A redefinition of 'middle age'? An interview with Mike Lewis: Part Two

(The idea for "Next: The Future Just Happened" came to Michael Lewis while he was doing research for his book "The New New Thing." Lewis, who also wrote the much-acclaimed "Liar's Poker" about his years on Wall Street, consistently found himself running into people -- particularly young people -- who were using the Internet in ways not always anticipated by experts, or the media. These people became the basis for both this newest book, and TV series, about how the Internet is shaping our society, not always as we hoped it would it. Recently, Lewis talked to us by phone while on the road for his book tour. In part two of that discussion, we started by talking about Knowledge Networks, a company that uses a gives people an Internet-capable machine and an Internet connection, and then askes them to take part in sophisticated online polls:)

Monitor: How will the Internet change political culture in the coming years?

Lewis: I say that it takes it further in the direction of mob rule. More democracy. But probably not in a pure form because people are lazy. So what happens is, that you have a mechanism for virtual referenda, actually subjecting everything to a vote. Which you could do, if everybody is online. And they can vote online. It's a no brainer. Someone is going to press for the idea that we have national referenda on big issues. Why leave it up to middlemen, when everybody can just vote on it, when it can be so simply done.

Representative democracy was partially a philosophical construct, on a philosophical premise about the needs of the elites. But it was also a response to a technical problem, that you couldn't gather a nation of a few million farmers into a room and get them to vote on things. What has happened is that we are getting to a situation where the technical obstacles for mass democracy are being eliminated.

But the thing that interested me so much about Knowledge Networks was that it showed you what the mechanism was for politicians to defend themselves against this. And the mechanism is that they get such good pictures of public opinion that they can mimic it. American politics is so dull, that it is governed by a moderate center, overlapping parties, where everybody knows what the consensus opinion is, and that's what rules the day. And there are micro decisions made within that context. But the big picture is so clear to all, that it makes for very dull times. I do think that an awful lot of politics are deterministic. Politicians figure out what the right answer is, and they get it. For example stem cell research -- 88% of the country thinks that there should be stem cell research. What is President Bush going to do? Once you know what the polls say, you know what's he doing. He's agonizing to do his best to appease the other 12%, but in the end he has to do, it's madness to do anything but permit it.

Monitor: But if polls rule the day in politics, what about the ANWR decision, where polls show most people oppose drilling in Alaska, particularly women, but the president approved it anyway?

Lewis: Presidents often start off thinking that they can lead more than they can, that they can do what they want to do and the country will follow them. What they soon learn is that they're not the dog, they're the tail. And I think this is the process that Bush is going through right now.

Page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4