The Idealist Attitude

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BY PHILLIP WITTMEYER

Idealists search for meaning in life, and they see it everywhere. Skeptics look for causal connections between things in space, and are therefore mechanistic in their philosophy. On the other hand, Idealists look for connections in time that are meaningful coincidences. When two significant things happen at once in their lives, they believe the universe is trying to tell them something. For instance, if an Idealist is walking down a path and stubs his toe, he may wonder why it happened and what it means. He does not believe the universe is accidental, so there must be a reason. He may believe it means there is some stumbling block or impediment in his life, so he will search his thoughts or current events in his life to see if there is something holding him back or tripping him up.

Many Idealists are full of aphorisms — wise sayings. They quote these to others when they believe the occasion demands it. Such things as "It's all for the best", or "It will all work out", or "People do the best they can" are some examples. They believe the universe is a friendly place, and they are friendly toward it and the people in it. Idealists in the extreme have a utopian view of the world. They see things through the proverbial rose-colored glasses. They see the world as a beautiful place, and they see how the world could be more beautiful, if only more people would get together, work together, and trust.

The Opposite of the Idealist Attitude is the Intellectual Center. Idealists are sometimes anti-intellectual, meaning they regard reason and logic as limited, unable to encompass the totality of existence. Idealists and Intellectually centered people comprehend reality in quite different ways, both limited. When both are present in the same person, it can create internal contradictions and inconsistencies. The Idealism does not analyze the world — it sees the overall pattern of it. The Intellectual Center does analyze data from the world, without seeing the big picture. The two working against each other in people causes them to narrow their interests to something compatible with both, or to switch back and forth between the two.

Idealists are concerned with integrative images and they project their images into the outer world. That is OK if the images are an accurate representation of reality, but if their view of the world is a fantasy-land, and they make it out to be a wonderful place when it isn't, then they are in for trouble. One of the problems that Idealists, particularly in the Negative Pole, constantly face is that of disillusionment. Since they tend to see the world with the proverbial "rose-colored glasses", their bubble of dreams and illusions is often pricked by the needle of reality. This destroys their beautiful imaginings. This is very disconcerting to them, because they have a need for a coherent world-view, despite a penchant to live in a dream world or fantasy-land in their own heads.

The complement of the Idealist Attitude is the Skeptic Attitude. "For believers, no explanation is necessary. For nonbelievers, no explanation is possible." That statement sums up the difference between the two extremes of Skeptic and Idealist. Trust is a big issue with both Attitudes. Idealists rarely check things out or question them. Idealists think they already have all the answers inside themselves, so there is no use investigating the world to discover them. Idealists are rarely suspicious. Rather, Idealists give others their trust and if it is ever lost it is because the others proved themselves untrustworthy. Even then, Idealists are liable to invoke extenuating circumstances so that they can still believe in the goodness of others and the beauty of the world. Skeptics are more penetrating in their thoughts, but Idealists get the overview, the big picture. Skeptics and Idealists are both concerned with issues of "what is reality" and "what is illusion". Skeptics see the physical universe as reality and anything else as illusion. They say mind is a product of matter. Idealists see principles and ideas as the ultimate reality, and everything else as illusion. They say the physical universe is a product of an infinite mind.

The Positive Pole of the Idealist Attitude is +Coalescence. If this word is unfamiliar to you, it means merge, combine, amalgamate into a single body or group. Idealists see the world and everything in it as becoming more unified. In the most extreme expression of this Pole, Idealists see themselves as one with everything. They take a philosophical perspective on all issues, and try to see the wisdom in every situation. Such people subscribe to the "holistic philosophy" — the idea that the whole world functions like a single organism. All the parts are connected in space and coordinated in time, operated by a single mind.

The Negative Pole is -Naiveté. People in this Pole have taken their trust and innocence to an unrealistic extreme. They see beauty where it isn't, and simply deny that ugliness and evil exist. An Idealist will tell you that evil is justified at a higher level of reality, that things that seem meaningless have meaning that we cannot fathom, that something that appears foolish has a wisdom that is beyond us, and that ugliness is transformed at other levels of reality into beauty. A Skeptic will ask that these things be proven scientifically, but of course they can't be. People in this Pole have many illusions, and they suffer much when they are disillusioned. They live by platitudes rather than reality. The fear here is the fear of questioning anything — questioning in the sense of both investigation and suspicion. One must question things or one will not be able to distinguish between reality and illusion.

Another name for the Negative Pole is -Abstraction. This shows up when Idealists are unable to get their thoughts to run in sequence. Their minds are in such a "fog" that they cannot keep their thoughts on the subject at hand. They wander around in generalities and ambiguities, unable to get specific. Consequently, people in - Abstraction are likely to believe in or trust anything that seems plausible or looks pretty. So here we are, back to -Naiveté.

The fear that drives -Naively is the fear of ugliness and evil, which do not fit into an Idealistic world view. The world just should not be this way, right? It is indeed possible to imagine a better world. But the world is the way it is, and there is no use denying it or dreaming it away. The technique for overcoming -Naively is to consider and apply the Positive Pole of the Complementary Attitude, +Investigation. Get down in the world and get dirty. Open your eyes to the things you would rather turn away from. Stop dreaming of a better world, find out about the real world, and then maybe you can make it a better world in the Positive Pole of +Coalescence. It does not solve anything when one justifies ugliness and evil by saying it is reconciled at a higher level of integration. Best reconcile it at this level.

Next page | Cynic Attitude

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Phil Wittmeyer is a longtime Michael student and scholar of the teachings. He can be reached at: wittmeyer@hotmail.com