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Are we out of big ideas?
In his recent blog Steven Scwartz reflects on points raised in response to a recent piece in The Atlantic Monthly entitled the '14 Biggest Ideas of the Year' http://bit.ly/oj09iC . Whilst not very impressed with the ideas offered, Schwartz is more alarmed by comments from Neal Grabler to the efect that 'Bold ideas are almost passe', that we live in a post-Enlightenment age when rationality and science has lost out to susperstition, faith and opinion. Gabler claims 'there is a retreat in universities from the real world' and 'an eclipse of the public intellectual' in favour of the pundit who 'substitutes outrageousness for thoughfulness'.
Is he right? Has he identified the case for PUMR even more strongly?
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Is this the case everywhere?
Having read the source articles, I'm left feeling that this is an especially Anglo-centric (north American) view of ideas on the one had, and simply a cyclical post-Bush era reaction that could be considered as being in the tradition of Marx's theory of ideology, through Daniel Bell's 'End of Ideology' to Francis Fukuyama's 'End of History'. Although the significant difference here is the lack of empirical rigour and theoretical grounding.
But is this not surprising in an era where debate through the various social media is instant and global?
Should the question not be Are We Out of Critical Thought?
Peter