Googling Myself

I discovered something funny while googling myself the other day. I know googling used to be seen as vain, done only by people who wanted to point and shout “Look, that’s me, ME!” but I think that’s an idea that’s out of date, like the idea that a man isn’t properly dressed without a hat, or that using olive oil is pretentious. If you have an online presence, it’s a good idea to type your name into a search engine once in a while to check if you are being misrepresented or plagiarised (and of course so that you can go “That’s me, me!”).

The funny thing I discovered is that one of my article for Suite 101, “Aristotle’s Golden Mean“, is required reading for the Art Institute of California’s Ethics course!  It’s not the first time someone’s used one of my articles (usually as content on other websites), and it’s freely available, so there’s no problem there, but this is first time I’m aware of that students have been forced to read something I’ve written.  It’s only about 500 words so it’s no great hardship for them (compare that to the Nicomachean Ethics the article is based on), and this in itself may be an indication that it’s not the most in-depth ethics course on the market, but I’m not going to criticise the Institute, because I’m very flattered!