The Quick Fix

The combination of the age of fracture with the great risk shift likely affects what sort of behavioral science wins out in the marketplace of ideas: it likely shifts the focus toward improving and optimizing and repairing individuals rather than understanding how they are influenced by big, roiling forces largely beyond their control.
Daniel Drezner posits two general modes in which academics and others present ideas to the public.38 “Thought leaders” are very confident, not particularly analytical or critical, and tend to focus on their “one big idea” that they are convinced can change the world. “Public intellectuals,” on the other hand, see things in a somewhat more nuanced, complex light; they’re more likely to critique ideas they see as lacking, and are generally skeptical of the framework of “This one idea can explain the world.”