The Revolt of The Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millenium

to participate in the great decisions of government. There was, Lippmann brooded, no “intrinsic moral and intellectual virtue to majority rule.” Lippmann’s disenchantment with democracy anticipated the mood of today’s elites. From the top, the public, and the swings of public opinion, appeared irrational and uninformed. The human material out of wh

process of accreditation, usually entailing many years of higher education. Persons in authority have had to jump through hoops of fire to achieve their lofty posts—and feel disinclined to pay attention to anyone who has not done the same. Lasting authority, however, resides in institutions rather than in the persons who act and speak on their beha

Information had effects. And the first significant effect I perceived related to the sources: as the amount of information available to the public increased, the authoritativeness

(My 93-year-old mother has kept her subscription to the Washington Post strictly because she loves the crossword puzzles. I have shown her websites teeming with crossword puzzles, but she remains unmoved. My mother wants her bundle, and belongs to the last generation to do so.) Information sought a less grandiose, less industrial level of circulati

crisis of government in

under conditions of scarcity. They become authoritative. A century ago, a scholar wishing to study the topics