We are living through a stage of human evolution, which not only is similar, but also significantly exceeds the period of industrial and further on bourgeois revolutions as to its effect and the consequences. If the industrial revolution led to formation of the modern form of national states, the information-technological revolution, which the humanity is living through today, leads to formation of a new type of an individual and a society. Moreover, in conditions of information revolution - as a transition period from industrial civilization to informational, the integration processes at planetary scale become one of the main directions of formation of a new world order.  

At the modern stage of history, we have observed numerous transformations, changing not only and not that much the way of life, as much as its perception by the individual and the society. Thus, for instance, the armed conflicts from a stage of aristocratic battles, when the war was the business of the nobility, have now grown into total wars, which exhaust all resources and which influence the entire population without exception. And this has led to transformation of our perception of war, has changed the level of readiness and motivation of the society to struggle for peace and international security.  

Today we evidence an unprecedented transformation of the information field. From a consumer of public information, Homo sapiens are turning into public suppliers of information by means of blogs, social networks, You- and Ru- tubes. And in these terms, we have crossed the Rubicon of information revolution. The speeds will increase and the ways of supplying information will change, but an all-comprehensive mobilization has been launched in the information battlefield. Just as the introduction of the general mandatory army draft changed the world’s perception of armed conflicts, the transformation of an individual into the supplier of information, when each student is a mini-editor-in-chief for their own blog, changes the realities of the information field. 

In a short period of only a few months, issues of licensing TV and Radio broadcasting, registration of mass media outlets, lost their principle urgency and acuteness. 

And naturally, the society found itself unprotected and vulnerable, as it happens during any revolution. We lost the system, which the public deterring mechanisms - political, moral, social and even level - were based on.  

But this does not mean at all that we are doomed to chaos or anarchy. Of course, not. In such situations, the mechanism of human AUTHORITY becomes a more powerful guiding mechanism. In conditions of the information revolution, the “heroes”, presented by the elite, that is the people, who are respected, who people try to copy, become the involuntary managers of information flows, their forms and content. From now on, it is impossible to direct public opinion by means of words or simulators. They require concrete, tangible examples. These examples should be systematically built into a chain from an educated individual to an educated society. 

The only efficient way of modernization is the establishment or the return of the KNOWLEDGE CULT, as the basis of a KNOWLEDGE SOCIETY. In the seething ocean of information, KNOWLEDGE is the only boat, in which we can be saved together – entire states and societies, but not alone. 

But the necessary initial stage of reestablishing the disturbed balance is actualization, modernization of the elite, and first of all science and culture elite. The only way is formation of elites, ready, and what is of no less importance, CAPABLE of creating, making, involving in scientific activity in transparent, glass-like scientific-creative workshops, in terms of transparency and fragility. Workshops, which are open to criticism, at that any criticism, including one that has not been filtered by the above-mentioned lost public deterring mechanisms.

The creative intelligentsia bears the responsibility for formation of moral and ethical mechanisms of deterring the shock wave, which is characteristic of any revolution, but which is unpredictable as to its destruction force in case of the information revolution. For a simple comparison, I can say that as to the magnitude and width of influence, the information revolution is comparable to any other, which the humanity has ever faced, like a weapon of mass destruction can be compared to any others, even the most dangerous types of armament. And just like the availability of strategic arsenal was in the course of decades the main deterring mechanism in the international security system, the information revolution is also a natural turn of human development, during which we get a colossal opportunity for fast and unprecedented growth. But just as the mass destruction weapons became the evil of the 21st century in terms of threats of its spreading, sprawling and becoming available for non-state players, the information revolution and its genius creations already become an uncontrollable threat for the individual and the society. 

For many years we work over brining up people similar to us, fully devoting ourselves to educating our children, and already today we are not guaranteed against the fact that all those years of work were leveled by the irresponsible, amoral or simply dangerous for health and life content in internet, on television, in other informational sources. 

In the age of information availability and geometrical progression of types and capacities of information carriers, the creative intelligentsia bears the responsibility for defining the most delicate line, which passes between the freedom of speech, renouncement of any type of censure, and at the same time allows sorting content as to its quality, guaranteeing safety of the users. 

Vigen Sargsian is the Deputy Head of the Armenian President’s Administration and teaches at the American University of Armenia. These views are his own.