It takes one idea to change the world

If there's a loving woman behind every successful man, there is a moving idea behind every fruitful action. Victor Hugo said that no army can withstand the strength of an idea whose time has come. Does that tell us why people are ready to die for an idea? Countless people in history have faced the choice between betraying their philosophy to stay alive and dying to stay faithful to their philosophy. And countless of them have chosen the latter. People may not be able to kill ideas, but ideas kill people.

American writer Earl Nightingale arrived at the conclusion that everything begins with an idea. It's the idea of automation that popularised technology. It's the idea of new manufacturing processes that started the Industrial Revolution. It's also the idea of self-sufficiency in food that ushered in agriculture. The ideas of many other things have brought about many other things.

Karl Marx explained this phenomenon in his theory of dialectic materialism. He argued that political and historical events result from the conflict of social forces and are interpretable as a series of contradictions and their solutions. The conflict, which is believed to be rooted in material need, is routed through intellectual pursuit. A clash of opposing ideals, ideologies, or concepts evolves through the rigours of thesis, antithesis and synthesis. In reality, it's nothing but an incessant cycle of old ideas clashing with the needs of time and resulting in new ideas.

Ideas originate inside human brains where experiences, observations and visions sublimate notions like cream is whipped from milk. Critical and creative thinking generates ideas, but many ideas are born on the spur of the moment. Greek scholar Archimedes is famously known for proclaiming "Eureka" when he stepped into a bath and noticed that the water level rose. It was then that he had realised how the volume of water displaced must be equal to the volume of the part of his body he had submerged. Dr. Alexander Fleming invented Penicillin after he returned from a summer vacation in Scotland to find that a mould had contaminated his Petri dishes.

Throughout history, mankind had its Eureka or Penicillin moments, which are still the driving force of its existence. Scientists believe that the Neanderthals perished because although their brains were as big as those of modern men, they had bigger bodies. Thus, they needed more of their brain cells to control these larger bodies and didn't have the bits of cortex needed for enhanced vision. This species of ancient humans eventually ran out of their survival skills, leading to extinction.

Steven Weber and Bruce W. Jentleson claim in their book The End of Arrogance: America in the Global Competition of Ideas that the era of U.S. ideological dominance is over. The world no longer gravitates to American-style ideas about the virtues of free markets, democracy, and hegemony. Power is diffusing not just to other states but to young people and social groups increasingly connected within an electronic global village. In this new setting, Weber and Jentleson argue, the "competition for ideas" is rapidly growing. To exercise leadership, the United States will need to fashion more appealing ideas about order and justice. 

That has been true for everybody in every setting. Idea has been power and everything else has been nothing but the manifestation of that power. The American Civil War started over the emancipation of slaves. The Cold War was the outcome of Stalin's fixation that Communist Poland, friendly to and dominated by the Soviet Union, could serve as a buffer against future aggression from the West. The Second World War was seeded in Germany's determination to retaliate for its humiliation over the Treaty of Versailles.

One can always debate whether ideas shape the world or the world shapes ideas. It's perhaps both. The French Revolution was the precursor to the American Revolution. Again, exploitation of the peasants was so harsh in Russia that historians often wonder why a revolution had come to France when Russia was a more fertile ground for it.

But these are proofs of how ideas catch up on each other. Religion is its earliest evidence, communism and capitalism being more contemporary markers. Civilisations have risen and fallen as barbarians destroyed stagnant and decadent ones to build dynamic and vibrant ones. 

If an idea doesn't come before its time, it also doesn't go before its time. Slavery persisted worldwide for many centuries. Widow burning continued for almost ten centuries until Queen Victoria issued a general ban in 1861. Racial segregation in the USA lasted until late 1960s.

It's a bad idea to suppress an idea, which is why prosperous societies encourage birth of ideas through freedom of speech and expression. One in 250 million sperms fertilises the egg. Likewise, it only takes one idea to change the world.

The writer is the editor of the weekly First News and an opinion writer for The Daily Star. 
Email: badrul151@yahoo.com