If it is true that ideas don’t change things gradually but in fits and starts–in shocks–then the basic premise of our democracy, our journalism, and our education is all wrong. It would mean, in essence, that the Enlightenment model of how people change their opinions–through information-gathering and reasoned deliberation–is really a buttress for the status quo. It would mean that those who swear by rationality, nuance, and compromise fail to grasp how ideas govern the world. A worldview is not a Lego set where a block is added here, removed there. It’s a fortress that is defended tooth and
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Fallacy of incremental progressivism
