Review by Jacob Davis

Learning is an ongoing process without a clear conclusion. Formal education may come to a close, but learning is perpetual. We are constantly being shaped by the world around us, particularly in an age of information abundance. Dave Cormier’s 2024 book Learning in a Time of Abundance attempts to engage with this complex issue, considering how we ought to think about our relationship with information, knowledge, and truth during the internet age. The book provides an opportunity for readers to critically consider how they perceive information today by illustrating the benefits of accepting uncertainty in our abundant environment. 

Cormier’s point, simplified, is as follows: we are currently in a culture lag between a previous era of scarcity and our current age of abundance. Technological development has steadily increased our access to information–one could certainly argue we’ve been exiting the era of scarcity for a long time–and the development of digital networks has brought with it an abundance of information previously impossible. Our experience today is unique for how quickly technological development has changed the world around us and how we experience it. This new age of abundance has changed our engagement with information; in the past, people’s access to information was limited to their local communities, while today, our access is entirely untethered. This new abundance of information confuses the process of finding the absolute truth as we now have countless narratives and answers at our fingertips. The effects of information abundance are significant in education systems, which function as spaces that prepare students to participate productively in society. Previous doctrines of learning that function with a “correct” answer are often ill-suited for a world of limitless perspectives. Education systems must be changed to help provide students with the tools to exist in an abundant age. Where this abundance leaves us is unclear, and is ultimately uncertain. If the community is the curriculum, then, in our internet age, we are all contributors to the public's understanding, even if often only in minor ways; we ourselves are a part of an ever-growing world of information. In this state of culture lag, Cormier, like many philosophers, suggests that our best path forward is to accept the uncertainty that the age of abundance brings with it. In doing so, we can acknowledge the limits of certainty, examine our own preconceived notions and their derivations, explore the ideas we support as well as those we don’t with humility and curiosity, and engage with one another from a position of openness and care. 

The notion of community as curriculum is a key analogy that Cormier explores in the book; in the past, our communities were confined by physical proximity, as were our curricula. In such a time of information scarcity, people’s access to information was inevitably limited. As such, the information people did have was mainly taken as fact, as other perspectives were rarely accessible. Cormier describes how, in the past, accepting information as truth was connected to people’s lack of contact with, and awareness of the behind the scenes processes responsible for producing these truths. In this way, information gains authority in times of scarcity; scarcity reifies a singular point of view. 

In contrast, online communities provide a distinctly different form of engagement with information. Cormier notes the dangers of collective echo-chambers which can form in online communities, but also considers the complicated benefits of having many contributors to the shared information of the internet. When considering our use of digital platforms, whether it’s posting online, or simply scrolling, we should recognize how corporations and other users are collecting and using our information. In this way, we are all participants in the development of the online world. While Cormier’s stance on the matter is more optimistic than my own, he presents it well, and does so in a manner that reinforces his ultimate point: there is value in uncertainty as a continuous effort to increase our own capacities for open-mindedness, along with the capacities of others. He presents the notion of community as curriculum as an opportunity for us to be active participants in constructing our future.

In discussing our struggles to adapt to frameworks of abundance, Cormier describes a phenomenon similar to the culture lag that Marshall McLuhan explores in Understanding Media (p. 149). Like McLuhan, Cormier describes this phenomenon as an inevitable byproduct of developments in the technologies that help frame how we perceive the world. He sees our difficult state today as reflective of the limited time we’ve had to adapt to the abundance of the internet, noting that while digital technologies have been around for mere decades, the printing press predated mass-produced textbooks in the United States by nearly 400 years. Framing culture lag through a lens of scarcity and abundance, Cormier is able to discuss people’s struggles with access today, considering how these challenges relate to perceptions of abundance and scarcity throughout the history of technological development. By considering how people have historically struggled to adapt to the access that new technology brings, we can consider our current state with an understanding of the inevitability of culture lag. This framing allows us as active participants in the “public” to think about how we can affect the ways that people will use and perceive these technologies in the future. As our access to information steadily becomes more effortless, reflecting on our relationship with information in times of scarcity and abundance is especially important. 

