The Subtleties of Idealism

 
I don't know if my friend who said this realised that I could have taken her comment as a thinly disguised insult but it doesn't matter since I choose to take it in the spirit of good humour. She said, "An idealist is someone who, upon seeing that the rose smells sweet, would make a soup out of it." It's a clever line but how true is it? In the game of the quick wit which is sometimes played, I think she was equating idealism with blindness, in which case, I can only say she seems to be confusing the idealist with a pedant. One could have simply retorted that idealism has nothing to do with a particular individual's taste for food. One cannot exclude the possibility of being both an idealist and a pragmatist, depending on the circumstances in which things are discussed. Having visions of an idyll does not mean perforce that one is impractical. I would say to my friend that the kind of idealist I have in mind would have, most likely, upon seeing that the rose smelt sweet, made a gift of it to the next lady who walked by.

The idea that the Union could be more perfect was promulgated by a young smart Presidential hopeful called Barack Obama a couple of years ago. Is he an idealist? Some greater number of years ago the then Prime Minister of Australia, Gough Whitlam, put on that nation's political agenda the idea of embracing multi-culturalism as a focal point of its humane national ethos. Was he being an idealist? The answers seem obvious.

Many people, possibly including my aforementioned friend, mistake idealism for dreaming then proceed to reason that since dreams are not real nor is idealism. To a point they are right since ideas remain just thoughts until given some concrete form. However, many artists would admit that without some ideal of beauty to aim at, they would be lost for inspiration. Outside of art, policies for improving society could not begin to be drawn up without some worthy goals. Because it is the progenitor of what in the modern age we would call quality standards, idealism is not so much useful as essential in attaining excellence, whether it'd be making better whiskeys, wines, movies, architecture or indeed, the subtle arts of composing words to thrill the heart and mind.