Idealism, in the long term, is pragmatism

Most of us realize that we live in a less than ideal world. The degree of how clearly we realize this depends on your birth. There are some, the very rich and very powerful who get a 90% slice of idealism. If you are born into a middleclass American family, a degree of idealism that is at 60/40 or better allows one to be more or less satisfied to muddle along, reasonably content with the fact that there are more ups than downs in life. If, however, a child is born in a ghetto, it is faced with something far less than a halfway shot at a reasonably ideal life. So the pertinent question about the degree of idealism in our world is: how many of the new-born of the world have at least a chance at the 60/40 slot?

The sad fact about our less than ideal world is that more than two thirds of the parents on the planet live hopeless lives that are so far down the feeding trough, there is very little chance of giving their kids a decent birth right. So on a global scale the degree to which we are living in an ideal world is very poor indeed

An idealist sees the waste of human potential in the unequal discrepancy in birthrights, and because he is basically pragmatic, sees that inequality creates not only social ill-feelings, but also massive ineffciancy in employing the full wealth of our creative input . The idealist wants, at the very least, to find ways and means for every child born to have the same chance that everyone else has, and therby evoke their creative spirit and not have it soured by ill-feelings.

The problem with the pursuit of that ideal is that it can only be accomplished with the help of the elite, who have the resources to help. To some extent an appeal can be made to the inherent charitable nature of the human psyche, and get some of those with more than half the pie to let go of some of it. But the elite, who enjoy a more rosy view of life do not, or do not want to see, the down side very clearly, (let them eat cake) never donate anywhere near enough charitable assistance to make any real inroads in the struggle to achieve a more ideal world. If the idealist agitates for more of the pie to give to the poor, he or she is immediately labelled as being too communistically minded.

An army of philosophers have achieved distinction by confirming the right of the rich and powerful to remain stingy ( They find comfort in catch phrases like; trickle-down economy). This patronizing attitude towards the poor disguises the inherent moral guilt that every person learns during childhood about the basic family value of meticulous sharing. That guilt is further mollified by well-paid social cynics who pan idealists even further by attacking their moral characters – thus by focussing on the messenger - they succeed in diluting the message. As a result nothing of any real value gets done about equality and the life we all live remains fixed in a less than ideal state.

The idealist, meantime, sees that inequality becomes exponentially worse as the birth rates of the poor double and redouble. The net result, unless ways and means can be found to put an end to the patronizing attitude and realize that idealism is, in fact, pragmatic realism, our less than ideal world will get less and less ideal for all of us as time goes on.

It may even happen that the poor will fly planes into tall buildings and strap bombs to their children’s chests and blow us all up.