A point that I was laboring to make in the post “Crisis of authority” is expressed more compactly in Sarah Vowell’s latest book, The Wordy Shipmates:

... Protestantism’s shedding away of authority ... inspires self-reliance—along with a dangerous disregard for expertise. So the impulse that leads to democracy can also be the downside of democracy—namely, a suspicion of people who know what they are talking about.

Not that I am saying that Protestantism, self-reliance and democracy are Bad Things — I endorse all of them, and the Internet too. But we should keep our wits about us and be conscious of the limitations and dangers inherent in them.