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There Are Few Things As Dangerous As A Big Idea Misunderstood
In 1989, just before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Francis Fukuyama published an essay in the journal The National Interest titled The End of History, which led to a bestselling book. Many took his argument to mean that, with the defeat of communism, US-style liberal democracy had emerged as the only viable way of organizing a society.
He was misunderstood. Fukuyama pointed out that even if we had reached an endpoint in the debate about ideologies, there would still be conflict because of people’s need to express their identity. What many thought to be a justification, was actually a warning to expect people to rebel against an order imposed on them.
If you believe history is on your side, you’re likely to throw caution to the wind, get mixed up in things you shouldn’t and, eventually, you’ll pay a price. That’s the problem with big ideas, their nuance is often lost on those who hear them third or fourth hand and the high-stakes game of broken telephone tends to end badly. We need to approach ideas with more care.
The Global Village
Marshal McLuhan’s book Understanding Media, was one of the most influential works of the 20th century. In it, he described media as “extensions of man” and predicted that electronic media would eventually lead to a global…
