Idealism: Man's Greatest Threat

Originally posted by TheSubversiveOne

I agree that science has been used to commit atrocities. But we can't blame the hammer for when we hit our own thumbs. What's to blame in those instances is the idealism, not science. ....

I agree in a sense, but this is not spiritualism. Meditation is not spiritualism. Thinking is not spiritualism. These are real, physical and material acts committed by a body. Your definition is not being concerned with the spiritual planes and the soul as fundamental principles, it's concerned with overal bodily health and well-being. If this is your spiritual practice, you no longer need to call yourself spiritual, as you seemed to have moved beyond that. You appear to be no longer shackled to your ideals, but take the full you into consideration. If it were me, I would be proud of such emancipation.

I agree about everything you said about balance, and that is indeed what I'm getting. Abstracting oneself into spirit and body is dangerous; hence the reason I used spirituality as an example of dangerous idealsim.

Great points and discussion.

Thank you, again not much disagree with in your reasoning (only judged from my own perspective of course). As for needing to call myself anything, I don't really feel that. But I do consider myself to be spiritual just not a fanatic follower of others ideas of what is. Spiritual meaning being concerned with the health of my spirit and the collective soul. My spirit in part being my emotional over all sense of balance and well being as well as my connectivity to nature and all it's beings. I do for instance speak to plants and animals and hug the occasional tree not because someone told me to but because I feel I want to.

As for blaming the hammer... the same holds true for spiritualism. Can't blame the core message for what the fanatics chose do in it's name. Again I believe it is the belief that one is superior to another both in ourselves and in our interaction with the world that causes the greatest harm.

I was thinking mostly of the atomic bomb and nuclear power and also some clinical medical recommendations that have failed us over the years. Do these fall within idealism or not?

I do believe that idealists are needed to cause us to change direction, take new learning and invent new possibilities. It is the fanaticism that should be cast aside. Or maybe the -isms should be removed all together in favor if individual -ists?

reply to post by TheSubversiveOne


This was an absolutely brilliant OP, and I thank you for posting it. I feel so strongly that you are correct, idealism (in its many forms) is a bacteria that can quickly turn into a virus if giving enough energy. It leads to the institutionalization and systemization of every aspect of our lives, to the point these institutions and systems become more important then the very humans they are created to serve. We must allow human suffering and struggle to be the voice of our actions, not some romantic form of ideological abstraction. Gandhi, MLK, Che Guevara, Huey Newton... all were motivated directly from humanities plight. Even people like the Buddha and Jesus were motivated directly from the suffering and struggles of humanity, not from some romantic form of idealism that so many of their followers adhere to.

Imagine there is a machine in front of you. On that machine there is a panel with levers and buttons. There is a certain method that you have to use to start the machine, but you don't know that, you have to investigate. But instead of trying to understand what the different levers and buttons do, you start to dance around the machine, you start to sing a "sacred" song that you believe is related to the machine. You create a whole ritual which you believe is related to the machine, and others also create their own ritual, they have their own idea of the machine, like sacrifices, prayers, etc..

The above story is the metaphor of our relation with reality. We can have all sorts of ideas concerning reality, some can be close to reality, and some other ideas can be far from reality. Some ideas can be harmful, other ideas can be useless, some other ideas can be inoffensive and in the same time useless, etc.. We can add to that the mystery of our own origin and the machine's origin, and the mystery of the space and time in which the scene is taking place. In the end, it is not idealism itself which is harmful, because at the end of the day, everything is perception. Even science is filtered by our perception, because everything passes through the brain, but science is an idea which is closer to the machine, to reality, and it can also be harmful or inoffensive.

Without ideals, how should I behave? Without ideals, there would be chaos. An ideal is a benchmark. My ideal isn't necessarily your ideal.

One can imagine ideals that are obtainable and one's that are rooted in delusional fantasy. If the statement, "Anything is possible" is false, then ideals rooted in delusion are dangerous.

