The Marketplace of Ideas

Check out Axis' Marketplace of Ideas video!

The smell of fresh squid hangs in the air. As I walk along I am confronted by at least a dozen other smells ranging anywhere from the aroma of a delicious beef stew to the stench of a rancid fish tank. Then, of course, I’m faced with the option to buy socks, sunglasses, t-shirts, baskets, tea pots, corn dogs, bean sprouts, window curtains, pancakes filled with red bean paste, eggs, an octopus, and the list goes on. As you might imagine, I am in a marketplace.

For two and a half years I lived on the island of Jeju in South Korea, and going to the market became a common practice since everyday I had to walk through it to get to my apartment.  It’s fascinating to think about just what is happening in the market. Everyone is trying to sell me their stuff, and trying to persuade me that I need it. But there are so many choices. Of course, I can’t be convinced to buy everything. That’s absurd. Irrational. And yet every vender wants me to buy. On multiple occasions an old woman would hand me some type of fruit, hoping that once I experienced it I would be convinced that I needed it. And every vender was the same, and yet their version of persuasion was customized in order to attract buyers.

We live in a marketplace. Each one of us. This marketplace is one that we cannot enter and exit as we please. It’s huge and inescapable. It’s so big that it covers the surface of the entire earth. It is The Marketplace of Ideas. 

Venders are selling us ideas everywhere we go. We are handed ideas that claim to satisfy our desire for success, happiness, true love, and purpose. But how is it that we often seem to skip the process of being a smart shopper in this vast marketplace? Before buying fruit at a flea market, or shoes at a department store, I understand the importance of examining them. I’m going to make sure the fruit is good. I’m going turn the melon over, give it a good thump, smell it, and maybe gently toss it from one hand to another in order to best determine its quality and decide if I should choose a better one. With shoes I’m going to try them on, walk a lap around the shoe store, jog in place for a few seconds, etc. I want to make sure I don’t regret my shoe decision.

Every idea that we buy shapes who we are, and reveals what we treasure. We think so rationally about fruit and shoes, but often shop blindfolded when it comes to ideas. Aristotle is attributed to have said “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”  In 1 Corinthians 14:20 Paul says “...do not be children in your thinking. Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature.” By thinking well, we are able to make sure that we don’t regret the ideas that we purchase.

As Christians we should relish the opportunity to seize every idea and examine it before we buy it. And let us not think and analyze just for the sake of thinking. Rather let us desire to think for the sake of knowing the Truth, and in turn loving God and loving others. We cannot exit the marketplace of ideas, so perhaps we should learn how to shop well and purchase the best items being sold.


- Daniel Giddings, Team Leader -