Idealism

I am, clearly, an idealist. I believe in a better world and that humans can bring it around if we're willing to try hard enough. I'm going to try to not be overly political here, but it's difficult, because religion is inherently political, inherently subversive. When we focus on the big picture and go beyond petty distinctions and borders, when we ignore the things that separate us for the things that bring us together and point to humanity's commonality: these are subversive acts. Governments and groups focus on the power they hold and the people they control. Taking back control and refusing to play the same game is a subversive act.

But I'm not being political here. I'm talking about ideals. I do dream of a world in which everyone has enough to eat (which is more a matter of transportation than anything else .. we HAVE enough food. We just need to change the market forces so that feeding people is necessary). I dream of a world where we judge people on their words and actions, not their ancestry or orientation. I dream of a world without bigotry in all its forms. (hey, why dream small?) But I recognize that these are dreams.

This doesn't mean I don't work towards them, though. I usually try to work on bigotry, as I don't know enough about market forces to work on hunger. I speak out wherever I am about the subject when it comes up. I vote against bigoted laws, and I write congresscritters about them. It might not be much, but I also don't just sit there and decide that since it's not me they're after, I can just ignore it.

I say this not as a polemic against bigotry (but don't be bigotted!) but to point out that ideals are meaningless if you don't live them and work towards them. It takes people and a lot of work to change things. It's not enough to be idealistic and to hold good morals. You then have to take them into the world and work with them, and butt heads with reality to try and make them work. It's a long slogging process, but the ideals are fairly meaningless if you don't use them to start action.

Questions!
Where is reality lacking, and what would I change or make better? Oh, there's not enough space for that. I think I'll leave it at, what I would change would be separating the views of moral and economic worth, and caring for people based on the fact that we all morally have a right to exist simply because we do. There will always be some kind of economic divide for as long as we have a money system, but we can make poor a lot more survivable than it is. Let's stop blaming them for what they are and start bringing them up to what they can be.

Where have I compromised my ideals? Like everyone, more times than I can count, more places than I can mention. Sometimes my ideals are in conflict. Also, I hate confrontation. If someone gets in my face, I tend to back down or hedge. But I always hate myself for it later. It's sometimes necessary to compromise .. to hold one's nose while one votes for the lesser evil. But that doesn't make it desirable.

Where have I given up and what questions am I afraid to ask? Well, I'm spending an awful lot of time specifically asking the hard questions, so that's a hard question to answer. The more afraid I am of a question, the more likely I am to write an entire essay about it.

There was a while that I just gave up. It's very hard when it looks like yourself against a world of indifference. And all I have to offer are ideas, which are fragile against the light when compared to the gaping wounds of society. But ideas are the only thing that have ever changed anything. Without the idea, we wouldn't have agriculture, sanitation, or this computer we're communicating through. Without the idea, there is no change. The only sure thing is that if you give up, nothing will happen or change.