The problem is that an individual's ideal may serve only the will of the individual and neglect everything else. Collective ideal's, like, "The American Dream" are socially acceptable.

The root of this issue has to do with an individual's perception of reality. The ego is what will make me believe I am right when thousands know I am wrong. An egotistical ideal is why relationships fail. One thinks another should be a certain way (usually like him/her self). The only ideals that should be made should involve only self improvement. When you envision and wish for a different outside world, that's called, "hate".

Originally posted by smithjustinb
Without ideals, how should I behave? Without ideals, there would be chaos. An ideal is a benchmark. My ideal isn't necessarily your ideal.

One can imagine ideals that are obtainable and one's that are rooted in delusional fantasy. If the statement, "Anything is possible" is false, then ideals rooted in delusion are dangerous.

The problem is that an individual's ideal may serve only the will of the individual and neglect everything else. Collective ideal's, like, "The American Dream" are socially acceptable.

The root of this issue has to do with an individual's perception of reality. The ego is what will make me believe I am right when thousands know I am wrong. An egotistical ideal is why relationships fail. One thinks another should be a certain way (usually like him/her self). The only ideals that should be made should involve only self improvement. When you envision and wish for a different outside world, that's called, "hate".

I am strictly about philosophical idealism, not ideals themselves. See the links I posted if you need a refresher.

I am in no way attacking ideals, which everyone has and cherishes. I am attacking idealism, the idea that thoughts take precedence over experience, universals before particulars, the spirit world before the tangible world, mind over body, etc. etc. etc. When ideals, ie. God the ideal being, takes precedence over real beings, ie. us, that's philosophical idealism. Also in extreme cases there's solipsism, the idea that I'm the only one who exists and everything else is but a dream. That is idealism and indeed what I've been attacking.

reply to post by TheSubversiveOne

Idealism and optimism - beats the heck out of the cynicism people label as "realism", which goes nowhere fast.

Idealism is the arrow of Civilized progress.

Even descriptions of reality itself based on modern physics move in one of two directions, on the one hand towards what might be called "materialist monism" (matter alone is primary and consciousness nothing but an epiphenomenon of matter) and on the other "monistic idealism" (consciousness as the ground of all being). Curiously, only a monistic idealism can satisfactorily resolve all the quantum paradoxes.. thus killing newtonian, cartesian materialist monism dead ie: no longer a workable description of reality and existence.

Just because idealism is the bane of atheists and materialists doesn't mean it is not of great value to hold an object of perfection up as that to which we ought strive and aspire. After all there is always an attachment to an outcome. Therefore let it be to an ideal, and something upon which we can all absolutely agree, and for those who reject it for all the wrong reasons (to rebel for nothing but rebellion's sake) let them get out of the way, after all if you're not part of the solution then you are simply part of the problem.

Idealism makes the heart sing, it's everything that's worthwhile in life, to have to hold to an ideal.

I pity those who have nothing, where even what they think they have will be taken away, where to those who have more will be given, and I mean that spiritually not in terms of materialist economics.

The dead of heart loath things like Idealism and Spirituality.

Let us march forward towards a glorious future together in favaor of an ideal then, and leave the dead to bury their dead.

Edit: Saw your post above, and I agree, there needs to be balance between the two without negating one side or the other.

Originally posted by NewAgeMan
reply to post by TheSubversiveOne

 

Idealism and optimism - beats the heck out of the cynicism people label as "realism", which goes nowhere fast.

Idealism is the arrow of Civilized progress.

Even descriptions of reality itself based on modern physics move in one of two directions, on the one hand towards what might be called "materialist monism" (matter alone is primary and consciousness nothing but an epiphenomenon of matter) and on the other "monistic idealism" (consciousness as the ground of all being). Curiously, only a monistic idealism can satisfactorily resolve all the quantum paradoxes.. thus killing newtonian, cartesian materialist monism dead ie: no longer a workable description of reality and existence.

