Birds of a feather

Back in early June I posted a criticism of Andrew Keen's anti-Web 2.0 book, The Cult of the Amateur. I received several comments on this posting, all supportive of my position. Recently, someone who goes by the name 'anonymous' posted this comment as a riposte:

"The comments on this review underline the basic thesis of the book. Nobody goes to sites that provide them with views that are alternative to their own. Web2.0 herds everybody of the same opinion together. Then everybody sits back, pats each other on the back and becomes satisfied that they, and not that other group, know whats what. 'Here' 'Here' indeed. Where?"

This got me thinking, are we just preaching to the converted? Do we only subscribe to those blogs which are likely to support our own view of the world? Are we misleading ourselves into thinking that because we all believe in social networking, informal learning, mobile learning, simulations, virtual worlds and all sorts of other 'alternative therapies', that anyone else in the world of learning and development agrees (or even knows what we are talking about)? I have no ready answers to these questions, so suggestions please.

I did check this view out with Donald Clark when we shared a train journey last week and he didn't share the same perspective. Some of his postings (notably those rubbishing NLP, learning styles, BBC Jam, etc.) had received enormous quantities of critical comments in response. These people were certainly not reading Donald in order to cuddle up to a kindred spirit (can you 'cuddle a spirit'? am I mixing metaphors? does it matter?).

I'd like to think that educational and training bloggers are not just a cosy, deluded clique, that we're reaching out for alternative views on the world that will challenge our own and give us food for thought. Isn't that the idea?