LONDON -- The central proposition of our times was summed up neatly over 200 years ago by Samuel Johnson. "Society," the sage doctor said, "is held together by communication and information."
Exactly so. And if communication and information are revolutionized, so also is society in all its aspects -- political, public, social, economic, cultural, and personal. That is precisely what we are all now experiencing -- in rich societies and in poorer ones, in high places and low, in public spaces and in private relationships -- in short, wherever people communicate and information passes.
This revolution is total, much more total, pervasive and enduring than anything dreamed of by the grim "revolutionary" ideologues of the 20th century, such as Mao Zedong or Vladimir Lenin.