Why don't we have Big Ideas anymore?

Why don't we have any big idea's anymore?

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of Einsteins theory of relativity.  And 1905 was a big year for ideas, says Peter Watson in the Observer- Matisse and Cezanne were at their peak, Lenin, EM Forster and Freud were all publishing seminal works, and the first regular cinemas opened.  In the face of such change, the year 2005 "can't begin to compete with 1905 in terms of important innovations."

Hmm.  We probably try to kid ourselves otherwise, but I kinda agree with Watson when he says that our present world is "nowhere near as interesting and innovative" as it thinks, especially when compared with past ages.  A view that is confirmed probably because I am currently reading Bill Bryson's excellent "A Short History of Nearly Everything" in which every page is full of discovery and great idea's.  It is an incredible read that reinforces how amazing some of our early thinkers like Einstein were.

Sure, we might have all of our new mobile phones, iPods, internet and DNA advances, but do these things fundamentally change the way we think?  Think about it.  Not really.

As Watson suggests, just stop and think about some of the real innovations of the past; the introduction of crop rotation, the adoption of Hindu numerals, the introduction of the factory and the steam engine and the theory of evolution.  But since 1950, what have we got?  Well,  only the pill and the internet are or comparative importance. 

Maybe it is simply a quirk of modern capitalism, we all get to "sample the fruits of earlier innovation" so we don't do much of it ourselves anymore.  We just don't see the need to

Without a doubt these are fast moving, ever changing and very interesting times, but they don't seem to be the times of big ideas.

Thoughts?

Comments

[Don Aitkin]

Arresting, but...

It takes some time - often a generation or two, or even hundreds of years - for ideas to be really appreciated and built on. The great ideas of the last fifty years will be better understood in 2105 than in 2005. But the two mentioned (the pill and the micro-processor), have had extremely powerful effects already. Like most powerful ideas, they have opponents as well as supporters, quite apart from those who simply use their outcomes. Another, already obvious, but still contested, is the fact that all human beings are talented, in in several ways. That too will be better appreciated in 2105.

[Tony Kelly]

People do have big ideas still, but who wants to know?

[kartiya]

No ,ok , its not a new time machine , but i like it ! next time you write www. on the back of an envelope , try instead W with a small legible circle just above the right leg of the W . it sort of rolls off the pen with a nice sexy flourish !

[kartiya]

PS ,sorry, just make that a little to the top right of the w ,cheers .