The replica «You are an idealist!» getting closer and closer to becoming an insult. As if people without ideals want to calm themselves by ridiculing those who have not yet given up trying to find them …
If you are not ready to submit to fate, you are called an idealist: at best, a useless dreamer, at worst, a dangerous type with an ideology. Meanwhile, only those who have ideas successfully change the world, and at the same time they are not “ideologists” at all.
An idealist or an ideologist?
An ideologue is one who remains captive to the «logic of one idea.» And the idealist, on the contrary, fights to improve reality in the name of his ideal. So if you believe in the power of ideas: feminism, humanism, liberalism, Buddhism, Christianity — hurry to find out if the ideal is leading you through life or you are trapped in ideology.
This is a very simple test. If you can see exactly what the belief in the ideal improves in your daily life, then you are a noble idealist. If you only claim that you have beliefs, but do not see how your belief contributes to progress, then you are in danger of drifting towards ideology.
The mass murders of the XNUMXth century were committed by ideologues, not idealists. A Christian who goes to church on Sundays, talks about Christian values at the table, and when managing his company is by no means guided by love for his neighbor, is not an idealist, but an ideologist. A woman who at every opportunity mentions that she is a feminist, but continues to serve her husband and take on all the housework, is not an idealist, she has an ideology.
Do or say?
In a sense, we incur suspicion when we talk too much about the values we hold dear. It is better to live according to these values, to put them into practice, than just to talk about them. Is it because we feel such a strong need to talk about them that we do not translate values into actions enough and we ourselves know about it?
We compensate for the lack of actions with an excess of words: the sad use of speech, which in this case turns into an empty phrase
And vice versa: to be a true idealist means to love reality down to the smallest possibilities for its improvement, to love to move forward along the path of progress, even if it is a long way.
The tight wire of idealism
The idealist knows perfectly well that his ideal is just an idea, and that reality is arranged differently. It is for this reason that their meeting can be so wonderful: reality can change when it comes into contact with the ideal, and vice versa.
After all, an idealist, unlike an ideologist, is able to correct his ideal as a result of contact with reality.
To change reality in the name of the ideal: this is what Max Weber called the «ethics of persuasion.» And to change the ideal in contact with reality is what he called the «ethics of responsibility.»
Both of these components are needed to become a man of action, a responsible idealist. To stay on this tight wire, in this golden mean between ideology and obedience.