Comment by cmrdporcupine

Part of it is that there's just so many more people. Many more voices. And a louder speaker for them to yell into. And so much less reason to focus on any particular individual.

You could spend your whole life studying philosophy/economics/political science, etc, write an amazing thesis, many volumes long, have all sorts of insights. And in terms of the world's massive population: how would you stand out? Would you be famous? Would people read you? Considered canon / important? Unlikely. You might get some notoriety, but that notoriety is more likely to spread to rather mediocre or showmen pop-philosophers like a Jordan Peterson (or their equivalent on the "left").

And in some ways knowledge of many kinds has been democratized, and information and materials more broadly available to all. So we're building a broader knowledge base and things are applied in that way, rather than by "great men"... which is likely the sign of a mature civilization and a more democratic ethos.