Realism

by Gary C. Gibson

Created on: November 26, 2008   Last Updated: May 09, 2009

Neither realism or idealism are common today. Philosophers have a very different meaning for the terms than those of common meanings.Idealists may not work toward an application of their beliefs nor confirm how inaccurate are there models, while realists simply agree with prevailing powers and are not required to think at all.

If we use the common meaning maybe the Chinese are more realistic than Americans today, while Americans run vast deficits, sell out their nation to global corporations, are brainwashed by corporate broadcast media, displace their own S.W. working class with floods of illegal alien workers, important fuel and transportation at huge cost and generally are lacking in macro-economic common sense.

Neither can Americans be said to be idealistic except in the sense that they believe naively that nothing really matters in macro-economics in a moral relativism sort of way such that they can have fairy tales about tax cuts and non-renewable economic polices, live without significant savings and yet believe that good politics isn't required because God will run their political system for them. While God may order the entire Universe deterministically it is silly to blame Him for bad politics, indolent administrative inertial just going along laziness and everything wrong with the nation or world that could be remedied by intelligent and timely personal or social effort.

Let's move on to more technical; approaches to idealism and realism. Are realism and idealism quantifiable? Does prevalence mean victory for one over the other, and what would comprise a victory of realism over idealism?

Is idealism limited to Germany idealists of the 19th century or would romantics like Byron, or transcedentalists like Emerson be considered idealists too? Is idealism such as that of Bishop Berkley-a technical tour de force- be a facade over the deep structure of classical realism? Is the ideal a surface appearance of apparent reality glossing over the realist deep structure pre-determined to dissolve as the clouds of unknowing part a little more?

In the physical search for the construction of reality from the pre-Socratics to the high-energy particle physics era deeper structures have been revolutionary paradigm changers of the status quo regularly and the prospect seems excellent for further alteration of understanding ahead. Yet politics is a simple, alternative application of realist and idealist terms iteself-the real deal with things the way they are while the idealist work for some better social goal,

Terms like realism and idealism acquire contextual meanings of the time like white colored Levi's worn by mechanics pick up grease. They mean one thing in one era and another in another. Later on I will go over some of the more general uses yet for now I would like to present to you the context that Sigmund Freud, B.F. Skinner and empiricism left for posterity building upon G.W.F. Hegel, Karl Marx and Charles Darwin. These fellows really did influence the spirit of the era, and the two most interesting may be Skinner and Freud. Freud is the ultimate dreamer finding a psychological-analyt ical prioritization for everything human to such an extreme that reality seems to be set aside as an auxiliary element. Freud himself believed that the idea of God is a consequence of mankind's original sin of killing the tribal father and the development of religion is the atonement (this idea is from the Great Ideas series edited by Adler.

Freud would himself have had an Oedipal complex within his own psychological criterion in his belief that mankind had murdered the father to take over Gaea-the Earth mother. B.F. Skinner most helpfully neutralized all the silliness psychologically and took the opposite extreme; subjective human thoughts meaninglessly echo stimulus-response facts of life. The present never-ending stimuli of the real world compelling one to quench with drink, food, warmth etc are the real world. The environment is an existential field subject t human alteration that imposes stimuli upon human beings to which they must incessantly respond. Perhaps one could call Freud's paradigm ideaism and Skinner's realism, yet each seems to be a sort of naivete about philosophy and social history of a less psychologically or inanimate stimulus origin.

The extremes of dreams and science, mind and computer came to dominate the development of 20th century neo-realism, and untheistic idealism. Titus Quinctius Flamininus defeated Greece for the young Roman Republic, as a member of the Quinctius gens (something like a clan with all of the people with the same last name) his place in history is not generally challenged as real, yet Freud could consider the origin of religion as generally mythological in compensation for and consistent with his social situation in Vienna/Wien and lack of historical education. While great historical elements such as religion did require correction, extinction of them through pseudo scientific idealist reformation and empirical organicist realism were intellectually ineffective. There is more truth to and work required for deeper human understanding on mankind and its place in the world & Universe yet to be discovered and actualized.

Realism tends to be considered a socially secure position, and idealism is associated with non-conformity and the desire to revolt against authority, or at least assure that the trains run on time. Commonly people that believe they are idealists may discover that others will identify them as repressors of the establishment and vice versa. Propagandists may choose to call the rich radio establishment 'rational' and the poor non-owners of broadcast complexes as irrational 'lint'. Working for an actual better world may require setting goals such as Machiavelli might have helped design along with John Stuart Mill with a result in a leaving out in the rain of the cake of good luck and a bloody conclusion.

When people decide that something must be done about it at last they may choose ineffective half measure solution and not 'bite the bullet' leaving the 'gangrene' to set in. The current potential auto 'bail-out' of the crooks at Detroit may set them free a while longer along with the bankers on parole and what is the public left holding beside O.J. Simpson? Realism and idealism are more pure subjects in the concrete monolithic domes of pure reason perhaps when they are blessed with tranquil vegetable gardens and solar and wind power electrical generating Independence for electric go-carts. Synthetic combination of the real and the ideal is the breaking wave of genius useful for regenerating an economy better even than Mary Shelly's pioneering efforts in Europe.

