Absolutely! The best way to combat irrational emotional reactions
to accurate words is to "reclaim" them; to use them proudly and
without apology.
It is a shame that in our culture in general, "idealistic" has
become an insult and "practical" a compliment, rather than the
reverse, as they deserve.
Even I must admit that there are times when surrendering to
pragmatism is appropriate, as when one hands one's wallet over
to a thief with a gun in your back, but it should always be seen
as a defeat. Pragmatism is failure. Somewhere in our culture,
it became not only acceptable, but desirable.
I am an ideologue, and proud of it. I have no respect at all
for those who /start/ an argument from pragmatism instead of
settling for it when idealism fails. Masking over our own
idealism for the sake of PR is exactly that--it is settling
for defeat before we have even tried sticking to principle.
A principled movement wants people to support its goals; if it
sacrifices those goals just to get people, what are those people
for? Such a movement, where numbers of people are a goal in
itself, is no longer a principled movement, and is forever
doomed to success in its mediocrity.
-- Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com> <http://www.piclab.com/lcrocker.html> "All inventions or works of authorship original to me, herein and past, are placed irrevocably in the public domain, and may be used or modified for any purpose, without permission, attribution, or notification."--LDC