<blockquote>'What has obviously happened is that the Internet has disintermediated traditional news media. There are so many channels through which stories (true and false) can flow that the traditional gatekeepers, and the beneficiaries of a more controlled media environment (namely, the political establishment), have lost control. This is inducing hysteria and a panicked effort to regain it.
This reminds me of the Reformation, which disintermediated the incumbent religious hierarchy, and the rulers who relied on the Church to exert social control. Then, the establishment railed at false theology. Today, the establishment rails at false news. Then, the translation of the Bible into the vulgate allowed individuals to make their own theological judgments outside the authority of the institutional church: today, the ability of people to access myriad stories and opinion pieces allows them to make their own political and social judgments without the authority of media or political mandarins. Then, the phrase was “every man his own priest”: today, it could be “every man (or woman) his (or her) own editor.” In the 16th century, the elite–the Church and many secular rulers–reacted to the popularization of religion in by attempting to reassert their religious and social authority over the masses, at times with violence. In 2016 what passes for an elite is attempting to reassert its ideological and social authority over the masses. As yet, there has been no violence. But it’s early days yet.
The Counter-Reformation ultimately failed because the underlying technological (e.g., printing) and social forces overwhelmed the ability of traditionalists to restore their authority. I expect that the same will be true in the case of the ongoing eReformation. What Facebook and other social media are attempting to do will likely be little more than a futile rearguard action. It is ironic, and somewhat pathetic, that companies which are themselves the product of the technology that disintermediated information are now trying to impose themselves as the new information intermediaries: they certainly like the profits that the technology has showered upon them (well, not Twitter), but are deeply frightened about how the that technology has liberated the reliance of the masses on the elite for their information. They want their cake, and to eat it to.
But this will fail. The contradictions here are so glaring that I am tempted to resort to Marxian language to describe them. I will resist the temptation, and merely conclude by saying that Facebook and Twitter and all of the other would be intermediaries will not be able to surmount these contradictions. And thank God for that.'
- Streetwise Professor,
The eReformation: Every Man His Own Editor, December 18, 2016</blockquote>
Context<blockquote>
Why I Wrote My Histories of Thought - By Murray N. RothbardThe Decline of Scholasticism - By Murray N. Rothbard</blockquote>