Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium

congenial information bubble,

every authoritative

question, these life-shaping

More information was generated in 2001 than in all the previous existence of our species on earth. In fact, 2001 doubled the previous total. And 2002 doubled the amount present in 2001, adding around 23 “exabytes” of new information—roughly the equivalent of 140,000 Library of Congress collections.

its remarkable evolution in 2001. The social network Friendster was launched in 2002, with MySpace and LinkedIn

The Russian media, for example, loves to portray the scrawny Putin in the guise of an action hero.61 Egypt’s journalists can write without blushing of al-Sisi’s “flawless appearance” and “Herculean strength.”62 Yet much tighter controls over information have done nothing to enhance the image of Xi Jinping and his Chinese Communist Party.

The revolt of the public, as I envision the thing, is a technology-driven churning of new people and classes, a proliferation and confusion of message and noise, utopian hopes and nihilistic rage, globalization and disintegration, taking place in the unbearable personal proximity of the web and at a fatal distance from political power. Every struct

The industrial elites, I mean to say, have lashed their fate to that of the battered model in which they have thrived. Their political projects seek to restore distance rather than authority. Their hope is to silence the public, not persuade it. Hillary Clinton ran for president on a promise to keep the deplorables in their place. Angela Merkel cli

met with silence.