Operant conditioning, deconstructionism, atheism and skepticism of sundry sorts tend to devalue the human mind's ideas altogether as anything other than post hoc echoes of behavior. Idealist and realists each would be just organisms bouncing around between positive and negative reinforcers regardless of what they think about it. Philosophers dissent generally from the eclipse of reason from the human experience of life and tend to believe that human knowledge can accurately discover and interpret true information about the Universe and experience. The ordinary social meanings of the concepts idealism and realism are fairly simple and philosophically inaccurate so I will rewrite them here...a realist pursues the maximum degree of positive reinforcement while an idealist pursues deferred gratification and delayed positive reinforcement in the belief that a big piece of positive reinforcement is 'out there' and worth suffering negative reinforcement for in the present. On that basis it is plain that most people choose to be realists than idealist because opportunities to be idealists are more restricted and high faluttin besides (fallutes are electro-magnetic lift fenders on new electric vehicles for out purposes here)

Realism and idealism aren't understood generally. What do they mean in a philosophical context that isn't common knowledge? Realism refers to the philosophy of Plato largely. The neo-Platonist philosopher Plotinus author of the 54 tractates named The Enneads was another realist writer-realism as a philosophy refers to the realm of forms of which everything in this world is an imperfect form. Plainly most people don't believe that today even though realism as a metaphysical explanandum has some credibility through analogy of various sorts such as larger forms following patterns of underlying universal forms from the atomic and force field realms.

Idealism is actually named idea-ism and is the perennial rival philosophical paradigm to realism. Ideaism is the concept the all that is perceived of the world is known and experienced just in the mind as an idea-it isn't possible to know what the world is for-itself...human experience is always that of that absent dreamer that is never in the forest when the tree falls to hear what it's sound is like and instead experiences some sort of 'sound' in mind via an unknown means of transmission. The philosopher Bishop Berkley was the most well known writer of an explanation of ideaism. His Dialogues provided an investigation in to the nature of sense data experience and concluded that human minds could exist any place that that God might provide the 'reality' of the ideas experienced by the minds. The 'Matrix' movies where a sort of inversion of the Platonic philosophy of realism and criterion of the cave providing the point of view of idealism or ideas being created by others and experienced within a mind without regard to any higher or transcending reality. Even in films people confuse the classical philosophical meanings of realism and idealism. We shall try to do better.

Are most people realists or philosophers/idealis ts seeking after more than a domination of all the best crusts of bread in the neighborhood? Does idealism stop when the ideas are evil (can the rich be evil idealists?) . Can idealism exist in a world of exclusive mass media programming everyone to subvert the government, cancel environmental defense and enrich the rich through the purchase of SUV's and importation of Arabian oil? These are exciting question to many perhaps though not for myself for I believe that most people pursue a synthesis of idealism and realism politically that will provide a positive sum strategy. Idealism that leaves one destitute as one's print on demand books are not purchased and one must live out a destiny in some poor isolated Siberian exile of an existence isn't the ideal most consider worthwhile. Moderate idealism may seek the imposition of heavy taxes on the rich in order to' feed the poor until their are no rich no more' and feel it accomplished when the employment rate reaches 99% and CEO's earn just 50 times more than workers average at most.

Realists politically may have values that are basically personal egoism ethically. They switch from party to party as readily and easily and the wind can change direction in accord with what best profits them and their blood kin. Organizations may have a zillion noble purposes expressed but the larger paradigm is to enrich their personal interests and those of their political class. Such realists and idealists adjust the meaning of words like liberal and conservative to provide maximum congruence with their financial interests.

It is useful to not let all that noble realism and idealism get out of hand of course even if a Texas Terror Network develops to interfere with civil rights one day. Film-makers can make movies like 'State of the Union' that conclude after an intricate plot exquisitely developed with marvelous actors and actresses with a joint section of congress wiped clear with a nuclear blast as patriots decide that is the sole way to restore a balanced federal budget with a new capitol and politicians in St. Louis-yet that would actually cost more and slow down economic and environmental development quite a lot. Those ideas that 'realists' get can lead themselves and the nation down long and winding roads of no return even if with lower tax rates.

Realism then is the default and necessary political choice for most. Most must eat and have a nice car to date attractive women with because they cannot run with a rickshaw competitively with Mustang GT's. Rent or home payments must be adequately met and government cliques of oppressors and the corporate neo-fascist CEO's do dominate the 'real' world of social reality. Social reality is what many people refer to with the term realism traditionally and that means baring one's throat to the will of the Hollywood vampires of propaganda, or at least the will of the leader of the wolf pack (real wolves wouldn't touch that perhaps). Idealists would be the lone wolf outsiders struggling long through the cold dark night of repression and persecution yet always with a chippy, snappy tune to whistle just waiting to emerge if and when they can remember how it goes. Idealists learn eventually to make scratch pancakes cooking on flat stones while realists load the family to breakfast at Denny's.

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