I'm not sure I follow. I don't play 5e D&D but I have read the Basic PDF fairly closely. It says the following:
Ideals
Describe one ideal that drives your character. Your ideals are the things that you believe in most strongly, the fundamental moral and ethical principles that compel you to act as you do. Ideals encompass everything from your life goals to your core belief system. . . .
Bonds
Create one bond for your character. Bonds represent a character’s connections to people, places, and events in the world. They tie you to things from your background. They might inspire you to heights of heroism, or lead you to act against your own best interests if they are threatened. They can work very much like ideals, driving a character’s motivations and goals. . . .
Flaws
. . . Your character’s flaw represents some vice, compulsion, fear, or weakness—in particular, anything that someone else could exploit to bring you to ruin or cause you to act against your best interests.
I'm not sure what the
list is that you're referring to. To me this seems a fairly unremarkable set of "slots" to stick personality descriptors into. When I started my 4e campaign in 2009 I told the players that they each had to come up with one loyalty for their PC, and one reason to be ready to fight goblins. The first acted similarly to a Bond, the second something like an Ideal in the immediate context of the campaign.
I don't see why 5e Ideals, Bonds and Flaws have to be abstract or irrelevant to play. The ones my players came up with for our 4e game were not abstract at all and played a pretty big role in driving play.
(A separate point: having just re-read and quoted the official description of an
ideal in 5e D&D I am even more puzzled that
@Oofta and
@Helldritch assert that two characters with completely different moral and ethical principles could share identical ideals.)