How else to describe it? Time’s extract from the new Al Gore book, The Assault on Reason, is a manifesto for social and political change from the barrel of the internet. Gist: So the remedy for what ails our democracy is not simply better education (as important as that is) or civic education (as important as that can be), but the re-establishment of a genuine democratic discourse in which individuals can participate in a meaningful way—a conversation of democracy in which meritorious ideas and opinions from individuals do, in fact, evoke a meaningful response.