The Way of Ideas

No idea is a universal idea.

All ideas have a limited scale.

Some ideas, like socialism, work great between a family or a group of friends but fail at a scale of society.
Other ideas, like capitalism create wedges between a community but work great in running a country and the world economy.

Hence, no idea acts in the best interest of everyone. British Imperialism was brutal for India for example. Modern capitalism on the environment.

Similarly, there are no final ideas – everything is part of a greater unfolding system that builds on top of the existing ideas and keeps piling on.

At times, one might feel that ideas are cyclical rather than incremental. That’s because all good ideas are re-discoverable. Why? Because, all ideas build upon the older ones. Hence, it is imperative that we learn from the earlier mishaps with greater ideas. Totalitarianism is one such idea.

Ideas are time-dependent too. Because humans forget and omit all the time, as and when the times repeat themselves, so do the ideas coming out of that time. The Italian Renaissance is a great example of it. It built upon the already explored arts by Ancient Rome – after the “Dark Ages”; a gap of over 10 centuries.

The biggest fallacy of our (and every) time is that the ideas of today are the most complete ideas. Wars have been fought over this one mirage. Modern feminism movement is an example of such a social war.

But most bloody are people with new ideas turning violent to vindicate their new ideas. History is littered with such revolutionary “saviors” leading masses to their communal grave with their new, shiny ideas – China, Russia, Korea etc are the recent examples.

And lastly, the most tricky are the ideas of the bygone era, taking shape as the ultimate truth. They are dangerous because they blind you to the broader bigger truths. Ideas around identity, nationality, religion and other prerceived-truths are examples of this – too beautiful to have, too difficult to shed-off, and too easy to rotten a populace with.

Whatever it is, in each context, all ideas are valid. And in all scales, and timeframes all ideas are fallible. It is up to us, the bearers of our current world to understand this not be lost in the reflection of history.

Have a good one!

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