This year's so-called "Year in Ideas" feature in a recent Sunday New York Times magazine was, alas, as forgettable as last year's. Perhaps there simply aren't any new good ideas? Or perhaps it's almost impossible to recognize them, at least not until decades later? Or perhaps the kind of folks who want to write articles about the "year in ideas" aren't the right kind of folks to succeed at that task?

In any event, see YearInIdeas (16 Dec 2003) for last year's rant on this topic. As for 2004, my only observation is that one of the showcased concepts — the change of the US Army's metaphorical model of warfare from (American) football to soccer — appeared as a front-page Wall Street Journal article in the 1980-1981 timeframe. (I remember it distinctly; sorry, but I haven't yet found the precise reference.) The more things change ...

TopicThinking - TopicSociety - 2004-12-30

(correlates: MagnaFortuna, PhiloSpam, ElectricalEngineer, ...)