| What folks like Fukuyama don't get is that this situation was predicted in the 1960-1970 time frame and looking back seems fated, inevitable. 1962 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Image:_A_Guide_to_Pseudo-e... predicts that television performers will eventually overtake and outclass conventional politicians 1964 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Understanding_Media Marshall McLuhan predicts that 'television' will displace the 'Gutenberg Galaxy' of print but it could do it in the form of ABC/NBC/CBS but take the same (physically, later functionally) screen attached to an image synthesizer and versatile communication network and you get YouTube, which does. 1971 The Information Machines: Their Impact on Men and the Media by Ben Bagdikian reports on studies at the RAND corporation predicting that something like the WWW would come online in the early 1980s -- and technically it did in the form of services like Compuserve and The Source. Bagdikian pitched this vision to leaders in the media industry and was roundly rejected and was the origin story that led to his famous https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Bagdikian#The_Media_Monopo... In the 1970-1995 period the development of communication networks lagged behind all predictions because incumbents didn't want to make investments -- had they done so, Google, Facebook, Amazon and such would have been strangled in their cribs. The WWW seemed to take over so fast because it was actually delayed ten years and the technology to realize it had been sitting around latent and underutilized. 1975 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legitimation_Crisis_(book) by Jürgen Habermas outlines a conflict between "expertise required to make decisions concerning complex science and technology" and "public participation" that he sees no way to resolve. --------------- The "legitimation crisis" is the immediate crisis that Fukuyama sees, but connected to it is a long term breakdown in community pointed out by the likes of Nisbet and Putnam which manifests as a breakdown in household formation. We're pressing the panic button right now to save children who are halfway through school but... boy we are in trouble. |
Not so sure about this point: IIRC modem development was going on in a big way during the initial growth phase of the WWW?
Thanks for the pointer to "Legitimation Crisis"; 'a conflict between "expertise required to make decisions concerning complex science and technology" and "public participation"' sounds like the fundamental problem of anarchism as well.
As for household formation, I think the root lies deeper: take a look at "Democracy in America": https://www.gutenberg.org/files/815/815-h/815-h.htm#link2HCH... ; my experience has been that the voluntary associations described (thus forming a "felt", not a "fabric" of society) are way more alive on this continent than I recall them being, back across the Atlantic in the Old World of America.