While I was walking the dog this morning I had a thought. I don't know that I'll be able to put it into words very well, but I'll give it a shot.

Idealism and practicalism (I think "pragmatism" is a better word, but I didn't think about it until I was finished, so we'll stick with the former) are on two ends of a spectrum. That is to say, the closer you get to "ideal" the farther you get from "practical" and the other way around. So the practical-ist is concerned with what he is able to do and have. This means, then, that the idealist is concerned with what he is not able to do and have. That is to say that his ideas are more for someone else (i.e. future generations) than for himself. After all, it's unreasonable to think that an idealists vision could come into place in one lifetime (Think about Hitler and Stalin, for examples of idealists who tried to force their visions on others).

So the practical-ist is ultimately, then, more materialistic than the idealist since he only really cares about what he can achieve, not what can be achieved in the future. Due to the limiting view he gives the world the practical-ist doesn't even give lip service to those things over which he has no control. A great example of this is a guy at work, who we'll call "G". G has no interest whatsoever in things like politics, religion, philosophy, etc. Believe me... I've tried to bring up the topic. His apathy in these matters is so apparent that he takes pride in the fact that he doesn't even know for whom he voted in the last election for Canadian Prime Minister. However, get him talking about his stuff (like his new cell phone, or his motorcycle, etc) and you'll have conversation fodder for hours.

This is such a drastic change from my last job. I remember one of the first times I went to lunch with Karl, from my old job, we talked about where morals come from. Do they come from God and, if so, does that mean that the laws based the morals of one religion are superior to another? Do they come from public opinion and, if so, doesn't that mean that the laws based on morals are those that are the least-common denominator of society as a whole? I'm not going to go into the discussions now, but these are interesting topics. And I don't mean to give G a hard time, because he's not the only one that's a problem. They say that you're not supposed to talk about religion or politics at work and it could be argued that this is why these things are never discussed, but I had these conversations all the time with Karl, Jeff, Sam, and even Don (and if you know Don, then this is pretty amazing!).

I used to think that these people that don't like these discussions were either stupid or shallow. Now I'm beginning to think that they're just materialistic, or practical-ists. That is, they care more about what they can do and achieve and that talking about anything else is "below" them somehow. I've actually been very surprised to find that virtually everyone I've worked with in Montreal (co-workers and customers) are almost this exact same way! I completely understand that I am about to make a very sweeping generalization that I know isn't true for 100% of Quebecois, but I find that there are more materialistic people here than in the United States! And yet, the US is always accused of being materialistic.

I can't help but believe that the appearance of this generalization comes from the fact that religion is so generally disregarded here (by "here" I mean Quebec, specifically, but also in my limited experiences in Eastern and Central Canada). I can only really speak for Christianity, but I think that this applies for other religions as well: Religion requires a bit of idealism and imagination. All of the major "prophets" saw an ideal state. Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed saw "heaven", Buddha saw "nirvana", Lao Tsu saw "the Way", etc. These were idealists. Christianity tells us to "be more like Jesus" which, inevitably, leads us to try to be more idealistic. Buddhists are constantly striving to achieve their "Buddha nature", again trying to be more idealistic.

Now let me just say that pure idealism is as much of an extreme as pure practicality. Generally extremism is bad, and that applies here, too. Think, for example, of people who claim to be Jesus Christ. They are effectively saying "I am the ideal Christian" and they are, as such, persecuted. Even Jesus himself was persecuted for saying what he is.

Finally (yes, there is an end in sight), I think we need to be more balanced on the practicality/idealism scale. We need to be more focused on creating a better society and less on what we can achieve, while always keeping our eyes on what we need and only take those things and steps that will lead us toward the end that we will never achieve ourselves.