The Perils of Naive Idealism

This is the best-educated generation of Americans—ever!  And yet it is also one that has made a host of foolish choices.  How does this compute?  How can superior knowledge and rash irresponsibility so routinely track together?

Politicians have always made absurd promises.  They have always told voters that they would deliver more than is humanly possible.  These assurances were nonetheless often believed because the average citizen did not have enough information to evaluate the validity of such claims.

I have recently been watching the PBS special on the Great War.  One of its highpoints is an emphasis on how President Woodrow Wilson explained the need for the United States to enter this conflict.  It was, he asserted, essential that we “make the world safe for democracy.”

For Wilson, this was to be the war to end all wars.  It would enshrine democratic principles around the globe such that no one would be motivated to resort to combat.  We, of course, know how this turned out.  The Second World War was even more ferocious than the First.

In 1917, most Americans did not have a high school education.  Most were farmers or laborers.  They knew little about history, and less about international politics.  Although they did not want war, they could be persuaded that its outcome might be glorious.

Americans have long been idealists.  They still are.  They want peace and prosperity.  They also want a world that is fair and forward-looking.  But why do they believe society can be perfected?  Hasn’t experience taught them that there are limitations to what can be accomplished?

Consider two related examples.  The current generation of college students is clamoring for socialism and social justice.  Many of them want the federal government to provide all manner of free stuff, e.g., healthcare and higher education.  They also want everyone to be made exactly equal.

So what have these aspirations given us?  On the one hand, they busted the federal budget such that the nation will go broke in little more than a decade.  On the other, they enshrined political correctness so firmly that free speech has become a quaint oddity.

These trends are unmistakable.  Why then have so many of the best and brightest embraced rank impossibilities.  Don’t they realize that no socialist government has ever worked to the extent it promised?  Aren’t they aware that compete equality has likewise never been achieved at any time, anywhere?

The fact is that many cotemporaries, it their hopefulness, do not want to admit these truths.  They prefer to demand ever more services, while at the same time silencing folks who disagree with them.  In the name of compassion and justice, they literally punch people in the nose and/or put them out of business.

The contradiction between what “reformers” advocate and produce is thus blatant.  Yet they refuse to see it.  This, however, is more than selective perception.  It is a consequence of our becoming a nation of naive idealists.  Many people now want what they want when they want it, whether or not this is reasonable.

An extended period of unprecedented prosperity, coupled with unparalleled international power convinced millions of Americans that anything is possible.  A century of success also insulated them from the negative consequences of their innocence and selfishness.

Whatever goes wrong, these romantics expect to land on their feet.  They always have and so they imagine they always will.  Besides, don’t they deserve to be winners?  They do not need to work very hard in order to merit the best that the world has to offer.

Nonetheless, optimism must be tempered.  Neither affluence nor safety is guaranteed.  Both require effort and intelligence to obtain and preserve.  They also cry out for an awareness of the limitations imposed by an occasionally hostile universe.

Unfortunately naïve idealists seldom acknowledge limits.  They refuse to concede the importance of exertion, knowledge, and emotional maturity in achieving what they desire.   Unbounded niceness, however, is not enough.  If we are to succeed in making the world a better place, we also require a fair amount of toughness.

Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University