Or vice versa


Neil Postman, in his prologue to Teaching as a Conserving Activity (1979), writes that during his collaborations with Charles Weingartner:
For every idea we expressed as "true," we could easily think of its opposite, or at least of some alternative, as also true.
Postman notes that:
As a consequence of this double vision, Charlie suggested early in our collaboration that the last sentence of each of our books should be "Or vice versa."
Though he's not much of a fan of computer technology (and most probably not of hypertext either), it would seem that hypertext offers the ultimate tool for expressing that duality (or plurality). We can, of course, link in order to strenghten an argument, to enlist information to come to our aid. But if all we really want to do is get to the point - a point that sits atop an argument like a cherry on the whipped cream on the ice cream on the icing of the cake ... well, hypertext isn't really necessary for walking the straight and narrow path. It's much more useful for detours, for contradictions, for surprises.



Go to: Where's the Beef?