Withstanding the Invasion of Ideas

One withstands the invasion of armies; one does not withstand the invasion of ideas. — Victor Hugo, 1862

In 2021, in the United States approximately 5.4 million new businesses were started. Some of those were likely started for matters like handling money or intellectual property. Let’s assume that just 20% of those were started because someone had an idea.

That means around 1.1 million businesses were started because one or more people decided they had a better way to build some mouse trap.¹

For around 10% of those businesses, the idea — whatever it was that prompted the founder(s) to start the business — will be so pervasive (and have real market value) that they will continue to do whatever it takes to turn that idea into a profitable business.

In the movie Inception the character Cobb makes two statements about ideas that seem especially germane:

What is the most resilient parasite? Bacteria? A virus? An intestinal worm? An idea. Resilient… highly contagious. Once an idea has taken hold of the brain it’s almost impossible to eradicate. An idea that is fully formed — fully understood — that sticks,

and

An idea is like a virus. Resilient. Highly contagious. And even the smallest seed of an idea can grow. It can grow to define or destroy you.

I hope that it’s obvious to everyone reading that ideas are not quite so binary as they are portrayed in the quotes above.

That said, there are, in fact, ideas that are so invasive that entire societies fall prey to the intrusion.

Take smartphones, for example. In the early 2000s, not many people had what became termed smartphones. By 2007 — with the release of the Apple iPhone — millions (and by 2022, billions) of people across the globe had purchased a smartphone.

According to BankMyCell.com, approximately 83% of the world’s population now own smartphones. There are people in many developing nations who have no access to running water but who own smartphones.

The tragic reality is, however, that most people who own smartphones are not using them for anything more than messaging family and friends and playing games.²

C. Northcote Parkinson is quoted as having coined the phrase, “A luxury, once enjoyed, becomes a necessity.” While I’m fairly certain he’s not the original source of the statement, he did say it in a succinct way.

You won’t have to think too hard to expand the list of things that went from luxury to necessity: automobiles, washing machines, refrigerators, indoor plumbing, heating, and cooling. None of them are actually necessary, but they do make certain activities easier and life more tolerable so we can focus our attention on other things (like Candy Crush).

On January 6, 2021, somewhere around 2,000 people in the United States decided to storm the US Capitol Building. Statements made by Donald Trump were at the heart of the insurrection, but the riot itself was organized by others. Of those who stormed the Capitol, how many of them actually thought through what they were about to do as they approached the steps?

Around 770 people from 48 states have been charged with various criminal charges for their participation in the riot.

770 people from 48 states.

Clearly, that represents a minuscule slice of the nation’s total population. The number of people who considered participation is likely many (or at least several) times the number that actually did it.

At what point do ideas become dangerous?

Before we answer that question, it’s important to recognize that invasive has a negative connotation, but not all invasive ideas are bad ones. Civil rights problems continue to abound in the United States, but the idea of civil rights continues to permeate an ever greater number of minds.³

In a fascinating article by The National WWII Museum entitled How Did Hitler Happen notes that “he had the active support of the powerful German officer class and of millions of everyday citizens who voted for the National Socialist German Workers’ (Nazi) Party and hailed him as a national savior in gigantic stadium rallies.”

Germans as a whole were suffering unspeakable hardships following WWI. Hitler was apparently an unrivaled public speaker, using his charisma to convince people to commit horrible, atrocious crimes against humanity. Through it all, many of them believed they were doing the right thing.

When enough people embrace as truth that which is blatantly wrong, the idea has become dangerous.

How do we avoid succumbing to a dangerous idea?

A paraphrased quote from G.K. Chesterton in Heretics seems particularly appropriate:

Ideas are dangerous, but the person to whom they are least dangerous is the person of ideas. She or he is acquainted with ideas, and moves among them like a lion-tamer. Ideas are dangerous, but the person to whom they are most dangerous is the person of no ideas. The person of no ideas will find the first idea fly to his head like wine to the head of an alcoholic.

When considering an idea, there should be three questions top-of-mind:

Does what I’m considering actually and factually benefit humanity?
Does what I’m considering have the potential for harm to others?
How much emotion and propaganda is being used to sell me on the idea?

As before, the answers to those questions are not binary. It is possible — and has happened before — for a large passenger plane to crash into a neighborhood, thus killing hundreds of people.⁴ It is also possible that great emotion and propaganda be used to benefit humanity.

In short, think — please think — before you act.

Thanks for reading!

¹Not a literal mouse trap, of course. However, around 440 individuals applied for actual mouse trap patents in 2021 alone.

²Full disclosure from atop my high horse: there are a few games on my smartphone for the occasional long drive when my youngest is just so bored. I, however, do not have games I play nor social media apps of any kind.

³As it takes hold, ever greater numbers of people will embrace the absolute need that we have as a country to overcome the biases that continue to plague so, so many people in marginalized groups.

⁴The intent Orville and Wilbur Wright had when they invented the airplane was peace, not war. In 1915, Orville stated, “The aeroplane [sic.] will prevent war by making it too expensive, too slow, too difficult, too long drawn out.”