https://pullrequest.substack.com/p/the-prophet-of-the-revolt
In fact, the public, which swims comfortably in the digital sea, knows far more than elites trapped in obsolete structures. The public knows when the elites fail to deliver their promised “solutions,” when they tell falsehoods or misspeak, when they are caught in sexual escapades, and when they indulge in astonishing levels of smugness and hypocrisy. The public is disenchanted in the elites and their institutions, much in the way science disenchanted the world of fairies and goblins. The natural reaction is cynicism. The elites aren’t seen as fallible humans doing their best but as corrupt and arrogant jerks. The public, I said, is mired in negation.
The pandemic crisis has been a striking illustration of all this. Information about the virus moved at the speed of light, but the institutions that were supposed to protect public health moved ponderously and were always playing catch-up, while the experts contradicted each other and sometimes themselves. In the US, the CDC kept changing its mind about surgical masks. The FDA seemed to think its mission was to throw out regulatory obstacles to treatment and cure. Given that lives were at stake, these were not trivial confusions.
Elites like Fauci might become more credible if they admitted that they, too, are dwellers in Plato’s cave, like everyone else, even people with multiple PhDs who are awarded long titles by federal agencies. We are all trying to make sense of the flitting shadows. A little humility would go a long way.