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

advance of progress, and placed in doubt the naïve faith, which I originally shared, that data and knowledge were identical. Even then, the problem was framed by

Today’s tastes may run to egalitarianism, but across history and cultures the only way to organize humanity, and get things done, has been through some level of command and control within a formal hierarchy. We are probably hard-wired to respond to this pattern. The pyramid can be made flatter or steeper, and a matrix of informal networks is invari

example, was limited to a very few topics

explore that near-infinite

the game, the

newspaper, suddenly

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

mean anything at all. On the front page of the gray old Times, I’m liable to encounter a chatty article about frying with propane gas. CNN lavished hours of airtime on a runaway bride. The magisterial tones of Walter Cronkite, America’s rich uncle, are lost to history, replaced by the ex-cheerleader mom style of Katie Couric. One reason the notion

despite the arrival of