I am an Idealist

Yeah, that's right, I'm and idealist. I don't really see why that has to be a dirty word. In the most bare-bones way, I would define an idealist (aside from the philosophical considerations) as someone who has some sort of conception of a perfect world, and would like to see it be that way. Most rational human beings would consider that to be a prerequisite for someone to be a moral human being (I know that's a kind of absolutist generalization, but I assume most would agree with the general sentiment). The one exception to the previous conclusion is the people whose ideals completely (or mostly) match the practices of the current world order.

I personally believe that the pejorative classification of idealist more accurately describes these people. Many people simply consider idealist to be a rough synonym for naive, and absolute faith in market economics and authoritarian politics in the face of overwhelming global poverty, racism, and lack of economic stability seems pretty naive. Furthermore, the believe that we are very close to achieving the ideal society is a patently naive (as well as disturbingly apocalyptic) idea. This idea is strongly associated with revolutionaries of all stripes, but we can't forget that almost all non-revolutionaries have committed the even more egregious error of assuming that we have already achieved ideal society. They may both be wrong, but it can be argued that the acts of the (perhaps misguided) revolutionaries is in some small way contributing to social progress, while the others are creating stagnation.

At this point I'd like to specify what I mean by revolutionary. The terms I've been using are kind of misnomers, but it's a lot simpler. Anyways, in this context I consider revolutionaries to be people who are actively fighting for a revolution (violent or non-violent) which they believe to be imminent. I personally would not consider myself a revolutionary in this sense. However I do not identify with the vast majority of non-revolutionaries who have pretty much accepted the status quo (the ones who have committed the egregious error). I belong to the minority of non-reformist and non-revolutionary radicals who believe that the ideal society will not be achieved in "One Big Revolution" and may even doubt that a better society may not even be possible (obviously a perfect society is almost by definition impossible, but most believe that there are some minimum standards that are achievable).

The final definition of idealist which I will address comes from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, and provides a happy middle-ground between my initial definition and the excessively negative one. They say that and idealist is "one guided by ideals; especially : one that places ideals before practical considerations". I accept this definition wholeheartedly, provided I can elaborate on what being "practical" is. "Practical" cannot exist in a vacuum. In order for a means to be considered practical, you must have some sort of end in mind. Now, in achieving the current goals of modern society- namely political expediancy, market efficiency, corporate power, massive incarceration, and generally supporting the system- my views are very impractical. For example (although I do not actually support this) people who vote for third parties are generally seen as wasting their vote, more or less because it's impractical. Therefore, in a coutry where the two mainstream parties are virtually indistinguishable, the only possibility for change "ironically" becomes impractical. Change is impractical. However, if you decide on some slightly more humanitarian goals - low poverty and starvation rates, high literacy rates, economic equity, intellectual freedom, etc. - my beliefs become decidedly practical.

So in that sense, the majority of society is idealistic, holding the ideals of the Constitution, Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence, etc. above the practical considerations of human life.

Take THAT, Aditya!

Well, I think freedom of expression is much more psychologically satisfying than intellectual freedom, because you are much more aware of the former. However, that doesn't always mean that is more important. For example, in the Asch Line Studies that you discussed, the people being studied weren't aware at all that their opinions were being manipulated (albeit very subtly). In that sense, they were completely satisfied. However, the manipulation caused them to come up with incorrect conclusions. If their compromised opinion was actually important in some way, the effects could be disastrous. To use an example that has been done to death, if the manipulated information had been the reasons for going to war in Iraq, the people in the study would be in serious trouble.

On the other hand, I think you can argue that intellectual freedom is not very important if you assume that people's opinions don't really matter. Sadly, this is true in many ways. The bulk of public policy is really not determined by the majority of people, but rather an elite few in the upper echelons of society. Yes, the population does contribute to the debate (except for some interesting free trade agreements which are truly terrifying), but the ultimate decisions are made by a handful of people. However, even if most people's opinions are completely inconsequential, the people "in charge" would still require intellectual freedom in order to make informed decisions, assuming they use their knowledge in a way that benefits more than just themselves, which is admittedly a very naive assumption. Furthermore, although most people don't have much say in national and international policies of their government, we still require a certain amount of diversity of opinion to make more "mundane" decisions, such as what car to buy. Also, in "the perfect society" (or at least my vision of it) people would have a lot more say in larger decisions, which would require quite a bit of (untainted) knowledge about a few things.

Also, I'm pretty sure intellectual diversity is essential to any sort of progress. People need to have different opinions in order to devise new solutions to problems, and any measures to stifle diversity can inhibit positive change. It's also possible that lack of intellectual diversity can also inhibit negative change, although that's kind of a complicated issue. My assumption is that in the right situation, a sort of social evolution would prevent that negative "memes" from causing too much damage, although my idea of the right situation is kind of specific. I have a theory about the evolution of states which is somewhat related to this idea that I've probably talked to you about, but have yet to elaborate on. I'll probably do that sometime later. I do realize I use natural selection as a base for a lot of theories altogether too much, but it just makes so much sense.

I would also like to take a moment to point out that encouraging intellectual freedom might not necessarily lead to intellectual diversity. It's very possible that if you provide all the right conditions for freedom of thought (namely strong critical reasoning "training" and free access to a wide variety information) that people will develop a relatively narrow range of opinions about the world. I personally find this highly unlikely, for reasons that I would be happy to elaborate on if anyone actually cares.

A more complicated question is how much a society can actually foster intellectual diversity. If it turns out to be a positive thing to foster intellectual freedom, then it would be an extremely important question to address. However, my assumption is that you can't seriously improve intellectual diversity through structural changes in a society (or maybe through any changes at all), and that all you can do is change the apparatus through which it is shaped. It's ridiculous to get rid of all the distributors of information in the country, which would theoretically prevent any sort of censorship of information, because it would also seriously impede the ability to access information.

On the other hand, leaving the supplying of knowledge to a certain group with its own personal interests is probably not a very wise decision either. For example, the government might suppress information that is critical of the government, a corporation might suppress information that is critical of the corporation or that might not be commercially viable, and I might suppress information that is critical of me or my ideas. There are probably very many pros and cons to each of us being used as arbiters of knowledge, and they would most likely result in populations with a unique outlook on life (presumably one that better suits the main distributer of information's interests). The best solution would probably be to spread the regulation of knowledge to as many entities as possible, and to try to eliminate the motivation to purposely suppress certain works.