What happens when the ideal and practical conflict?

jay gw

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Practical
Of, relating to, governed by, or acquired through practice or action, rather than theory or speculation.
Concerned with the production or operation of something useful.
Level-headed, efficient, and unspeculative.

Ideal
A conception of something in its absolute perfection.
One that is regarded as a standard or model of perfection or excellence.

Why does it seem that ideals and the practical are so often in conflict? Example: Communism, Naziism, Creation 'science'

Why does this occur and how are conflicts like this resolved?
 
jay gw said:
Practical
Why does it seem that ideals and the practical are so often in conflict? Example: Communism, Naziism, Creation 'science'

Why does this occur and how are conflicts like this resolved?
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For one, because humans will not modify actions to fit an ideal, they will modify them to their (and their immediate group's, be it family, ethnic group, etc.) benefit. In an ideal world, communism would work. In reality, humanity's greed and penchant for abuse of power for your benefit (the ability to control the distribution of goods) ruin it on a large scale.

Capitalism tries to take greed into account, but forgets about the power and humanity's tendency to consolidate it. Therefore capitalism fails when and indispensible product is provided via a monopoly, and it is no longer a free market.

The second is because when most ideals are discussed, they are discussed in a vacuum of mitigating circumstances and other conflicting ideals. The ideal of "always being truthful" doesn't work when your S.O. asks if she looks fat (females may find an analogue to this), when balanced against your desire to keep her happy for the benefit of both of you, the desire for you to have sex in the near future, and the ideal of sparing people's feelings and their animosity towards you whenever possible.
 
Whichever wins is according to the personalities and politics that occur in making the decision. For a basic project with a team, these are my findings:

If practicality is chosen, and sufficient skills and talents are present, a quick solution is created or evolved to a problem. Nobody really likes it, but it works.

If pure idealism is chosen, all resources are exhausted and nothing is produced. If sufficiently high skill, talent and political maneuvering are present, practicality will eventually be presented as the 'ideal solution', and someone will eventually convince the idealists that it's this, or nothing (and then see 'practicalty', above). Usually the idealists just ignore all external input and steer for disaster.

Why does it seem that ideals and the practical are so often in conflict? Example: Communism, Naziism, Creation 'science'
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Call me a cynic, but I'd say the common thread in your examples is that the 'perfection' in each case is what is sold to the credulous, drooling public at large, and the ugly reality of each system is what they get for believing that the idealism the leadership was selling is what the leadership was ever actually aiming for at all.
 
jay gw said:
Practical
Of, relating to, governed by, or acquired through practice or action, rather than theory or speculation.
Concerned with the production or operation of something useful.
Level-headed, efficient, and unspeculative.
Click to expand...
Practical
"It will, of course, be said that such a scheme as is set forth here
is quite unpractical, and goes against human nature. This is
perfectly true. It is unpractical, and it goes against human
nature. This is why it is worth carrying out, and that is why one
proposes it. For what is a practical scheme? A practical scheme
is either a scheme that is already in existence, or a scheme that
could be carried out under existing conditions. But it is exactly
the existing conditions that one objects to; and any scheme that
could accept these conditions is wrong and foolish. The conditions
will be done away with, and human nature will change. The only
thing that one really knows about human nature is that it changes."
O. Wilde
Ideal
A conception of something in its absolute perfection.
One that is regarded as a standard or model of perfection or excellence.
Click to expand...
Ideal
"To bring abstractions to bear on reality means to destroy reality."
G.W.F. Hegel

"Marx would object to the political ideal that you want to
attribute to him. When we are dealing with a man of science,
the science of economics, then ideals are not allowed, you
produce scientific results, and if you are also a man of the party,
then you struggle to turn these scientific results into practical
politics. But if you have an ideal, then you can't be a man of
science, because then you are prejudiced."
(F. Engels to K.Marx's son-in-law Lafargue)
Why does it seem that ideals and the practical are so often in conflict? Example: Communism, Naziism, Creation 'science'

Why does this occur and how are conflicts like this resolved?
Click to expand...
 Ideals conflict with reality exactly because they are ideals and not the comprehension of reality that you find in science, knowledge. The laws of gravity don't conflict with reality, they are reality grasped by the human mind. Unlike the thou-shalt-not laws of religion or jurisprudence, which are mere ideals.
Ideals and the practical are not only often, but always in conflict - and not just in political or religious extremism, but also in what I think you would consider to be mainstream politics. (Have you ever read The Quiet American?)
When you ask specifically about Communism, I'd like to add: Because the Communism practiced so far wasn't practical, but idealistic. (And idealistic doesn't mean good-natured or benevolent. Stalin is a good example ...)
 
