Scipio

I'm defining realism and idealism as two different approaches to debate or conversation. An idealist prefers consideration of the best outcome, and spends less time on process or implementation, while a realist does the opposite, favoring what is "doable," (or discussion of what is possible or perhaps likely to happen) in order to achieve a satisfactory outcome.

An idealist talks about what "should" happen, while a realist talks about what "can" or "might actually" happen.

We get into problems when consideration of the "should happen" gets mingled with the consderation of the "realistically can happen." For example, I might say "it would be better for just about everyone if we got rid of fast food restaurants." Someone might reply: "you can't do that; what would happen to the people and businesses? It simply isn't feasible." Though we SEEM to be talking about the same thing, two quite different points are being debated.

The solution isn't some kind of self identification. I don't think a continuum of views across issues would tell us anything, and I think it would do nothing to limit the problems differing approaches cause. Individuals have varying takes on varying issues, and can't be accurately called "realists" or "idealists," generally.

Why not then have a continuum on each issue? One, it would be rather hard to put together, and two, people might self identify one way and debate another way, based on context. As you say, we have some of each view.

I would like to more clearly state one point, that might contradict some of what I said above, though I assure you my mind is not in conflict on the issue. That is, that individuals can't be idealistic or realistic, and moreover, tend to have each attribute in roughly equal parts. Everyone has ideals, and everyone has, to some extent, thoughts about how those ideas might work in the real world. They don't need to be good ideas, but they do exist. The implemention need not be well thought out, but it exists.

The difference then, is in how we talk about things. One person may wish to discuss carefully reasoned ideals, while another might want to share knowledge about the real world that has bearing on the plausibility of those ideals (perhaps in support of different ideals). People like to talk about what they know about.

The solution is for threads to have clearly stated purposes. If people wish to avoid this problem, they might disclose from the beginning that they don't want to talk about what's practical, only what's ideal, or vice versa. Of course, many others might want to mingle the two views, as they are sometimes inseperable in the real world.

*minor edits for clarity

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