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

by Martin Gurri

took time to break out of my education and training, but eventually the thought dawned on me that information wasn’t just raw material to exploit for analysis, but had a life and power of its own. 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 of any one source decreased.

Like the present and the future, the past is a tangle of complex interactions, each pregnant with possibilities. Causes are everywhere, and can be cherry-picked at will.

The elites, forever astonished by events, oscillate between panic and moral outrage.

The reformers of democracy must learn to say, out loud for all to hear, “This is a process of trial and error,” and, “We are uncertain of the consequences,” and even, “I was wrong.” Elected officials must approximate the ability of scientists and businessmen—and, for that matter, ordinary households—to identify failure and move on.