Max Weber says, early in last century, “Not ideas, but material and ideal interests, directly affect men’s conduct. Yet very frequently the ‘world images’ that have been created by ideas have, like switchmen, determined the tracks along which action has been pushed by the dynamic of interest.” Judith Goldstein adds some points in a more specific way. “Ideas help to order the world. By ordering the world, ideas may shape agendas, which can profoundly shape outcomes. In so far as ideas put blinders on people, reducing the number of conceivable alternatives, they serve as invisible switchmen, not only by turining action onto certain tracks rather than others, but also by obscuring the other tracks from the agent’s view.”