In a recent article from the New York Times titled “The Elusive Big Idea” by Neal Gabler, starts off talking about the 14 biggest ideas of the year from an issue of The Atlantic. Some of the ideas he mentions are featured in this issue which were “The Players Own the Game” (No. 12), “Wall Street: Same as it Ever Was” (No. 6), “Nothing Stays Secret” (No. 2), and the very biggest idea of the year, “The Rise of the Middle Class — Just Not Ours” referring to former & upcoming super economic powers rising around the world but not the U.S. I thought it was interesting that the author felt that these ideas were more along the lines of observations rather than actual ideas that could move the world & inspire. Mr. Gabler feels that we are now living in a post idea world for the simple reason that people just don’t care as much about ideas as they used to in the past. One of the reasons he believes this is because of our current capitalistic driven society often snubs ideas that cannot be monetized instantly. In the past, great thinkers like Albert Einstein, Reinhold Niebuhr, Daniel Bell, Betty Friedan, Carl Sagan and Stephen Jay Gould had the influence & command to enthuse the masses raising them into the stratosphere of celebrity, fascinating millions everywhere.
In this article Neal also talks about how he feels we are living in a post idea world that has been in the making for quite some time. Some of the contributing factors that helped him to draw this conclusion are that in our current post-Enlightenment age, he feels rationality, science, evidence, logical argument have taken a backseat to superstition, faith & opinion. Also contributing to this conclusion is the way universities today foster & reward its students for the narrowest specialization they embark on in their academic/professional career paths rather than for coming up with bold & daring ideas for the future. It also does not help that our media tends to sensationalize the outrageous rather than thoughtfulness to further boost their ratings, generate more readers further contributing more fire to our Post-Enlightened world.
Reference:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/14/opinion/sunday/the-elusive-big-idea.html?_r=1&ref=opinion