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One of the defining properties of liberals and, even more, progressives is idealism. The idea that you set your sights on a destination that is unattainable due to the vagaries of reality rather settle for status quo and incrementalism. There is an adaptive and maladaptive side to that psychology. The adaptive side is that all plans tend to work out at less than 100%. If you aspire to something just past your destination, you may actually reach where you originally wanted to go. If you aim right for it, you'll fall short. Also, reality doesn't always make it clear where the real boundaries are. Often you can accomplish more than is apparently possible if you have the courage to try. The maladaptive side is considering any policy too coupled to reality as stinking of compromise and defeatism, or as a designed-to-fail Trojan horse from the other side. Any idea that might actually be feasible instead becomes suspect by virtue of its feasibility. The only goals you feel comfortable holding in your heart are ones that never risk getting sullied by any actual incremental progress. I think progressives in the past used to be better at keeping their eyes on the future while getting their hands dirty with today's work. But, perhaps because of decades of horror shows like the War in Iraq, climate change, rising inequality, corporate take-over of culture, and political polarization, I see less of the latter. There's a sort of fatalism of prefering to die a martyr with hands unstained by sin than possibly staving off death by consorting with the enemy. |