>Autodidacts will likely have either rejected
>or been rejected by the established authoritarian-hierarchical
>academic system and will thus feel attracted to models like
>Kropotkin's which legitimate their approach to information
>and learning.
This seems a bit overstated. Yeah, schools can suck; lots of dumb rote learning and rituals of obedience designed to turn one into a well-functioning cog in the social factory. But...students often don't know what they don't know, and they don't know how to evaluate the fragments of knowledge they're acquiring. There's a lot to be said for a good teacher with a good syllabus; structure and discipline don't always do the work of the devil, after all. Of course, if you push me, I'll even offer a qualified defense of the canon.
Doug