Illusive Similitudes

I am. Scared, I mean. Or at least so I hear. Of Twitter.

Seriously.

In the first sentence of this fine article, the author writes the following: “Do Twitter skeptics really believe the popular microblogging service offers no educational value, or are they just afraid of it?”

Why this dichotomy? I hate to place the latest fashion in the crucible of reason, but what educated person would be satisfied with this either/or question? It hardly seems worthy of any rhetorical attention. In fact, I would usually just move on.

But this little bugger seems to be pervasive, irresponsible, and infectious.

So let’s have at it and start with the writer’s first assumption, that those in education who are skeptical of Twitter’s value are concerned with its educational value. An educator does not need to be skeptical of the educational value of a television to be skeptical of the value of a television. Assuming that skeptical educators limit their skepticism to educational worthiness is nonsense. Yet it informs the entire question.

Second, the writer assumes that fear is a probable response to a communication tool. I know of no educators who feared the move from chalkboard to whiteboard. They may have hated it. Or, like me, they may have grown a romantic attachment to chalk only discovered when forced to part with it. But no fear.

Third and most noxious, the writer begs the question by assuming that to not use means to fear. This is fallacious. And yet the writer cannot see it as fallacious. This vexes me.

I am great with wonder how a rag calling itself Inside Higer Ed can claim an audience of educators with drool like this in its pages.

I’d be happy to dismiss this writer’s words as the work of education’s ever-growing crowd of fakers and idiots.

If I didn’t fear them so much.