Michael Gorman redux

I have stayed out of the whole Michael Gorman vs. bloggers mess but I found it interesting that a higher education audience seems to be amused by the whole kerfuffle. A column on the Inside Higher Ed website both outlines the story from its genesis point, Gorman’s essay, the Blog People to his current scribblings for ironically a blog, blogs.britannica.com. The author of the column, Scott McLemee seems to have his tongue planted firmly in cheek. My favorite McLemee quote about Gorman’s message is the following.

“He is full of high sentence, like J. Alfred Prufrock. But beneath it all, one finds a sense of cultural history combining one part idyllic idealization with two parts status anxiety. Gorman only appears to be facing hard questions about the new digital order. Actually he is just echoing debates on “mass society” from five or six decades ago.”

Having met Mr. Gorman I can’t imagine that he would enjoy this analysis of his writings so perhaps he will discount it along with any other digital writings.

I lied, this is my favorite McLemee quote from the article.

“Gorman may pine for the good old days — back when literacy and critical intelligence were capacities to be exercised only upon artifacts made of paper and ink. So be it. But let’s not pretend that such nostalgia is anything but escapism at best.”