Idealism and Realism

摘要

Spanish artist Pablo Picasso was speaking with an American soldier in Paris when the GI expressed the view that modern painting was inferior because it was not realistic enough. Picasso let the remark pass, but when the soldier later showed him a photo of his girlfriend, the artist exclaimed, "My! Is she really that small?"One of the most important human distinctions we can draw is between idealists and realists. Idealists believe that our thought and conduct should be shaped above all by ideals, our conception of how things would be at their best. According to idealists, models of excellence, ultimate goals, and worthy aims are the stars by which we should steer. A realist, by contrast, holds that practical considerations are paramount and that we should focus less on how things ought to be than on what we can reasonably hope to achieve in daily practice. An extreme form of realism is cynicism, the view that distrust is the only reasonable attitude toward the integrity and lofty professed motives of others.