Follow the Leader?

In the grand course of time people have enacted 'follow the leader' in all forms of the phrase. An extreme example could be of the Roman emperors who ruled with an iron fist, to the more subtle scene of children occupying themselves on a playground. History has a habit of repeating itself, and most of the time it's unnoticeable until we look back and see what's been done. In The Nortan Anthology of Theory and Criticism (Tradition and the Individual Talent) the author states that "Many of Elliot's readers took his generalizations as literal truths, and even skeptics, such as the English critic Frank Kermode, judged that refuting Eliot demanded full-scale scholarly and critical demonstration" (953). Many times it seems like people who come up with a seemingly original idea, end up earning a multitude of followers. Now whether or not it's because people want to believe something entirely different than what has been around before, or they are so enthralled by the new way of thinking they do not stop to wonder if the idea is beneficiary or true. Sometimes people end up being too afraid to confront an idea, so it festers and grows into something much more toxic. Writers and poets like Eliot and Ransom brought to light a new way of thinking almost without question until later on. Do you think there should be more confrontation towards those who bring up new ideas? Good or bad?

               Source: http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/05/19/09/4086096800000578-4521462-     In_the_works_Ridley_and_I_have_actually_talked_about_that_contin-a-17_1495180900202.jpg