The Limits of Idealism: When Good Intentions Go Bad (Clinical
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The Limits of Idealism When Good Intentions Go Bad CLINICAL SOCIOLOGY Research and Practice SERIES EDITOR: John G. Bruhn, Pennsylvania State University~Harrisburg Middletown, Pennsylvania CLINICAL SOCIOLOGY: An Agenda for Action John G. Bruhn and Howard M. Rebach THE LIMITS OF IDEALISM: When Good Intentions Go Bad Melvyn L. Fein THE PARTNERSHIP MODEL IN HUMAN SERVICES: Sociological Foundations and Practices Rosalyn Benjamin Darling A Continuation Order Plan is available for this series. A continuation order will bring delivery of each new volume immediately upon publication. Volumes are billed only upon actual shipment. For further information please contact the publisher. The Limits of Idealism When Good Intentions Go Bad Melvyn L. Fein Kennesaw State University Kennesaw, Georgia Kluwer Academic / Plenum Publishers New York, Boston, Dordrecht, London, Moscow Library of Congress Cotaloglng-ln-Publlcatlon Data Feln, Melvyn L. The limits OF ldeallsm : when good intentions go bad / Melvyn L. Fern. p. cm. -- (Clinical sociology) Includes bibliographical references and Index. ISBN 0-306-46211-7 1. Radlcallsm--H1story--20th century. 2. Radlca]tsm--Unlted States--Hlstory--2Oth century. 3. Ideallsa--Hlstory--20th century. I. Tltle. II. Series. HN17.5.F44 1999 303.48'4--dc21 99-42793 CIP ISBN 0-306-46211-7 ©1999 Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York 233 Spring Street, New York, N.Y. 10013 l0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher. Printed in the United States of America In memory of my uncle, Milton Tarriff, the best human being I have personally known. No period in history has ever been great or ever can be that does not act on some sort of high, idealistic motives, and idealism in our time has been shoved aside, and we are paying the penalty for it. Alfred North Whitehead, January 13, 1944 By these intellectual maneuvers, radicals have been able to resurrect the utopian vision and the destructive enterprise it engenders. The perfect future is once again invoked to condemn the imperfect present. Nietzsche observed, 'Idealism kills.' Without the noble utopian idea, the evil practice would not exist. David Horowitz, The Politics of Bad Faith, 1998 Before we praise radical egalitarians for their noble if unrealizable ideals, we do well to remember that noble ideals can themselves be the source of ignoble actions .... It is not enough to declare an idea noble and one's hands clean; one needs to ask what will happen to that uplifting ideal when people behave not like angels but like fallible, biased human beings. Richard J. Ellis, The Dark Side of the Left, 1998 Many have dreamed up republics and principalities that have never in truth been known to exist: the gap between how one should live and how one does live is so wide that a man who neglects what is actually done for what should be done learns the way to self destruction rather than self preservation. Niceolo Maehiaveli, The Prince, 1514 Fanaticism consists in redoubling your efforts when you have forgotten your aim. George Santayana, The Life of Reason, 1905-1906 Preface If the truth be known, I am only a partially reformed idealist. In the secret depths of my soul, I still wish to make the world a better place and sometimes fantasize about heroically eradicating its faults. When I encounter its limitations, it is consequently with deep regret and continued surprise. How, I ask myself, is it possible that that which seems so fight can be a chimera? And why, I wonder, aren't people as courageous, smart, or nice as I would like? The pain of realizing these things is sometimes so intense that I want to close my eyes and lose myself in the kinds of daydreams that comforted me as a youngster. One thing is clear, my need to come to grips with my idealism had its origin in a lifetime of naivet6. From the beginning, I wanted to be a "good" person. Often when life was most treacherous, I retreated into a comer from whence I escaped into reveries of moral glory. When I was very young, my faith was in religion. In Hebrew school, I took my lessons seriously and tried to apply them at home. By my teen years, this had been replaced by an allegiance to socialism. In the Brooklyn where I grew up, my teachers and relatives made this seem the natural course. When I reached my twenties, however, and was obliged to confront a series of personal deficiencies, psychotherapy shouldered its way to the fore. Just getting through some days required a confidence in its efficacy. Subsequently becoming a clinical sociologist and a college professor did not decisively alter this propensity; my faith was