This is a great summary (and advancing of the argument). Your three-point summary is better than I could have done (or did). Thanks for that.

Also, I feel really bad, I took the “baby-catchers” piece you refer to out of the post just after I posted. I was reading it, and it just felt too long. Seeing your reaction to it I feel like I made the wrong cut. When I get a chance I’ll add it into the comments of the piece or an addendum so people can tell what you are referring to.

The Downes piece was just a blurb summarizing my article, but I’ve linked the wrong one. Here’s the right one: http://www.downes.ca/post/65788

I also think you did much better than I did at pulling other voices into the argument. I was a bit in rant mode and less conversational. I think Sava has been a person in this area, for instance, who has done good work since I can remember.

And finally, you highlight something I should have highlighted better — many people who say we don’t need institutionalization are actually benefiting from institutionalization they don’t recognize. Somebody at some point made the argument their position should exist or wrote the budget line that funds their products. There is this parallel to privilege where we think we are just doing stuff well personally without realizing the structural stuff that someone had to do to make sure that we could do such things freely. That piece is most evident when you look at institutions that don’t have the resources or mechanisms to make such things work.