Cormier uses the notions of summative and formative learning to explore the challenge of preparing students for our abundant world. Summative learning tends to imply a belief in certainty, a belief that there is a “right” and a “wrong” answer. While there are various areas where such objectivity makes sense, there are many others where such certainty conflicts with the diversity of perspectives and information now available. Additionally, Cormier notes that summative learning's inherent belief in certainty is ill-suited to the task of preparing students for living in an age of abundance. This is particularly true today when students have this extensive access and are likely already participants in our abundant world of information. If education is the space where students learn how to understand the world around them, models built on narratives of certainty can seem quite unfit for an ever-changing world. While it’s worth noting that summative and formative learning models are less antithetical to one another than this analogy may seem to imply, the dichotomy is helpful for thinking not simply about education, but about how we all engage with information. How often, for instance, do we accept information online that reinforces our beliefs without considering the broader contexts that the work derives from? The belief that learning ends when an “answer” is provided is still prevalent today. Cormier is suggesting a deeper exploration of answers and where they come from. We are never finished. And that’s a good thing. 

The importance of accepting uncertainty in our engagement with information and one another does not make the task easy; in fact, it’s quite difficult. Doing so requires humility and an acceptance of our own limits, along with the limitations of the doctrines we support. Cormier presents two paths that people often take to avoid accepting uncertainty: passivity and dogmatism. In an age of information overload, apathy and passive acceptance of seemingly incomprehensible issues can, for many, relieve feelings of stress and worry. Likewise, in a time where perspectives have never been more diverse and accessible, people frequently turn back to doctrines of certainty and close-mindedness in an effort to maintain the security that comes from being “right.” Notably, most of us take both of these paths in our daily lives, consciously and unconsciously; people are often quite passive and close-minded when engaging with content that contains perspectives they support and with content that does not. Cormier describes how, in an age where being “smart” seems synonymous with having opinions, uncertainty is frequently viewed in quite a negative light. He strives to offer a healthy way for us to think about uncertainty, stating that: “One of the great, powerful things about uncertainty is it allows us to grow.” (p. 152). He offers helpful tools for accepting uncertainty that hinge on values of humility, honesty, curiosity, respect, and open-mindedness. We should be willing to admit our lack of knowledge on topics, share and explore the sources we use in our lives, delve into the perspectives we disagree with to better understand and contextualize them, engage openly with others, and do all of this while recognizing the inevitability of change. While this doesn’t sound easy, I haven’t encountered any suggestions of ways to live more productively and respectfully today which are more resonant than those offered by Cormier.

There were places in the book where I felt that Cormier’s framing of digital platforms paid too little attention to their structural biases. He certainly recognizes and discusses the effects of distinct technologies and their structural confines, but the topic does at times seem overlooked, or at least under-discussed. Cormier describes the value of people using online platforms in more productive ways to hopefully reshape how others use them. This makes sense in theory, but in the case of most social media platforms, their form seems antithetical to the sort of discourse that Cormier is hoping for. Most social media platforms are not designed to facilitate this kind of productive, open-minded, respectful, and on-going dialogue. In an attention economy, the minds behind the platforms we use are focussed on keeping users engaged and entertained while increasing their profits and viewer base. In doing so, their aims often conflict and interfere with goals of productive discourse. Cormier discusses how intimate connections can be developed online, but arguably spends too little time talking about the dehumanization of the individual in these spaces. While his goals are to decrease this dehumanization, I never found a substantive means to overcome the biases of digital platforms that facilitate this disconnect between people online. Can we, as individuals, acting in caring, open, and humble ways truly transcend these immense and, at times, structural challenges? I respect Cormier’s optimism that we perhaps can, and, honestly, wish I felt it too. In fairness, going down this media ecology rabbit hole would've likely led to an entirely different book, one that might’ve taken away from his thoughtful discussion of learning in an abundant age. 

Learning in a Time of Abundance is an approachable and easy read. The chapters flow well from one into the next; Cormier sticks to his points and articulates them well with a clear through line that keeps the book’s core ideas central throughout. While the issues and ideas that Cormier discusses are not new, his book offers a powerful and accessible chance for readers to reflect on their relationship with learning and information in a critical and open-minded manner. Cormier discusses many important issues we should all be thinking about today regarding the limits of our certainty, while presenting uncertainty as a productive path where we can continuously grow and develop, unconfined by the illusions of certitude. He essentially suggests a means of finding security in the insecurity of uncertainty. This is a book I’d recommend to most anyone; it’s conversational, at times quite humorous, and incredibly insightful (plus he references The Dude). The issues Cormier discusses, both within the structured setting of education, and within the nebulous framework of online learning, are vital, and Cormier discusses them in thought provoking and caring ways that hopefully open the door to more people thinking about the ambiguity of abundance.