Realist: Hey, I see a pattern.
Idealist: How dare you!
Lots of people have intelligence or skill in some narrow domain, but when it comes to practical politics, recognizing patterns in groups of people and seeing beyond the what-you-see-is-what-you-get, they're on the level of one celled organisms, seeing only the mask.
One of the dark sides of visualization is the shrinking ability to simply READ written information, follow references, summarize correctly, and prove/falsify claims with symbolic logic. Instead, the brains give up and let the slutty eyes take in visual data that has little info value and implicit visual clues that do not pass scrutiny but go directly into the subconsciousness.
So let's look at a little pattern for once.
Idealists want to apply principles in very specific ways that benefit only their grouping. Idealists insult and intimidate. Realists give in to their demands and threats. Idealists take over society and start breaking things down. A few realists start a new society somewhere else. The Idealist society collapses. Some Idealists escape. These come across the now prospering realist enclave. The realists are of course happy to let them in and give them food and shelter. After a while, Idealists insist on abstract principles that only benefit their grouping.
Re-cycle.
Everyone acts and speaks out of self-interest.
Accept that self-interest is natural, and work to make general interest a larger factor.
Keep an eye out for groups who proclaim unnatural Idealism that seems to be devoid of self-interest at first, but on inquiry turns out to be extreme self-interest that NEEDS to MASQUERADE as idealism. The masquerade is put up to hide criminal intentions and to get others to serve those intentions.
Those who demand that others sacrifice their self-interest are hypocrites that demand your suicide. Those who sacrifice their own self-interest have been hypnotized by Idealism or are suicidal. Grown up, civilized people come to the negotiating table where most self-interests are negotiated on.
Idealists put on ideological make-up to mask their (subconscious) materialistic, selfish group interests. Realists develop character, learn a profession, and build society up. Idealists take over by soft of hard methods, and then run everything into the ground.
Idealist priesthoods love the idea of collapsing civilization to a base level where they can sacrifice hapless subjects on an (dis)assembly line altar on the top of a jungle temple. The law of the jungle indeed. Idealist oligarchies love thoughtpolice states where anyone doubting the official line is "taken care of", and where any spoken or written word is either a lie or meaningless. Idealist love to use Magic Words to instill false hope, fear or fervor into people, so that they will have minions, subjects, slaves or brethren. They just love to dominate other people. They are freaks.
Idealists love to destroy any REAL ideal and hope for a better tomorrow, and collapse everything to a brute level of existence, where they can arrest development, and never have to deal with freedom, choice and responsibility on a cosmic scale.
Who is afraid of reality? Who is afraid of facts? Who is afraid of logical patterns? Realists ask what the purpose of life is. Idealists come across the question as to the meaning of life, are frightened to death by it, pull an Ideal over their eyes, and repeat an Idealist dogma. Realists ask "why?" and keep on asking that. Idealists come up with an Ideal and shove it down everyone's throat until civilization collapses or they get overthrown.
Do you see a pattern? The negative cycle of trying to achieve impossible Ideals, causing destruction, then taking on a the mantle of a new Ideal, and repeating.
Realist comprehension skills are not a luxury, they are more essential to a good society and the preservation and advancement of civilization than 90% of other skills. The scarce resource in our world is NOT raw material. It is also not DATA. The scarce resource is intelligence that is able to understand the patterns of physical reality, abstractions that fit reality, and the behaviour of groups of people through time. This because of the overwhelming immediacy of normal life, and the self-censorship, thoughtstop and supression of pattern analysis when it comes to political, religious and general ideological power. Asking "why is this information being produced", "who benefits from this", "why are questions/opinions supressed" is a rare quality. That can yeld massive results. Let's just say infinite benefits.
Realists: Could you please stop doing that?
Idealists: What? Why?
Realists: You are really hurting us. Please stop trying to engineer society to fit your Ideal.
Idealists: No! All must conform to the Great Ideal! All must bow down before the altar of The Ideal. Have you never heard of our very good reasons for Idealism?
Realists: Yes, we have read the works of Idealism. But you are hurting us. Please stop!
Idealists: We find your lack of faith disturbing. You must worship the Ideal no matter what the costs!
Realists: Au!
