Making Impossible Thoughts Possible
Written by Henry Dampier Posted in Uncategorized
When proposing a challenging idea, most reasonable people will tell you that it’s almost certainly going to be impossible. Based on their entirely reasonable estimates, they will be correct.
Every big idea has to start somewhere, as a small idea, usually only held by one person or a small group. It’s easy to become discouraged by the natural indifference and skepticism of other people to new notions, because their natural indifference is just the wall that ideas need to be compelling enough to be able to hop over. That wall of distrust protects people from the swirling mass of terrible ideas which are always floating up from the human muck.
Once the idea has made it over that wall of indifference among a small number of people, the task becomes to enhance the credibility and fitness of that notion so that it can reach its potential. For something relatively simple, like the construction of a new building, the number of people that need to be convinced will usually be fairly small. Some government officials need to be paid off, suitable contractors need to be found, financiers need to be cajoled, a qualified tenant needs to be rustled up, and then the project is finished.
The structure that began as an idea, was translated into blueprints, and then put together in the real world has moved from the human mind into the physical world.
World-shaking ideas don’t necessarily need to be adopted by the entire planet, or even a substantial plurality of a large country, to have an enormous impact. All that’s necessary is to spread the idea to a sufficient number of the right kind of person, to buttress its credibility with pilot projects, to find the right environment for its implementation, and to adapt it to new audiences.
The idea doesn’t even necessarily need to be good or workable for it to spread. People just have to think that it’s good. It certainly helps for the idea to be good, but plenty of terrible ideas spread and survive despite being completely impractical and contrary to nature.
When people tell you that a proposal is impossible, you have to consider who is saying it. Most people are not natural leaders. They do as they are told, with some grousing here and there. The idea of taking initiative terrifies most people, because initiative involves bearing risk, and most people want to insulate themselves from risk. You have to instead find the people with an appetite for risk, for whom desire & ambition outweigh the fear of danger.
Anything notable begins by daring to think the thoughts that others are too frightened to make. Once you understand that most people will just think whatever the people to the right and left of them think, it comes to be a matter of shifting the tone of discussion until the opinions which were hazardous become the safe opinions to hold.
You’re right. So often we look for the Silver Bullet idea that will irresistibly bring down The Synagogue this week. Yet, the Soviet Union slowly but surely lost credibility over time. By its end, no one believed any of it.
We need to be ready with something when the time comes. The time is not of our choosing–events will dictate it. On one hand, we slowly but steadily chip away at the credibility of The Synagogue, and on the other hand prepare for the restoration.
“Synagogue” won’t work as an anti-Jewish substitute for “Cathedral”, Mr. Blood. “Synagogues”, i.e. shuls, are independent organizations run by their members, who hire their own rabbis and establish their own protocols and programs of study. “Cathedral” more appropriately suggests a vast social architecture.
Generally you’re right. However what is being proposed matters.
Also – Swords seem to help per the picture as well as all of human history.
Ideas don’t matter on their own. They don’t. They require force behind them, and force must see it in their interest and that it’s possible. As opposed to impossible and likely to be opposed by overwhelming force mostly from their own camp. I am of course speaking of monarchy in particular, however in general the 20th century has had quite enough novelty. Just in case another novelty is proposed. Novelty killed 200 million in the 20th century, I think everyone’s had enough exercise.
Under pressure atavism works, and the most common sense solution is to restore to the last working system.
A completely novel form of government, in particular one that’s utterly against their interests and indeed goes against 1200 years of known English limited and subsidiary rule as well as all of American History will at best produce a sigh and rolling of the eyes. At Best.
What we’ll end up with is a government of limited and subsidiary rule, not utterly unlike what we’ve had since the English began to record their governance in writing [which probably means well before] and not utterly unlike what we would have now had our elites not vanished in overnight 50 years ago and handed us over to the insane, evil and congenitally criminal.
The system of government that most of Europe and Russia has now is not dramatically different than what they had 100 years ago, except for horrific damage …caused by Novelty.
I must respectfully decline any novelty.
However I do applaud you for however reluctantly shouldering whatever burdens Sir you seem to be bringing yourself around to doing…Bravo. If only we had a few more like you our troubles would pass sooner and with less damage.
Bravo, I mean this sincerely. Good luck in your endeavors.