The Dark Side of Idealism

For starters, it seems I’ll have to define my terms, since people generally complain about my usage.
Pragmatism = making decisions based on expected benefit, for yourself and/or others (roughly akin to Mill’s utilitarianism)
Idealism = making decisions based on absolute principles, without regard to consequences (kind of like Kant’s categorical imperative… though I hate to foist Kant on anybody)

That said…

It seems that no one has trouble finding the problems with pragmatism. It generally has a very nasty name in Christian circles, being identified with hedonism and situational ethics. And they’re right. Those are forms of pragmatism. They are not, however, the end and be all. “Benefit” may be defined in many ways, depending on one’s worldview. And at least one of those ways is profoundly Christian. [Think Augustine and Piper and enjoying God…]

Against the so-called evil of pragmatism, we are then presented with the good of idealism. This allows for absolute duties, which are very appealing to your run-of-the-mill fundamentalist. It is black and white. It’s not like that (despicable, evil, insert-insult-here) fuzzy postmodern world out there.

But, as is the way with man, a shift from one side of the pendulum to the other does not necessarily go from wrong to right. Normally, it just shifts to a new wrong. What the current Christian culture does not understand is that there is a dark side to idealism as well.

As with pragmatism, the dark side comes in the definition of the absolutes. Just as “benefit” can be defined in many ways, so can an “absolute.” More often than not, people define absolutes more widely than they ought and condemn when it is not warranted. The Christian community is rife with little legalistic rules for this and that – drinking, dancing, pianos in church, smoking, and any number of other stigmas.

Idealism is not “tolerant” (to use a much loved word of our age), and rarely merciful. If someone crosses one of the absolutes, he is rejected. Similarly, in an idealistic war (jihad, for example), the purpose is to kill the bad people. What sort of face is this to present to a dying world that we’ve been commanded to love?

Badly defined idealism is no better than badly defined pragmatism. It is wrong. It is not how we’re supposed to live our lives. It is most certainly not holy.