ABSTRACT
Europe has been the site of a cognitive-reflective revolution, as we argued earlier. This revolution has given rise to three different institutional spheres, of which the media and what can be called ‘education and research’ are the most clearly visible (more on this below). But part of this revolution has also been and still is the crucial role of critical thinking and the formulation of new, creative ideas. Like perhaps never before in history, the formulation of new ideas, often combined with the criticism of old ideas and practices, has become a highly valued and valuable practice in Europe – although new ideas and insights often clash with older practices and vested interests. All kinds of defining elements of modern society, technological innovations like electricity, automobiles and vaccines, and societal innovations like human rights, democracy, and an economy for all have been formulated as new, deviant ideas. Many businesses, when they start, are also based on an imaginative idea about a problem that needs to be solved or a product or service that exists only in the imagination of the entrepreneur and will fill some needs in a new way. And this emphasis on the ‘new’ can of course become a cultural addiction in itself, leading to an empty ‘innovationalism’ in which the new is always seen as better than the old simply by virtue of its newness and not by virtue of it actually being better than the old. But still, this practice of thinking ‘outside the box’ is crucial for the flourishing of a society as it increases the collective potential to be adaptive to new circumstances and challenges.
