Evolution vs Revolution

"I love everything Rajiv is saying in his recent, excellent essay Pragmatism vs. Idealism and the Identity Crisis of OER Advocacy and I’m really looking forward to the discussion we’ll have when he presents this paper early next month. This is a critically important topic and I think he has identified all the right dots, even if I would connect them slightly differently.

Rajiv makes a distinction between pragmatism (which advocates for an evolutionary approach to open in education) and idealism (which advocates for a revolutionary approach to open in education.) He then reminds us of Erikson’s eight-stage theory of psychosocial development, and in that context writes that the simultaneous OER advocacy efforts toward 'evolution and revolution are each symptomatic of a psychosocial crisis within the OE movement that pits pragmatism against idealism.

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I guess the tl;dr for me is this: instead of asking 'what kind of advocate should I be?' it’s probably more productive to ask 'what kind of advocacy will best help this person?' You’re almost always better off when you shift the focus away from yourself and onto others.'"