merely transferred to social science and its ability to remedy our ills. Along the way I also discovered that others too were pursuing doctrinaire ideals. Thus when I worked as a clinician, my clients would implore me for ix x Preface help in becoming the kind of person whom they admired. The trouble was that they were usually unsure of what qualities this sort of person possessed. When I became a college professor, my students were generally more certain of what was ideal. Where I was bedeviled by questions about personal responsibility and social mobility, they confidently assumed that androgyny and a classless society were best. I also came to realize that in the political arena, people were promoting unexamined ideals. Whether from the Right or the Left, social activists lobbied for intemperate policies that struck me as foolishly romantic. Even groups such,as the libertarians, with which I was in sympathy, took their ideas to extremes and slid off into a kind of intellectual nihilism. Worse yet, it became plain to me that people were often trapped by their ideals. Even when these did not work out, letting them go seemed to entail huge amounts of discomfort. Idealism, I came to recognize, could be both misleading and dangerously seductive. Yet in the right hands it was clearly a blessing. When an awareness of its limitations prevented it from going too far, it seemed to expand people's horizons. This was exemplified, for me, by a favorite uncle. Milton Tarriff was unequivocally the best human being I have personally known. Throughout his life he was an ardent socialist, but this did not prevent us debating--and chuckling over--our many disagreements. Although serious about his beliefs, his humanity came first, and therefore so did the dignity he accorded others. In his teen years, Milton attended meetings of the Communist Party hoping to find a path out of the Great Depression. Later, after serving under General Patton during World War II, he sought a civil service job in his native New York City. This was almost denied because of his earlier infatuation. Nonetheless, he held no grudges. When my cousin Michael and I suggested that his continued belief in governmental interventions was out of date, he smiled broadly, looked to the skies, and muttered something like, "Where did I go wrong?" We would all then laugh and continue our discussion. But more than this, as a humane person, he believed that the humanity of others came first. Aware of his limitations, he was prepared to accept those of others as a matter of course. Too many idealists, unfortunately, are ideologues whose commitments leave them frustrated by the frailties of adversaries who refuse to adopt their perspective. My Uncle Milton was unusual in that he considered the concrete needs of individuals more valid than the theoretical benefits of his personal convictions. Given all these considerations, in the end I found writing this book to be one of the more agonizing experiences of my life. Despite how much I thought I knew, I was forced to confront my ongoing illusions. As I reviewed other people's foibles, my own came into greater relief. No longer could I excuse them as a sign of inner goodness. Nor could I rationalize Preface xi failures as due to the imperfections of others. In retrospect, I now recognize that it is accomplishing the world's mundane tasks that deserves the most respect; it is this day to day labor that takes the greatest courage. Acknowledgments When I began investigating the deceptive nature of idealism, among those who furnished me assistance were my immediate colleagues at Kennesaw State University. Usually, in a Preface, one acknowledges those who provided intellectual, research, and editorial assistance, and I especially wish to thank Mary Platt, Deborah Malone, Nuru Akenyemi, John Bruhn, and Marti Boyd for having done so--but I also wish to applaud others who have provided moral inspiration. Best discovered through example, genuine integrity can be confirmed only in action. Ironically, a series of professional setbacks enabled me to learn what makes some people tick. Several of these were good enough to provide support even at the risk of their own careers. Specifically, Vasilli Economopoulos, Barbara Karcher, Lana Wachniak, William Wallace, and Wayne Van Home have demonstrated an internal fortitude that separates genuine decency from the counterfeit variety. My hat is off to them. I must likewise express my gratitude to several members of my immediate family. Through the decades, in good times and bad, my sister Carol Schwartz, my brother Joel Fein, and my cousin Michael Tarriff have generously offered their assistance and a model of perseverance that I could not have done without.