some thoughts from today i want to assimilate or resolve

Everything is in some sense about balance. This is not to say that balance is itself the ideal or inevitable state. I am only suggesting that it is important to understand in any situation.
Balance is not a principle which operates along a single axis.
It wouldn't be hard to believe that radical ideas and actions are inevitably destructive, and that (including radically excessive "conservatism") their costs are simply too high, such that a responsible person will always choose the most moderate path available. The problem with this is that goals like giving women the vote and abolishing slavery were good ideas a long time before they stopped being radical. In some places, they're still radical ideas. Everything is about balance, but that doesn't make stasis desirable.

Why is realism so consistently associated with compromised bastardy, Machiavellian scheming (in the pejorative sense), and the utterly sold out?
Shouldn't we cultivate a clear-eyed understanding of the world, particularly if we want to exercise authority or influence those who do?

What does the creative or constructive act have to do with politics, anyway?
Why the hell do we ever abdicate responsibility to a thing as dangerous as a government or a political party?