The title comes from a typically profound piece of intellectual musing by those very clever chaps at the Future Foundation. Their argument is very compelling – the collapse of trust in all forms of institutional power and our willingness to challenge traditional sources of expertise and leadership, has created a situation in which the people are almost ungovernable.
Here are a selection of the best quotes from The Future Foundation paper:
“Authority has to battle for legitimacy every day; it can have no expectation of canned applause.”
“The truth as affirmed and broadcast by any institution is intrinsically, programmatically contestable. For every fact there is an anti-fact.” … & on a similar vein “Democracy is terrible hard work” … a sentiment that I am sure Barak Obama would all too readily endorse.
“It is noticable, in fact, just how hard it is these days for Governments to convert their programmes into policies.”