Issue 99 永不言弃小组 第二十二次作业 by 9#

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99. "In any realm of life—whether academic, social, business, or political—the only way to succeed is to take a practical, rather than an idealistic, point of view. Pragmatic behavior guarantees survival, whereas idealistic views tend to be superseded by simpler, more immediate options."
在任何生活领域中——无论是学术、社会、商业还是政治——获得成的唯一道路就是采取现实的而不是理想化的观点。实用的行为确保了生存，反之理想化的观点正在趋于被更简化的和更直接的选择所取代。
理想和现实

1、
在学术和社会领域理想大于现实
2、
在商业和政治领域，现实大于理想
3、
区别对待

Practice and ideal, which is more important? Most people share a belief that in the compete society where is filled with interests, power, money, position, and cheat, robbery,conquer, conflicts, human beings are custom to take practical point and act to fulfill his or her goal in order to survival. However, as far as I am concerned, the conditions and scenes in different areas are various.

When it comes to business and political, pragmatic behavior is necessary and effective to achieve success and prevent being defeated by opponent，conforming the adapt-or-die principle is significant for businessman and politician. According to my knowledge, an effective and successful businessman should primarily be able to maximize the profits of the company, since it is the original intention for him or her entering this field. Therefore, it means they need to take every possible method in order to cut down the expenses and roll in the revenues, and in this process, some immoral but pragmatic actions may be allowed being adopted by them. Similarly, in the realm of politics, to be an effective political leader, the most important and urgent goal for he or she is to attain and maintain the power.
Machiavelli a Italian political theorist whose book The Prince(1513)describes the achievement and maintenance of power by a determined ruler indifferent to moral considerations. For a businessman and a politician, practice is more important than ideal, thus, it is worth taking practical but not idealistic point and act to protect his or her interests and power.

However, when it goes to the academic and religious realms, ideal which is the motivation of academic progress and the substation of religion plays a more crucial role than practice in success. For example, Jane Goodall's involvement in tropical forests and conservation has led her to be involved in a number of primatologists’ criticism because they thought it is unpractical to observe animal in such way. But just her ideal about the area, and persistent desire to understand animals contribute to one of the western world's greatest scientific achievements—— including the observation of chimpanzees making and using tools-laid the foundation for all future primate studies. And, for a religious leader, the ideal about the human being’s future is the core content of his or her religious principles. Without the leading of ideal, any pragmatic behavior could achieve success, the idealistic point of views are like the stars in the sky which could bring people correct directions.

Finally, in the society realm, an effective and successful social leader would be able to strike a balance between practical and idealistic ways. Actually, that is the social ideal what they could use to educate or influence their followers and is the practical social reform make them the great and successful leaders. Examples like Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and Mandela, all of their lives they have or had used their social ideal and believes to tell the people right from wrong and change the world towards a more democratic, peaceful and lovely place to live, yet, for them, it is the actions which conducted through practical methods that make them effective. So, how to balance practice and ideal is a big problem for a social leader and only the one who could combine the two aspects can he or she might successful.

In conclusion, which element should be emphasized, practice or ideal, based on in what field it comes to. For a individual, the ideal and practice are both indispensable, but it seems a little bit different when it comes to the the fields of business, politics, academic, religion and society.