The Limits of Idealism : When Good Intentions Go Bad Paperback / softback

by Melvyn L. Fein

Part of the Clinical Sociology: Research and Practice series

Paperback / softback

Out of stock

Description

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By my teen years, this had been replaced by an allegiance to socialism.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.