Visionaries or cranks? How can you tell?

I had an e-mail exchange this morning with Jim Kunstler, as part of an interview for a project the editorial page is doing on the peak oil controversy. Jim told me that his college audiences across the South are very hostile to his Long Emergency ideas -- a hostility Jim chalks up to their not being happy being told that their car-based way of life is going to change radically. I suspect Jim's right, but then again, I agree with Jim's basic take on the energy situation. We all know that Jim's got a colorful, hyperbolic way of expressing himself, so it's possible that some of the harsh reaction comes from his Old Testament prophetic style.

How can you tell the difference between a visionary and a crank? Here's a list of five benefits to being an outsider with an idea that pisses people off and draws ridicule. Excerpt:

1. A strong reaction means you've hit a nerve. Whether your creativity is expressed in your writing or in the products you create with your business, when people look at you weird :-), like they're afraid that the thing you've created might change people's behavior, that can actually be a good sign. Definitely, the more powerful and unique an idea, the greater chance that it will be opposed by the mainstream public (at first, anyway).

2. A violent opposition means that your idea has the potential to change people's lives. Let's face it--ideas are banned because they're considered "dangerous" to the status quo. Any idea that does not have the potential to elicit change in our world in some way will just be ignored, rather than opposed. The more potential an idea has of instigating change, the greater likelihood that it will be challenged.

There are three more.

There's truth in these comments, obviously, but the underlying assumption here seems to be that having a radical idea that changes the status quo is by definition a good thing. It's entirely possible that people hate your radical idea for very good and defensible reasons. Suggesting that National Socialism is the answer to our current economic and social problems is certainly a bold and radical idea, one that would strike a nerve and have the potential to change people's lives. But that doesn't mean it's a good idea.

On the other hand, the idea that we are going to have to learn to live in a fundamentally different way because the oil that we've built our entire modern American civilization around is going to be unavailable to us under the old terms, if at all -- well, that's also a radical idea, and it's a good one if it helps people change in ways that make the inevitable transition less traumatic.

Like all ideas, Kunstler's Long Emergency thesis should be judged by the quality of the data and the reasonableness of its conclusions. But it's really hard to separate emotions from analysis when dealing with ideas which, if true, have profound and far-reaching implications for the way we live individually and in society.

So: how do you tell a visionary from a crank? For first-century Jerusalemites, Jesus of Nazareth was a dangerous crank ... except for the then-minority who believed he was the Son of God. How do we know when we have a true genius among us? As Kierkegaard said, life is understood backward, but has to be lived forward.