The big lie at the heart of the technology revolution

The world needs gatekeepers

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There is a fundamental lie at the heart of the techno-populist-utopian vision that dominates so much of 21st century Western culture.

The lie is the notion that the world would be a better place without gatekeepers. If only the most powerful information-dissemination technologies ever devised were left open to all — unregulated, uncontrolled, ungoverned by authorities who make decisions about what's acceptable and what isn't — the world would be a much more free and thriving place, the thinking goes. But for this to be true, human beings (individually but perhaps especially collectively) would need to be far more capable of exercising wise judgment than they manifestly are.

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Damon Linker

Damon Linker is a senior correspondent at TheWeek.com. He is also a former contributing editor at The New Republic and the author of The Theocons and The Religious Test.