The "Idea" Legacy

I was thinking more about North's original "Idea" essay. It is included in most WC anthologies, some training manuals, and, like I said, it's referenced in so MANY writing center articles. It's certainly a seminal piece for WC work. And, that is the irony. It was not written for WC people, yet that's who continues to read it. We could read it as a historical artifact, but it seems that it is still read by WC folks (initiates or what have you) as a valuable articulation of our supposedly collective ideals. I find it interesting that he back peddles on so much of his 1984 article and radically changes his idea about what his writing center will do and yet the members of the field almost never reference the follow-up essay.