Just because idealism is the bane of atheists and materialists doesn't mean it is not of great value to hold an object of perfection up as that to which we ought strive and aspire. After all there is always an attachment to an outcome. Therefore let it be to an ideal, and something upon which we can all absolutely agree, and for those who reject it for all the wrong reasons (to rebel for nothing but rebellion's sake) let them get out of the way, after all if you're not part of the solution then you are simply part of the problem.

Idealism makes the heart sing, it's everything that's worthwhile in life, to have to hold to an ideal.

I pity those who have nothing, where even what they think they have will be taken away, where to those who have more will be given, and I mean that spiritually not in terms of materialist economics.

The dead of heart loath things like Idealism and Spirituality.

Let us march forward towards a glorious future together in favaor of an ideal then, and leave the dead to bury their dead.

edit on 10-9-2012 by NewAgeMan because: edit

Star for the polemic.

If one feels it necessary to contrive universes to wander around in while the world goes on without them, by all means, be my guest. I do that often enough. I can also understand why someone would want to retreat into their own thoughts, because on the outside man is frail and the real world is tough, but that doesn't mean one should neglect it nor punish it to achieve the aims of their own spiritual or idealistic vanity.

Idealism makes the heart sing, but only as far as credulity allows it. Idealism makes men fly planes into buildings for the purposes of harming others and themselves. It makes people murder millions. It burns people at the stake for thinking the wrong thing or being a witch. There are plenty of the 'dead of heart' who would loathe idealsim if they were allowed to live long enough to do so.

Originally posted by TheSubversiveOne

Originally posted by NewAgeMan
reply to post by TheSubversiveOne

 

Idealism and optimism - beats the heck out of the cynicism people label as "realism", which goes nowhere fast.

Idealism is the arrow of Civilized progress.

Even descriptions of reality itself based on modern physics move in one of two directions, on the one hand towards what might be called "materialist monism" (matter alone is primary and consciousness nothing but an epiphenomenon of matter) and on the other "monistic idealism" (consciousness as the ground of all being). Curiously, only a monistic idealism can satisfactorily resolve all the quantum paradoxes.. thus killing newtonian, cartesian materialist monism dead ie: no longer a workable description of reality and existence.

Just because idealism is the bane of atheists and materialists doesn't mean it is not of great value to hold an object of perfection up as that to which we ought strive and aspire. After all there is always an attachment to an outcome. Therefore let it be to an ideal, and something upon which we can all absolutely agree, and for those who reject it for all the wrong reasons (to rebel for nothing but rebellion's sake) let them get out of the way, after all if you're not part of the solution then you are simply part of the problem.

Idealism makes the heart sing, it's everything that's worthwhile in life, to have to hold to an ideal.

I pity those who have nothing, where even what they think they have will be taken away, where to those who have more will be given, and I mean that spiritually not in terms of materialist economics.

The dead of heart loath things like Idealism and Spirituality.

Let us march forward towards a glorious future together in favaor of an ideal then, and leave the dead to bury their dead.

edit on 10-9-2012 by NewAgeMan because: edit

Star for the polemic.

If one feels it necessary to contrive universes to wander around in while the world goes on without them, by all means, be my guest. I do that often enough. I can also understand why someone would want to retreat into their own thoughts, because on the outside man is frail and the real world is tough, but that doesn't mean one should neglect it nor punish it to achieve the aims of their own spiritual or idealistic vanity.

Idealism makes the heart sing, but only as far as credulity allows it. Idealism makes men fly planes into buildings for the purposes of harming others and themselves. It makes people murder millions. It burns people at the stake for thinking the wrong thing or being a witch. There are plenty of the 'dead of heart' who would loathe idealsim if they were allowed to live long enough to do so.

how does man interact with the external physical world if not through thought? a man without his thoughts is a baby,. an entity with no internal sense of itself and the external world.,..

Im still a bit confused,,, Im wondering what the world would be like if there was no Idealism ( the idealism you linked and made the thread regarding)?