Ralph Waldo Emerson makes the point that some people are materialists and some are materialists and idealists, but no one is just an idealist. That’s an interesting observation. I would also say there are no former idealists. I can’t be sure of that, it just seems that once you’ve seen something so obvious, you can’t unsee it. (Of course, never underestimate Maya’s power to unawaken the newly awoken.) The distinction might really be along hemispherical lines; no one is a strictly left-brain idealist, we’re either right-brain materialists or both-brain both. An idealist is really a practical materialist and ideological idealist, with plenty of bleed-over in both directions. My materialistic side infects my idealistic thinking, and vice versa.