Thomas Friedman’s Vision of Online Oligarchy

By Rebecca Schuman. Thomas L. Friedman’s breathless New York Times column on the potential of massive open online courses envisioned remote villages in Egypt enthralled with lectures on Plato and nuclear physics, and thereby a large-scale democratization of what used to be the purview of the privileged few: higher education. Friedman did mention the online revolution’s potential disadvantages—“Yes,” he conceded, “only a small percentage complete all the work, and even they still tend to be from the middle and upper classes of their societies.” But the general tone of the piece betrayed giddy anticipation for the gleaming new delivery model of education that will arise from the rubble of the old Ivory Tower. The blowback to Friedman’s piece in the professorsphere was considerable (and Richard Wolff’s rejoinder one of the best reads). And this has prompted Friedman to publish a second column in praise of the MOOC, one that doubles down on his earlier assertions with the added bonus of ad hominem insults to the professoriate. Read more...