The Compromise Of The Rational Idealist

I had a feeling that some people would know precisely what I’m getting at here while others would be lost… I know there’s an interesting mixture of terms, but I think it’s the description of the emotive that some struggle to grasp. Let me know if you understand what I’m getting at. I’ve received a bunch of emails on this, but I’d like to get some comments in the comment section, please!

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Life can be tough when you’re an idealist driven by passion, especially when you hold an unrelenting commitment to rationality. The soul within you pines for purity while your mind reminds you that we’re all stained by original sin. Internally you are fed by hope and trust, but the outsiders inevitably inadvertently winnows your sustenance, claiming that you are uncompromising, that you are searching for something that does not exist. But the rational idealist does know compromise. What others may not see is that it must be negotiated between the head and the heart:

“I should like balls infinitely better,” said Caroline Bingley, “if they were carried on in a different manner … It would surely be much more rational if conversation instead of dancing made the order of the day.”

“Much more rational, I dare say,” replied her brother, “but it would not be near so much like a Ball.” We are told that the lady was silenced: yet it could be maintained that Jane Austen has not allowed Bingley to put forward the full strength of his position. He ought to have replied with a distinguo. In one sense, conversation is more rational, for conversation may exercise the reason alone, dancing does not. But there is nothing irrational in exercising other powers than our reason. On certain occasions and for certain purposes the real irrationality is with those who will not do so. The man who would try to break a horse or write a poem or beget a child by pure syllogizing would be an irrational man; though at the same time syllogizing is in itself a more rational activity than the activities demanded by these achievements. It is rational not to reason, or not to limit oneself to reason, in the wrong place; and the more rational a man is the better he knows this. - C.S. Lewis, “Priestesses in the Church”

The reasoning idealist finds compromise challenging but attainable precisely because he knows that the incomprehensibility of passion and love can’t be grasped through reason. However, if his mind were to actively pursue this necessary compromise his idealist heart would shout of betrayal. Compromise without contradiction can only be attained when the rationality of the mind assents to the passionate pleading of the heart.