But it indicates where those who are worried about the idea-generating industry need to look for one. In his first book, for example, Huntington confidently predicted the impending break-up of India, a state “unable” to handle modernity. His career, and many others’, is littered with confident predictions that went terribly, terribly awry. What we need to do as consumers of ideas is to introduce a bit of discipline to the market. If you think that someone shouldn’t have said in 1970 that India was about to split apart, or that the USSR was a worker’s paradise, judge his subsequent work more harshly. If you believe that columnists knew enough to have doubts about the Iraq war, consider carefully your trust in those that didn’t express them. What other method have we?

So, as you read people punctuating continuous time with discontinuous analyses, don’t forget who said what. As we search for big ideas to dig us out of this hole we’re in, the first thing we’ll demand is some accountability for those who provide them. Call it a prediction. A brave, dauntless, prediction.

mihir.sharma@expressindia.com