In a film about Jacque Derrida, someone asked the great professor why, given his views about morality, didn't he steal his students' wallets. He was quite offended.

In this context, he chose not to implement his deconstructionist ethics. Many of his students, however -- or more accurately, students of students who capture deconstructionist ideas not from advanced philosophers but from the air -- don't just think about the idea that ethics are divorced from tradition, but implement it with knives and baseball bats.

Thus with anti-Semitism. If it's just a few dusty intellectuals thinking Jews are a menace, well, it harms them more than anyone else. But when the rowdies get a hold of it, it's Kristallnacht.

So if what the rowdies do with an idea is one measure of its consequence, what happens when the rowdies get a hold of the idea that ideas have consequences? Vote Republican?

Not "ideas", but propositions. A propositions written on a piece of paper, locked in a coffin at the bottom of the Pacific, unknown to anyone, won't have any consequences.

Actually, ideas dissociated from action are a philosophical fancy and nothing more. The meaning of a word or phrase is its use in our language games (and generally, in our behavior), as Wittgenstein would have put it.

We think as we think and we live as we live and nothing here is accidental, in a sense.

It's not true that I could genuinely believe P or not believe P and everything else could stay the same. The process by one which believes is intimately connected to all other aspects of existence.

To separate mental representations and then worry about their external implications is a case in which you set up your own problem. The answer lies in the first part (the separation).

Thinking and acting--in real life, not in the dualistic philosophies of people too smart for their own good--are different sides of the same coin.
For the human individual, acting without thinking is impossible and thinking without acting is meaningless (in the strong sense).

Acting on ideas is what has consequences, keeping in mind that deciding an idea is a good one and passing it around is also 'acting on an idea' (the idea that the original idea is a good idea).

But I think Gabriel is right that the idea/act are two sides of the same coin.

Quite correct- 2 sides of the coin. Acting on ideas can of course have consequences, but ideas may be good or bad in and of themselves. This is the cornerstone of the moral and spiritual. Desiring to rape or murder someone and exploring scenarios that make the idea feasible, is still bad, even though one may never act on the desire or the scenarios. Of course, if the doctrine of the Christians is to believed, people are still accountable for such ideas, even if they are not acted upon. The saved must still answer for their ideas and conduct at the Judgement Seat of Christ, ( a sort of deeply testing life review in which the unsuitable will be noted and winnowed out, understanding and learnings reflected on, and rewards, if any, will be distributed) although they do not come under eternal judgement. The lost likewise who reject Christ as Saviour must still give account on the Last Day for both thought and deed, although their case is much more serious, since, without a Saviour, their judgement is for eternity. Just as there are gradations of judgement (the ax murderer is not dealt with the same as the petty shoplifter), there are gradations of ideas, for good or ill. Other religions handle it differently. Nevertheless the concept of accountability is still one to consider even if ideas are not implemented.

If we take life extension as an example, is pursuing life extension research an implementation of the idea? Or would living longer be the implementation? Are people who propose living longer responsible if, as Ian Schwartz speculates

http://thepoliticalteen.net/2006/01/02/aubreydegrey/

that causes billions of people to riot?

Suppose Marx truly believed that Communism would result in a wonderful, peaceful world. Is he to blame for the fact that his ideas proved wildly unworkable?

My problem is in blaming thinkers for actions taken by people other than them. Some people can handle certain thoughts and subjects, while others cannot, just as some people are more emotionally stable than others, and some people are able to handle alcohol more easily than others. What one man might find entertaining might ruin another man's life. (I have seen numerous examples in my life, and I think it's an unresolved disagreement at the core of the libertarian/communitarian split.)

If there a duty to protect people from that which they cannot handle? It seems condescending, because in a free society there is no way to control ideas. Especially in the online world.

It really is a good question, but while it's not possible to go back and lynch Karl Marx for what turned out to be a dismally unsuccessful political and economic system, it can be useful to argue that Lenin and Stalin represent a pattern in downstream Marxists.

So when early 21st-century theorists start waxing nostalgic about Karl Marx and his followers, it's incumbent on the rest of us to point out what we have learned from history -- which seems to be humanity's trial-and-error laboratory for idea-testing.

By the way, I appreciate what a thought-provoking post Eric put up here. One of the most enjoyable I've seen in a long time.

An idea, in isolation, does not have consequences. It is when an idea is promulgated, and actions result, that there are consequences. That is what consequences are.

Should I suspect that the speed of light limitation can be breached, I doubt anyone would listen; and I am incapale of doing more. No consequences.

But should Stephen Hawking state such a suspicion, capable people would listen, and act. Thus, consequences.

Not that there is linearity between the idea and any consequences. Einstein came up with quantum theory, but was bitterly opposed to the quantum mechanics others extrapolated from his ideas. Alfred Nobel was appalled at the use of his dynamite for purposes other than mining. The Kellog who came up with corn flakes fought with his brother against turning it from a health food to be eaten dry into a breakfast food with milk/cream and sugar.

Ideas have consequences, the primary consequence being to the one who thinks the ideas - you and me. [Consequences to others still depend on them thinking - in a way - the ideas, too, even if they only "adopt" the ideas. But if you only adopt an idea, you have not thought it, in my way of thinking. Sorry for the definitions, but I think they also express the reality.]

What I am saying is that we really do have the capacity to think or generate ideas ourselves. That's our problem and our freedom - and our responsibility, if we want to avoid the consequence, which is not having a mind, to say nothing of having other people adopt our alleged ideas, then doing whatever they want based upon their "needs" or ability to be prompted like billiard balls, with the usual random, often destructive consequences.

But the capacity to form ideas is the real wonder to begin with, the capacity which says I want to know, or I want to perform ethically, or I want to understand the thing or process which created me. Nothing else matters in the sense that all consequences flow from this capacity, whose main consequence is to itself.

Therefore, I agree with Gabriel and must also note that Marx's sin was that he did not reflect upon his own ideas, which are manifestly false/destructive as presented. In my schema, Marx should have seen this. The consequence was to him as he "thought" his ideas, which he agressively and proudly presented as the epitome of his thought [indeed as the epitome of all thought!] and to the others who have adopted his thought - as well as to the 100 million dead others who couldn't have cared less about Marx's thought. How is Marx going to explain this to God when he couldn't explain it to himself?