Morality and Ideology

Too often we, as in the general public, tend to lose our idealism and our naivete when we age, as, one by one, we see the possibility of our dreams reaching fruition come to a crashing halt. Yet, there reaches a moment in our collective adulthood where we reach a pinnacle of zeal for our ideology, whether it be left or right, just to keep from losing those last few straws of idealism that were instilled in us as children. As we cling to these last few strands of near forgotten hope, we realize that we take extreme measures to preserve these ideologies. The sad part is that these sad parts of cultural inheritance not just as an individual, but as a society. Whether it is the American dream, or a socialist utopia, these are not real places, but aberrations of a childhood dream that someone peddled to us accompanied by a pair of x-ray glasses and a decoder ring. The true tragedy is that sometimes we abandon our morality to hold on to that ideology because we are scared what will happen when we let go of our dreams and fall into the tundra of reality. This is not referring to the religious morality of “thou shall not do this or that”, but the base, interior, gut feeling that tells you if what you are doing is right or wrong. I think that quality, more than the pursuit of a dream is what makes us human. Dreams can change, reality often forces them too, so one does not have to abandon their morality to pursue their dreams. In more recent times people have been convinced that certain acts are in the best interest of this or that and that necessary evils must be allowed to exist in order for the world to function as it does. Never forget that the world, society, and even the smaller community are composed of the same basal element: individuals. I think as an individual you should do what is right and not what someone else tells you is necessary.