Idealism and Materialism

William Samuel

The age old struggle between idealism and materialism 

continue with materialism making the most apparent gains. 

The genuine idealist is becoming rather difficult to find.

Now we have reached the point, right here in America, 

when our two political parties are, in their very essence, 

embodiments of these two extremes. Idealism, the least 

popular, because the least understood, is the basis for the 

conservative view of government. On the other hand, 

materialism is the foundation for the liberal view of 

government.

It is my hope that seomeone will come along who is 

capable of pointing out so that all can clearly understand 

the basic difference in these two views. They are 

diametrically opposed one to the other. One says that “ideal 

society” can and must be regulated by laws, the other 

declares that the fewer laws the better and individual is 

able to operate to build the ideal society. The latter group 

points out that “laws” are “regulations of human conduct” 

and that “freedom” is the “absence of regulations.” They 

maintain that we are removing our freedom is the “absence 

of regulations.” They maintain that we are removing our 

freedom by over regulating ourselves with laws at all levels 

of government and that we must reverse the trend lest one 

day we find all our personal freedom gone the way of 

government, rule and regulation for which we must pay the 

bill.

It is interesting to note that such a struggle between 

opposite points of view was waged in China 2500 years 

ago.

 Confucius advocated a powerful central government of law 

and regulations. Loatse, on the other hand, quietly 

maintained that the less law and less government the better 

Confucius carried the day because the bulk of the people 

approved the idea of a great central caretaker and 

regulator of their problems. The Loatsen view called for 

personal humility in the face of Divine Law which was 

already perfectly established and which could be discerned 

and followed by men if they didn’t allow themselves to be 

carried away, distrated, inundated by human laws, rules 

and regulations.

History records that the strong governments eventually 

become corrupted in an era of gross materialism, void of 

religion, and fell apart. Yet the Laotsen ideas became the 

basis for one of the most magnificent religions the world 

has ever know—its idealism still a major influence in the 

world today.

Mayhap someone will also point out that communism can 

only thrive in an atmosphere of materialism. Whereas 

genuine religion thrives only in an atmosphere of idealism. 

Communism is a dead duck in the conservative society. 

Religion is a gonner in the liberal atmosphere. This is not 

to say that a liberal is communist, but it is to say that most 

liberals are unaware that their own governmental 

regulation of human conduct is an equal and opposite 

remover of personal freedom, which, by definition is “the 

absence of regulation.” Neither are they aware that their 

ideas are rooted in materialism, the belief that money, 

property, “things” et al, are more important than the 

overriding “Isness” which is being all “things.” Many 

materialists I know pride themselves in the power of their 

‘mind’ while all the while they hold that very mind in toal 

subjection to their opinion of “things.”

The idealist, on the other hand, holds that “things” are 

secondary to mind, life, consciousness which he equates 

with God. The materialist must eventually equate his 

regulating government (who controls the things” he 

considers so important) with God. This, of course, is 

precisely what communism preaches.

Humanity is prone to consider everything it thinks and 

does  from the basis of the appearing. It recons reality from 

the seen and heard. Its aim and intention is to correct the 

errors of appearance. Suppose a mathematitician did this. 

Suppose he did all his figuring and calculating from the 

standpoint of all the errors which appeared on the 

misworked paper. He wouldn’t get much done. As a matater 

of fact, he wouldn’t get anything done. He wouldn’t solve 

the first error until he left the mistake long enough to 

check into the principle of arithmetic which would show 

him what was wrong about the problem and how to solve it.

So long as humanity is concernned only with the “things” 

of perception and pays no heed to the very perfect principle 

of Reality which is the basis for all ‘things’ --and which, 

when understood, is the harmony and perfection of all 

experience—it will suffer the consequences of its own 

misinterpretation of “things.” Mankind must leave the 

errors of human experience in order to have done with 

them just as the mathematician must “leave” the problem 

in order to entertain the “answer” to the problem. The 

answer to the problem is always, always, Reality, God.

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