Ever since I was a young child I have been a restless and poor sleeper — too many thoughts, my long-suffering wife would say.

I am not sure she is correct, but I am grateful to my mother for having made me entirely content with this state of affairs.

Mum encouraged me to read and also to "mull things over" — not that she had that skill.

She was extravagantly instinctive and dramatic in response to most things until her end.

I think in bed a great deal and often will rise to read or potter about with work in the early hours.

Lately, I worry about the evident decline in the quality of social leadership, particularly in politics.

Government is the centrally important meeting point for our collective ambition, aspirations and future, and in many ways it is being actively undermined.

I worry about the decline in value we attribute to creative and intellectual life and the educational framework central to its health.

I worry about the impact of many technologies, which while offering a cornucopia of delights and possibilities, are changing how we think and interact, at times in ways that denigrate others, and diminish engaged debate, attentive listening and prolonged thinking.

Numerous echo chambers have arisen, amplifying attitudes and anger among likeminded people — too frequently enabling shockingly disrespectful and destructive behaviours in civil society.

How we renew conviction, civility and respect in social life with a much-needed rekindling of trust in our institutions is a major question.

It requires a transformed attitude to leadership in many, many jurisdictions.

I have no hesitation in saying it also keeps awake a vast range of people with diverse views, vocations, faiths and cultures.

Our current technological situation can seem remarkably dystopian.

While it may offer new horizons of wonder, optimism and social improvement, there are quite staggering adjustments before us, and growing gaps in knowledge access and equity.

Disengagement from digital disruption is not a realistic option.



Change will accelerate and manifest in all aspects of how we produce, consume, manage and share information. We have commenced a fascinating, albeit compulsory, ride.

Kim Williams is preoccupied with how to renew conviction, civility and respect in social life. ( ABC Radio Sydney: John Donegan )

In all this turbulence, many of our most prominent core institutions confront issues of how to provide continuity in our social structure and memory while sustaining their relevance.

More importantly, they must confront a paradoxical enemy in an information-rich age. I refer here to what I would describe as the unwavering march of general ignorance.

We need to confront this directly with a head-on, direct knowledge and communication attack. This is the essential challenge before all public institutions, whether parliamentary, judicial, educative or in the realm of creation, collection and performance.

We have never had such immediate access to so much of the world's accumulated knowledge. But (and it is a very big but) so often the reception of this information is missing the critical skills of analysis, synthesis and assessment in terms of context, accuracy and perspective.

Let me dramatise the challenge as simply and directly as I can in two words: Donald Trump.

Trump is but one example of the march of general ignorance and its unseemly allies — spectacular hubris; indulged vented rage; misogyny; and indifference to truthfulness, history and civility.

US President Donald Trump has shown little time or care for views that oppose his own, writes Williams. ( Getty Images: Barcroft Media )

He appears to have no regard for wisdom, expertise or responsibility, let alone accountability. He repudiates science, decorum and the responsibility of nations to engage respectfully with each other.

Donald Trump prefers a bully pulpit where hectoring by mad, perhaps sclerotic, whimsy now reigns supreme.

Any opposing view, no matter how well informed or experienced, is treated as toxic and rejected with a ferocity and refutation of discussion on a scale unparalleled since similar repugnant experiences in the 1930s.

We can't stand by and simply watch.

In my view we need to reject the triumph of spontaneous feelings and impulsive reaction in favour of disciplined thought informed by respect for history, knowledge and analysis.

It's enough to keep anyone up.

Kim Williams is the former chief executive of News Limited and host of ABC RN's What Keeps Me Awake. Subscribe to the podcast.