The ideal is very rarely based on reality and usually go counter to human nature or natural laws or reality itself. It's more of a dream we hope to give substance and bring into being often ignoring the consquences of doing so. Often dire consquences.

My biggest challenge in life is to have distain for stupidity, selfishness and cowardice and greed and all the other human failings but at the same time not to have distain for humanity as a whole.

Being able to hope for the ideal while at the same time accepting the reality is a close second.
 
I have a hard time seeing why you'd hope for the ideal when you describe it the way you do, e.g. "often ignoring the consquences of doing so. Often dire consquences."
The other side of the coin of idealism is: disappointment. Instead of finding out what the world is, you dispair at its inability to live up to your high ideals: "more of a dream we hope to give substance and bring into being". Your disappointment then leads you to disdain the "stupidity, selfishness and cowardice and greed" of the human race.
Instead of this rather self-important oscillation between disdain for what you consider human weaknesses and on the other side some kind of understanding "for humanity as a whole", it might be better for both you and the rest of the world if you gave up your own idealism.

Ask yourself:
What motivates people? When, for instance, are they being cowards? When they are about to be sent to Iraq? When they risk losing something?
But also: Who wants to send them there? What are their motives? Why are so many things in our societies connected with risk? (And is it really so strange that this turns people into cowards?)

Ask yourself:
What is wrong with selfishness? Aren't we all selfish? Isn't it OK to want something out of life, also for yourself? Ask yourself: Why do some people get so little out of life? Because of the selfish people? Or because society favours private property, the kind of property where each owner excludes everybody else from his or her property?

And ask yourself:
Why do you find stupidity so horrible? Is stupidity really so bad? If it is the result of ignorance, well, then all you need to to is educate people. In other words: It is not enough to have a highly educated elite in society, and exclude everybody else from knowledge about the world - and then look down on them and call them stupid. At least it isn't if you want to eradicate superstition. If people 'not only want to, but actually need to believe in weird things', to paraphrase Randi, then it might be a good idea to take a close look at the living conditions of these people to find out what causes this need. (See my sig line - and http://www.gegenstandpunkt.com/english/psych/1-3-chap-3.html (includes paragraph about "Envy and Schadenfreude"!)

You cannot scoff at people's stupidity, cowardice and greed without trying to fight the conditions that make people stupid, cowardly and greedy - unless, of course, you are and want to remain an idealist who not only wants to, but actually needs to despair at the imperfection of the world that doesn't live up to your own discerning tastes.

edited to add: "Die Menschen müßten die Sachen so sehen wie sie sind, statt ihren Verstand für Ver- und Mißtrauen in die vorgeschobenen moralischen Rechtfertigungen zu verschwenden."

People ought to see things the way they are, instead of wasting their intellects trusting and distrusting the moral justifications they are offered.
http://www.contradictio.de/moral.html
 
Wow, a revived thread. I thought nobody cared or I didn't explain it right.

Because the Communism practiced so far wasn't practical, but idealistic.
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This is where the problems are - what happens when you try and turn the ideal into the real, when the ideal and practical are in conflict. Some people will try and force the real into a mold, and others will adapt the ideal instead.

I think the worst thing is to try and force the real into a mold you've created. Social engineering for example hasn't worked very well anywhere, regardless of culture.
 
Social engineering is an ideal - and so are the so-called sciences that this ideal is based on. Social engineering is not the same thing as a well-thought-out, planned production and distribution of the things needed for human consumption, neither were the so-called planned economies of the former USSR.
 
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