The other innovator

I previously wrote about innovation, which, in its essence, is trying something not done before in any field. Still, an interesting nuance is how the culture that defines a society innovates over time.

Take the view of No taxation without representation that led to the American Revolution: it is a principle that, in theory, should be timeless. Still, it became something deemed so necessary to be fought for only during the second half of the 18th century. Sure, the economic and social factors changed from the foundation of the American Colonies, but the point here is that there was a moment when a theoretical principle of government taken for granted suddenly became unacceptable.

Hence, the question: what was the catalyst of that change? In my view, it was the successful partnership between intellectual thinkers and politicians: the former experimented with developing alternative methods of government, and the latter shared with the public a new interpretation of the situation and channeled the discontent into the proposal of a new principle to follow.

This reflection underlines the potential of stimulating imagination in creating what are at first Utopias and then realities. Often, the role of inventors is associated with technical figures like Archimedes, but cultural inventors create the lenses through which we look at the world.