes was also created by us because some idiot or another thousand decided that they were better than others, the whole hierarchy was constructed to reinforce this originating thought.

I think that if all (or at least a majority) of us can see right through it all and call bullshit on the class divisions, then we can overturn it and create a better history for future generations to come.