I was reading Rousseau by Nicholas Dent. I am not sure about the quality of the book or qualification of the author. I had bought the book long back only because I was familiar with the name of Rousseau and was beginning to form new interest in philosophy (formed mainly because I was reading Sophie's World). Well, though I like to proclaim that all the knowledge is same and studying one field of education helps you understand other fields better and one should not be very selective about the subjects he reads on, I must admit that reading a book on Economics or History or Advertising has always interested me more than Philosophy and hence the book had been lying on the book shelf for quite a few years completely untouched!
But I do not want to comment on how fascinated I was with the philosophies, works and life of Rousseau. I would rather fly off tangentially. Going through the first few pages I came to realise how important connection and personal influence used to be in those days to get your works published. Only the authors or the works liked by the publisher used to get published. Though this might sound obvious, but it has two very important consequences.
First, this is a very strong filtering mechanism which will weed out many radical ideas. There could have been many ideas far more radical than Marx's or Adam Smiths or Malthus' and possibly could have impacted our past, present and future in unimaginable ways but were never published. Some of the works could have been authored by a person who was not popular or influential or likable. While others could be too radical for a publisher to publish.
The links and connections required to get your works published meant only the works by aristocracy, bureaucracy or middle class bourgeoisie got published. In most optimistic case, you need to be liked by a member of high society who can introduce you to a publisher and wield his influence to get your work noticed, before your work could be published. So, most of the works published originated from rather homogeneous group of authors having somewhat similar experience, social compulsions and perspective. There were few scope for ideas that were too radical or deviated too much from the acceptable norms of the bourgeoisie. So, the works that are branded as radical were actually small deviation from the norm.Very few author and still fewer published would dare to publish an idea which was too radical.
One could argue that the inaccessibility of education at that time made it impossible for the people who did not belong to high class to get an education at the first place. So, it would not have made much difference for those who were educated enough to give some worthwhile philosophies already had links and those who did not have links were not qualified enough to be published. This argument were true if you needed an army of philosophers and thinkers who thought alike to have any remarkable impact on society or history. But we know that even one thinker could impact millions and indeed, billions of lives and for hundreds of years. So, even if one radical thinker with powerful idea failed to get published, its effect on our present life could be unimaginable!
Second, the works of a society essentially builds up on the work of its ancestors. These published works presented to the world a world view taken from one vantage point and ignored myriads of other possible angles. Subsequent generations drew their opinions, conceptions and perceptions from those book. As with passage of time education became more and more accessible, people who did not belong to that class started reading these books, and it could not be ruled out that this lead to a distorted world view. Evidence of which we can have in the influence Malthus or Adam Smith or Karl Marx had on the subsequent generations. Later works would have drawn upon heavily from those books and the distortion could have been magnified and might still continue to magnify.
May be that is the reason we fail to solve so many of our problems. We our thinkers and policy makers might actually have been cut off from the reality and they could be totally unaware of it so that the policy they frame may be totally inapplicable to the real world! One can not stop thinking about how Malthus influence skewed demography of China.
What is more worrisome is that its hard to find a reason to dismiss the possibility that same practice might be continuing to this date. Most of the authors and work being published today too could just reflect views, opinions and perceptions of a rather homogeneous class and not all valid voices might be getting the ears they deserve. This distortion might be continuing into the future and the world view we hold could just be an illusion.
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