A Few Good Ideas

Ideas are kind of like inventions. There's always that first one, and then, over the decades and centuries, it's modified, adjusted, and/or expanded, reflecting the orientation or needs of a place or time. Also like some inventions, they are often ridiculed or ignored when they first appear and meet with acceptance only little by little, as people get used to their presence. Indeed, the courageous and amazing Oscar Wilde (who himself was ridiculed and harassed in his lifetime and whose genius was widely accepted only much later) once said that "an idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all." Here, in cartoon form, is BBC Radio 4's superb history of ideas, starting with Diotima's Ladder as explained by Plato (circa 428-348 BCE) (story, video): http://www.openculture.com/2015/09/47-animated-videos-explain-the-history-of-ideas-from-aristotle-to-sartre.html