Ideals

Not only do we fail to live up to the ideals we have, we fail to have the ideals we ought to have. There are two problems here, the first pertaining more to the will, the second more to the intellect, or rather to the faculty of moral discernment.  Let us consider the second problem.

It is not enough to have ideals, one must have the right ideals. This is why being idealistic, contrary to common opinion, is not always good. Idealism ran high among the members of the Sturmabteilung (SA) and the Schuetzstaffel (SS). The same is true of countless millions who became Communists in the 20th century: they sacrificed their 'bourgeois' careers and selfish interests to serve the Party.  (See Whittaker Chambers, Witness, required reading for anyone who would understand Communism.) But it would have been better had the members of these organizations been cynics and slackers. It is arguably better to have no ideals than to have the wrong ones.  Nazism and Communism brought unprecedented amounts of evil into the world on the backs of idealistic motives and good intentions.  Connected with this is the point that wanting to do good is not good enough: one must know what the good is and what one morally may and may not do to attain it.

It is therefore a grotesque error, one that libs and lefties have a soft spot for, to suppose that being idealistic is good in and of itself.  The question must follow: idealistic in respect of which ideals?  No doubt John Lennon in his silly ditty "Imagine" expressed lofty ideals; but his ideals are the utopian ideals of the Left, and we know where they lead.  It is not good to be idealistic sans phrase; one must be idealistic in respect of the right ideals.  Only then can we say that being idealistic is better than being a common schlep who serves only his own interests.

A related but different question.  What is worse, to pay mere lip service to the right ideals without making any attempt at living up to them, or to have no ideals at all? The former is a hypocrite, but the latter is even worse. Lip service is better than no service. It follows that there is a right way and a wrong way to avoid hypocrisy. The right way is to make an effort to live up to the right ideals. The wrong way is to have no ideals.

But one must understand what hypocrisy is. Hypocrisy is not moral failure. Only the moral striver can morally fail. The hypocrite, however, does not strive.  More on hypocrisy under the rubric, Hypocrisy.