What's the difference between idealist and utopian?

Idealist


Definition:

  • (n.) One who idealizes; one who forms picturesque fancies; one given to romantic expectations.
  • (n.) One who holds the doctrine of idealism.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The young European idealist who helped Leon Brittan, the British EU commissioner, to negotiate Chinese entry to the World Trade Organisation, also found his Spanish lawyer wife in Brussels.
  • (2) Valls immediately attacked Hamon as an idealist who couldn’t win the presidential election and styled himself as the voice of the serious left in government.
  • (3) The Lewinsky affair did not leave him disillusioned and Engskov's eyes brighten as he recalls his time in Washington: "It was an idealistic time.
  • (4) Far from being disgusted with her physicality, Ruskin – a rigorous Christian and idealist – felt anxious and subconsciously betrayed by the realisation that his love for Effie was a one-sided affair.
  • (5) Yes, sounding on about the ethical dimension to public service can sound corny and implausible when you have ministers rubbishing the state and all its works, but you and the vast majority of your civil service colleagues are doing the job because you are idealists.
  • (6) We are brought up to emphasise ideology, to neglect psychology and to observe government as a series of clashes between big people with big ideas acting in ways that are by turns manipulative and idealistic but explicable.
  • (7) It’s idealistic, it’s the right thing to do even if it turns out to be utterly futile.
  • (8) Similarities between the notion of life style and concepts of cultural integration are noted, and the various uses of life style are categorized along an idealist-materialist continuum.
  • (9) It may however, serve as an example of how idealistic principles might be combined with realism derived directly from clinical practice, and may thus serve to inspire others along similar paths.
  • (10) With Veep , rather than striving young idealists, you have cowardly egomaniacs and bunglers who are involved in endless arse-covering exercises.
  • (11) Never work for an organisation without proper security measures I was young, idealistic, naive and working in an active conflict zone for a small local NGO.
  • (12) About suffering they were never wrong, The old Masters: how well they understood Its human position: how it takes place While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along But Swartz's death came like a thunderbolt in cyberspace, because this insanely talented, idealistic, complex, diminutive lad was a poster boy for everything that we value about the networked world.
  • (13) The search for a synthesis bridging the gap between materialist and idealist approaches in anthropological theory has been invigorated by recent efforts to develop a critical medical anthropology.
  • (14) DanceSafe's Messer, a veteran of the idealistic PLUR (peace, love, unity, respect) oriented rave underground of the 90s, complains that the dance festivals offer a "packaged, containerised experience ...
  • (15) Goldsmith is an idealist and comes from a family that doesn’t shift its convictions easily and which knows how to run campaigns.
  • (16) The Greens – young, highly educated, cosmopolitan liberal idealists – are more or less the polar opposite to Ukip’s ageing, socially conservative, nationalist electorate.
  • (17) Although self-immolation as social protest was widely publicized during the years surveyed, the authors note that these individuals all attempted suicide for personal and irrational rather than morally idealistic reasons.
  • (18) Rather, it is that they have increasingly used the language of rights to express their idealistic goals (or to conceal their strategic goals).
  • (19) Idealistic and metaphysical concepts of the structure-function relationships (morphological idealism, holism, physiological idealism, functionalism) are critisized, and historical premises of these concepts are characterized.
  • (20) The creative risk – such as it is – within the new series centres on the retelling of real events as they would have been covered by this idealistic newsroom.

Utopian


Definition:

  • (a.) Of or pertaining to Utopia; resembling Utopia; hence, ideal; chimerical; fanciful; founded upon, or involving, imaginary perfections; as, Utopian projects; Utopian happiness.
  • (n.) An inhabitant of Utopia; hence, one who believes in the perfectibility of human society; a visionary; an idealist; an optimist.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Even if you're being generous, Wood's vision of an alternative can feel like a utopian work in progress.
  • (2) My father, Peter Self, who was, oxymoronically, a “political scientist”, wrote numerous books, which, while often technical in character, were nonetheless informed by his own rather gentle and utopian socialism.
  • (3) In the utopian version of this storyline, by collapsing governments' abilities to promote freedom in some countries but not others, or in the political realm but not the commercial one, openness may force governments to pursue a more principled kind of politics.
  • (4) At the moment, this utopian scenario seems unlikely.
  • (5) Going with what seems a reasonable assumption – that Scotland can be successful either independent or in a federal Britain – we are left with a leap of faith in one direction or the other, based on whose utopian vision of our future is most likely to be untrue.
  • (6) Recently, the Swedish duo Tomorrow Machine showcased a series of utopian packaging that included a container that dissolves with its contents.
  • (7) Hobsbawm, being a sage member of the Communist Party, warned against their utopianism, but I took to them like a fish to water.
  • (8) Even then, analysts who should investigate the link between the business and its persona seem swept away by utopian dreams and look where the company suggests they should be looking (mainly the future.)
  • (9) Such utopian, urban visions help drive the “smart city” rhetoric that has, for the past decade or so, been promulgated most energetically by big technology, engineering and consulting companies.
  • (10) "No, I mean it quite seriously – it's utopian, of course, it will never happen."
  • (11) Ruth Dear Ruth… Will Hutton Photograph: Guardian There is a danger of utopian myth in this, rather like the Labour left and shop steward movement in the 1960s.
  • (12) Just a few months ago the European Parliament and the council were so far apart that it was almost utopian to believe in an agreement.
  • (13) But we're growing out of the initial goggle-eyed utopian phase that new technological leaps tend to induce, and settling down into the reality of the power of the crowd.
  • (14) Though it was a set-up picture, it didn't replicate an "everyday moment"; it created one that was both utopian and unlikely.
  • (15) Utopian maybe, but less ludicrous than suggesting that "hard-working families" can overcome the inequality perpetrated by a powerful elite determined to hang on to their privilege.
  • (16) He admits that the second alternative seems utopian.
  • (17) For mid-century Americans, these gleaming marketplaces provided an almost utopian alternative to the urban commercial district, an artificial downtown with less crime and fewer vermin.
  • (18) With its heady media mix of graphic violence and utopian idylls, Isis has sought recruits and supporters who are further down the path toward ideological radicalisation or more inclined by personal disposition toward violence.
  • (19) An eradication campaign against A. variegatum in Guadeloupe, to avoid the spread of the associated diseases, appears technically difficult but possible, economically profitable, but socially completely utopian.
  • (20) Once again the professionals are nervously circling the utopian future of integrated health and social care But that is never the same as doing it.