Economics of Ideas

Managing risk is an important element of economics. A program on TV showed how people tend to handle risk very badly, going for what is familar and comfortable even while it is not very profitable, in favour of taking quite reasonable risks and betting on the unknown.

It occurred to me we adopt ideas in the same way. We tend to keep to those sets of ideas that are familar and comfortable, even when we know that they give us an unprofitable world view.

New ideas are treated with fear because, while every sign might be they give us a much better world view, we don't like the feeling of unknown and risk.

Accepting unfamilar ideas is also unwelcome because it challenges the comfort of our contemporaries and so we experience a secondary reaction to such unconformity.

Hegemony is the name for dominant ideology, or the common norm of ideas and world outlooks. It is often very unhelpful in approaching life, especially when the world changes around it. Maybe the unwillingness of people to risk new ideas and outlooks is one reason that the hegemony is maintained even while it is detremental.