The Talk On a Cereal Box

Years ago, I wrote an article called "The Death of Smart" about authority and postmodern culture. The idea was that the framework for credentials is changing. We used to trust leaders and news sources who were educated and official, who were in print or on the air because, we assumed, they must have done the hard work to get there and become wise and learned in their field. But today's American no longer makes those assumptions. We assume instead (and rightly so) that anyone can be corrupt or fake. When I wrote "The Death of Smart" I said that the highest virtue of postmodern culture is tolerance and the second, following closely, was genuineness. Now, I think genuineness has overtaken tolerance. To be respected and trusted in our society, you no longer have to be smart or wise. You no longer need integrity or discipline. You can neglect faithfulness and substance. But you'd better be honest and sincere. We hate fakes.

My assumption in that article was that this new paradigm of virtue would undermine journalism and any organization with centralized communication. As we get more cynical, our circle of trust draws in. We check sources instead of trusting that others have done so. We are more likely to trust our friend's Facebook post to deliver the goods than a news story on ABC.com. I assumed that authority would line up in inverse proportion to prominence, and so authoritarian sources would go the way of the print newspaper. If you're broadcasting to a lot of people, I probably don't trust you. If you're my golf buddy, I probably do.

But I was wrong. In fact, I've noticed a shift in the opposite direction. I'm reading successful writers who speak not in postmodern disclaimers and excuses ("This may not be true of everyone but," "From my perspective," "In my humble opinion.") but rather as real sages with real answers. I follow Seth Godin and Michael Hyatt. I just read some Steven Pressfield. These are men who do more than muse. They teach. They correct as if they have a standard by which to perceive error. This is not postmodern, relative truth, mamby-pambyism.

So what's the difference? How have these writers have found a way to speak with authority in a postmodern culture? What does the "new authority" look like?

1. They speak from their own experience. They aren't researchers with data or pundits with opinions. They haven't arrived at their conclusions through careful observation. They're become someone new through trial and failure. They have a story. And that's what they write out. They don't pretend to know things they don't. They don't write or speak about things they haven't learned from experience. They know the difference, and if they don't know a topic from experience, they say so and decline to comment further.

2. They speak their convictions. The postmodern leader (in fact, a good leader fro any era) doesn't look back to count followers. He isn't checking to see how many Facebook fans or Twitter followers he has. He has chosen his work and his path. He's going to do his work. He's going the way he's going. His face is set toward the future. And if someone wants to follow along, they're welcome. This, I believe, will be the biggest difference in cultural leadership in the next decade. I think Americans are realizing that the people we thought were leaders (politicians, especially) are followers.

All of this brings us back to "The Death of Smart" and a corresponding rise in philosophy. It makes sense. We value what is scarce. Knowledge (or at least access to it) is no longer scarce. Honesty and experience are. If you have a story, we want to hear it. If you have polling data, we turn the channel.

When the Apostle Paul visited Athens, in the first century, the Book of Acts tell us that his crowd shared our American viewpoint.

"All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas." — Acts 17:21

In Athens, philosophy reigned. And though we don't call it philosophy often (we have more subtle names like "my approach to life," "the way I see things") we too are a nation of philosophies. Three hundred million of them. Philosophy is religion without research. It's the "it seems to me" view supported by anecdotes. And it's all we have left. Because if there is no absolute truth to research (we handled that in the 90s) and there is no scarcity of information (we took care of that in the 00s), then our sages are thinkers, not builders or learners.