> They don't communicate new ideas, they merely confirm and label existing ideas which, until that point, had been building up in people's minds independently o

> They don't communicate new ideas, they merely confirm and label existing ideas which, until that point, had been building up in people's minds independently over many years. I see it doing something different: organizing a collection of events into a causal narrative that helps to explain our present situation. Additionally, by focusing on the meaningfully important events and their causes, it points to some number of solutions for how we can improve our present situation.