Real versus Ideal

Real versus Ideal

If we want to understand our self and our world we will necessarily have to learn some bit of philosophy and psychology. We become interested in philosophy when we begin to ask questions that go to the ‘root’ of all matters and we turn to psychology if we want to comprehend why humans do the things we do.

It appears to me that psychology would say that we are essentially creatures of desire rather than creatures of contemplation; not because we do not have the brain power but because we do not have the courage to throw away our traditional security blanket and face the world with a critical eye.

Descartes’ legacy to all of us via philosophy can be labeled, I think, as rationalism (discovery of truth through pure reason), dichotomy (mind/body split), and certainty. Even though very few of us know anything about philosophy, almost everything we think results from the philosophy we inherit through social osmosis (unconscious assimilation). Philosophy theory permeates almost all of our mental gymnastics without our conscious recognition.

In the Gettysburg Address Lincoln developed, in just a few words, his answer to the cognitive conflict between what America displayed in the Constitution as the real law of the land versus the Declaration of Independence that represents an ideal to which all men can embrace as an ideal of government.

The Constitution establishes a real set of principles defining a real government of, for, and by the people which does, in fact, not meet the ideal specified in the Declaration of Independence. That document, The Declaration of Independence, sets the ideal that all men and women are born equal and must be considered so in that light by a proper government.

It appears to me that we sapiens need a ‘value North Star’ upon which to fix our voyage. We need a reference point upon which we can focus our attention when trying to determine what of value we can and should do in life.

Religion, or God, serves as the ‘value North Star’ for some people; for others it is nationalism; for others, that fix is to own as much good stuff as possible; to others it is power; for some it is family; and I guess there are many other such ultimate values.

The ideal is something that we strive for and the real is something that we have created.

We need an ideal upon which to focus and to strive for. I think that Lincoln has furnished us with that ideal that has been set forth in the Declaration and the question becomes how well have we followed that North Star and are we gaining or loosing ground in that endeavor.

I think we are losing ground and if we citizens do not become more alert and responsible we may suffer severe consequences not because we lack the brain power but because we lack the will to be all we can be.

Someone said that only one person in a thousand ever “strikes at the root”. I do not think a liberal democracy in a hi-tech world can survive if such remains to be true. Hi-tech gives us the ability to easily destroy our self and our world; liberal democracy makes all citizens to be sovereign and thus responsible in some small way for the integrity of our existence.

[b]We are all in the same boat and if only one person in a thousand accepts the responsibility of democracy I think our species may have a very limited engagement on this planet. I think that we must become much more intellectually sophisticated than we are now and I do not expect that our educational systems can help us much in that effort. We must become independent learners.

I think that philosophy permeates all avenues of our life, do you agree?[/b]

Its all well and good, but most are happy to just do the zombie at the Walmart. And then corporations control our gov’t and our media … so it may be inevitable … War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength. Jefferson said that a well educated population is essential to a democracy, and I agree. I do wonder if it isn’t too late.

I think you are very correct when you say that the role of the ideal in our lives is something to strive for, and that the real is what we are able to achieve as a result of that striving. It seems to me that some people miss this feature when they criticize the concept of “the ideal”. It may be true that as finite, flawed creatures, we will never fully achieve the ideal, because the ideal is an absolute, and absolutes are out of our reach. But it is useful for us to have an absolute that is forever just out of reach, because in our striving for it, we become better versions of ourselves. We must never despair of this striving because of this unreachableness. The ideal was never meant to be the real - because we will never reach it we will always have something to strive for.

There is another important aspect and that is that our deal acts as a blumb-bob and level that will help us keep our actions square with a solid foundation.

Real is what has always existed where ideals is somthing that people create in striving for or somthing that is forced onto people by gunpoint.

That would be my description.

Ideals can be insane as David Hume would say you can’t describe a “ought” from an “Is”.

Ideals are the “oughts” pushed by people where the “Is” comes to be the natural cosmos that has always existed.