Ideas are generally speaking vastly underrated. Yet they have been of extreme importance throughout history and their importance has increased dramatically with the rise of the digital economy. As children, we are usually not taught the history of ideas. Instead we are taught the history of physical things. We study in depth all about emperors and kings, empires and kingdoms, their political interactions, their rise and fall. Rarely if ever, do we get the opportunity or have the inclination to study the ideas that motivated these historical people and events. Events are exciting to read and visualize. Ideas? Not so much. But it is ideas that outlast political structures and people that in the long run are essentially ephemeral. Our history is often unintelligible without an understanding of the underlying ideas that motivated the exciting events and people that we read about.
As an example, take the Crusades. For Western Europe and the consequent development of Western culture and civilization and thus that of the West, this was a watershed event. The question is why? simply reading about the battles as the tide of war ebbed back and forth over time tells us very little. There have been many battles between similar adversaries in the past and there would be many more in the future. What was so different about the Crusades? The difference was in the ideas that the Crusaders encountered when they first arrived in the region. After all the dust had settled down in the aftermath of the First Crusade, the newcomers found themselves embedded in a highly developed, cosmopolitan environment. They were exposed to new concepts and ways of doing things; ideas that were radical for them and that had a major impact back home. Eventually these ideas (among other influences) resulted in the culture that today is called the West.
Another excellent example of the importance of ideas is the American Revolution. There have been many times in history when a people have detached themselves from a parent country. In this regard, the American Revolution is no different from countless other revolts. What was the difference? The ideas that helped to generate the US constitution and the institutions that it spawned that Americans today revere so much. It can be argued that the impact of the ideas of the American Revolution were not confined to the new state. These ideas spread back to Europe where they germinated and commingled with other trends and eventually resulted in imposing limits on monarch and helped to expand the spread of various forms of democratic governance.
Similarly, the importance of the Russian Revolution lies not so much in the fact of the revolt itself but rather in the idea that powered the revolt. The idea of Communism and the reordering of society that it imagined was what distinguished the Russian Revolution just as the idea of democratic governance was what had distinguished the American revolution from other such revolts. Also similar to the American Revolution, the impact of the Russian Revolution was not confined to Russia. The basic ideas that underlay Communism (or rather fear of those basic ideas) prompted Western capitalist nations to start introducing middle class and to a smaller extent lower class inducements and entitlements.
The impact of colonialism was not so much in the fact of foreign rule. Nearly every empire has involved forcible occupation of a land and the subjugation of the people living on it. colonialism's impact is that it imposed and spread Western ideas of governance and social conduct amongst the subject peoples. Colonialism's greatest triumph did not lie in successfully occupying foreign territories. It lay in inducing native peoples to not only adopt and adapt Western notions of political and social conduct and customs but to turn their backs on traditional notions of the same.
The impact of ideas is not confined to the political realm alone. Ideas on the economy for example have had major impact on our daily lives. These ideas have caused major upheavals but also caused strong economic growth. The Great Depression of the 1930s was caused mainly by the particular economic ideas that were then in vogue. It was countered most effectively by radical ideas espoused by John Maynard Keynes. Those ideas in turn were countered by still other notions advanced most prominently by Milton Friedman. The implementation of all these ideas over time has had important consequences for people all over the world.
Scientific ideas have enormously enriched our lives and endangered them as well. These ideas have resulted in technologies that have made our lives easier and more productive in our various tasks. At the same time, many of those same ideas have made it easier for us to be killed in new, novel and spectacularly gruesome fashion. Scientific ideas are also important because these eventually filter down to the primary school level where they are absorbed by us and in the end affect our world view.
A major part of the reason behind the continued dominance of the Western paradigm even after decolonization has been the cultural ideas that have emanated from the West and been transmitted around the world by its enormously successful cultural industries.
Ideas on religion have not only played a major role in history, they continue to do so. The Crusades mentioned above were themselves motivated by religious ideas regarding heathens and how to deal with them and also by ideas regarding the proper role of the Church in European lives. Questions regarding the proper Islamic response to colonization and later the decolonization process spurred Islamic religious thought which in turn has helped large numbers of ordinary Muslims understand their religion better. Ideas on religion have also been behind violent acts in many different parts of the world - both Muslim and non-Muslim.
So ideas are of crucial importance. They have been the moving force behind much of history. Each part of the world is distinctively what it is because of ideas. And different kinds of ideas continue to exert a strong influence on us both as individuals and as the collective that is called a nation. Failing to understand the basic ideas behind what we observe today means that we are failing to understand not only our past but also our present which in turn means that we will fail to understand our future.
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