According to the domino theory, popular in the United States in the 1950s, a zero tolerance attitude should be adopted towards communist movements so as to prevent the insidious spread of communism.  It famously turned out to be wrong.  The domino theory is an example of a slippery slope argument.  Such arguments are not per se fallacious but they tend to be weak and therefore should be assessed with a judicious scepticism.

Plato, Rousseau, Hegel, Nietzsche and Marx: the common flaw of these visionaries is that they sought a sort of Utopia by divisive ideas, and set the ignorant against the knowledgeable, German against non-German, weak against strong and poor against rich.  Historically it was the left that was encouraged to feel resentment and the right to feel a sense of superiority.  Things are more complicated nowadays, when much of the right is resentful and many on the left feel a sense of superiority over the right.  Whatever the scenario, it is always dangerous to promote divisive ideas.  There's nothing wrong with being a visionary, but if things are to get better, it will be as a result of unifying ideas, not divisive ones

The Roman poet, Horace, wrote a couplet that has been rendered in English as, "Seek not for words, seek only facts and thought / and crowding-in will come the words unsought."  This week's poem, Unsought, expands on this idea, adding the proviso that the words will only come crowding-in if the thoughts they seek to express are clear and coherent.

The written word: that extraordinary innovation that allowed human thoughts, ideas and stories to become unshackled from the constraints of immediate time and space.