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

by Martin Gurri

A curious thing happens to sources of information under conditions of scarcity. They become authoritative.

Uncertainty is an acid, corrosive to authority. Once the monopoly on information is lost, so too is our trust.

When proof for and against approaches infinity, a cloud of suspicion about cherry-picking data will hang over every authoritative judgment.

The industrial age depended on chunky blocks of text to influence government and opinion. The new digital world has preferred the power of the visual. What is usually referred to as new media really means the triumph of the image over the printed word.

You would expect, in a time of uncertainty, a landscape crowded with frauds and con artists peddling positive formulas for happiness, love, sex, good health, and better government. You would expect, too, the most trivial assertions to be attended with much noise and thunder: absent authority, every message must be shouted to have a hope of being heard. Stridency will infect every mode of communication, but will be most disruptive of political rhetoric. Just to keep an audience, politicians and commentators will have to scream louder and take more aggressive positions than the competition.

The nihilist is a political black hole, allowing no light or mass to escape his violent embrace.