Idealism is fundamentally a flaw of the way cognition works.
When you go online, and you see posts made by feminists hating on men, and you assume these feminists are representative of feminists rather than outliers, you are engaging in idealism.
When a hippie asks "why can't we all just get along and hug trees, man", the hippie is engaging in idealism, for he assumes that others are like him.
When Niko Bellic in GTA 4 is tricked by his cousin Roman to come to America, under the assumption that Roman's boastings of his "high-life" are in any way reflective of reality, and Niko is disappointed when he actually sees what this "high-life" looks like, that is idealism.
When I sound radical on the internet to imitate my parasocial friend Marx, when I warn the capitalism defenders that they will be destroyed in the revolution, but I live in a country where communist orgs are dead and workers are sedated, I am engaging in wishful thinking and empty threats, that is idealism.
When a child talks about Santa Claus, as if he were real, only because the child imagines him to be real, and never checks if he actually is, what is that called? You guessed it, idealism.
It is the curse of being able to produce thoughts and language without needing to check the real world. The whole field of psychology is made up of constructs that are *assumed* to be useful at helping people without scientific legitimacy. And the dumb shit trickles down, and it isn't even questioned. "Brain surgeons are high-functioning psychopaths", or some retarded sentence like that is something I'm sure you've heard at one point. Questions you would've asked if you were wiser: WHAT is a "psychopath"? WHERE did you obtain the information that brain surgeons are "psychopaths"?
And so it goes.
Yeah, OP. I remember reading an introductory book on marxism many years ago which described it like you do:
>One of the most common forms of idealism is the view that humans have unrestricted “free will”—the idea that individuals can do anything they set their minds to regardless of economic, social, and cultural obstacles placed in front of them. The view that “you can beat poverty if you really try hard” implicitly accepts free will. Poverty, in this view, is not a social phenomenon caused by, for example, a factory closing or a chronic illness in the family (itself perhaps caused by a pollutant spewed into the air by some corporation). Rather, poverty is a personal failing. The most famous example of this kind of thinking came from former US president Ronald Reagan, who once argued that the “people who are sleeping on the grates… the homeless… are homeless, you might say, by choice.” The dramatic rise in homelessness in the 1980s naturally had nothing to do with the fact that Reagan halved the public-housing budget and reduced federal spending to local governments. The flip side of this argument is that businessmen and wealthy professionals derive their social status from their brilliant personal qualities, not because of the silver spoons stuck into their mouths at birth. No one has ever argued that companies go bankrupt by choice. Yet every year, in spite of the intentions of individual businesspeople, thousands of companies do go bankrupt. The same applies to unemployment. Unemployment goes through cyclical rises and declines. There was a massive spike in unemployment after the 2007–8 financial crisis, and it remained high for several years following. It stretches logic to argue that it was caused by a sudden outbreak of mass laziness. The truth, as we shall show later, is that unemployment has economic causes that are beyond the control of individual workers or capitalists. Marx and Engels ridiculed the view that ideas determine reality. “Once upon a time, a valiant fellow had the idea that men were drowned in water only because they were possessed with the idea of gravity,” they wrote. “If they were to get this notion out of their heads,” they could avoid drowning. Behind the humor lay an important point: Thought that bears no relationship to reality is impotent thought. The will to action is important, but if that will does not correspond to material possibilities, it doesn’t count for anything. This can apply in obvious ways—willpower cannot overcome a shortage of food on a deserted island. Or it can apply in more subtle ways. Willpower alone cannot convince everyone at my workplace to walk out with me on strike—other conditions are required. What people say and think about themselves and the world must not be taken on its own merit but must be judged in light of the underlying social and economic relations that govern their behavior. We must go beneath the surface of what often appear to be religious disputes, for example, to see that these conflicts express deeper class conflicts. “A distinction must be made,” wrote Marx, “between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production . . . and the legal, political, religious, aesthetic or philosophic—in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out.”
Source is a book called The Meaning of Marxism by Paul D'Amato
>>2463379picrel
>>2463442the hysteria against idealism isnt even on philosophical ground. its literally "you have a thought in your head? idealist".
>>2463449>>2463341Related to this, excellent writeups on moralizing:.
https://www.ruthlesscriticism.com/moralyes.htmhttps://www.ruthlesscriticism.com/marxist_moralists.htm>>2463442>>2463449The problem is not that there is something "wrong" with thinking of a non-existent circle. The problem is when you base politics or even your own life on it. That is the road that can only lead to disappointment. Misanthropes only exist because of this
Let me give you a concrete example of the "law of motion" from my own life. When I was younger I hung out with some rougher kids. One day, I bump into one of these kids, already dealing drugs and being groomed into a gang. I ask him what's up, where are you headed. He replies, I'm on my way to stab a dude and teach him a lesson for ripping me off (presumably something involving drugs). Now, if you were in my position, would there be literally
anything you could have said to stop him from doing that? "Don't do it, that's another human being, what about the golden rule, would you like someone else to stab you?" Nope. It doesn't matter what I say, he was already "in motion". Possibly the only way I could have stopped him is if I was for example some sort of boss figure to him, and I ordered him to not do it, but then I wouldn't be a boss figure for long if I kept sabotaging my own criminal network from "moving". That's why idealism fails.
>>2463470>it's not a definition it's a tautology, logically speakinga definition is an identification and a tautology is repetitive identification: A = A = A…
>it's just saying A = Athe law of identity?
>matter is all we knowbut matter surely has different modes and substances? we can say water and wine are different things, cant we?
>>2463474>The problem is when you base politics or even your own life on it. truth is beyond politics. basing your life around politics is where real disappointment comes from.
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