[Xmca-l] Re: Leontyev's activities

[Andy Blunden]

That's exactly right, Peg, but it is not enough to state that activities 
are subject-objects and dynamic, unless we can explain exactly how their 
dynamism is formed. Exactly *what* are the dynamics of activities? I 
agree that diversity is a part of it though.

Andy

Peg Griffin wrote:
> I see it as dynamic ( ready meaning ready to grow) because I see 
> subjective-object and objective-subject  rather than objective or 
> subjective.
> As diverse "who" are the  obejctive-subjects the odds of changes in 
> the subjective-object motives go way up.  We might all change enough 
> to survive after all.  Working on diversity wasn't an accidental part 
> of LCHC's concern, nor was it for charity or to be nice. 
> It's the dynamism and hope bought by diversity that might separate me 
> (and probably Mike) from the Politburo :)
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
> *To:* "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> *Sent:* Tuesday, August 20, 2013 10:48 AM
> *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: Leontyev's activities
>
> I think your example and your way of explaining is perfect, Peg, for 
> the purposes of psychology and education. The "socio-cultural 
> motive/activity is ready." It is just this objectivist stance in 
> relation to the societal activities which has always been my main 
> problem with Leontyev. I know, of course, that you and Mike and the 
> others involved in 5thD designed activities which were well aligned to 
> widely held aims for the children's development, but where did they 
> come from? Speaking generally, what is the dynamic of the activities 
> we see around us? When surveying social and cultural life in general 
> it is obviously not sufficient to say "Mike and Peg designed these 
> activities" any more than it was sufficient to say that the Politburo 
> decided the targets for social production.
>
> So it seems to me that Greg's main problem remains unsolved in your 
> approach, Peg. What do we mean by the "motive" of the activity? 
> *Whose* motive?
>
> Andy
>
> Peg Griffin wrote:
> > I like the idea of a "well-motivated argument" as used in classical 
> and contemporary logic.  So I say stick to motivated.
> > It works so nicely with the distinction between "merely understood" 
> and "really effective" -- and the transition as merely understood 
> motive becomes really effective.  The subject may engage in the 
> actions that are motivated by two different activity systems with two 
> different motives -- but say the second is merely understood by the 
> subject and the first is really effective for the subject.  When the 
> human conflict-ing (Luria) mash-up happens and the person lapses into 
> a mosaically related but contradictory action -- poof -- the merely 
> understood is now the motive!
> > So the child you and Leontyev describe doing homework is first 
> really effectively motivated by play with adult rules of 
> priority/timing etc. but when that child scrunches up his homework 
> paper and throws it in the waste basket and starts all over -- poof-- 
> the really effective motive/activity falls apart and the merely 
> understood socio-cultural motive/activity is ready and willing and 
> takes up the slack.  Having alluded to both Luria and Leontyev, I now 
> bring in the Beatles -- it's a long and winding road.  Not a one-time 
> enlightenment! But praxis makes possible.
> >
> > When we at LCHC, ages ago, were running the after-school school we 
> called "Field College" (pun and polysemy intended), a funding program 
> officer (Marge Martus) commented that she hadn't seen a single child 
> off task in two hours.  And believe me they were not school or adult 
> governed children!  It was because Field College was strewn with 
> motives that virtually begged for children to engage but also to 
> transition from really effective to merely understood and hence to 
> "grow" into a new activity.  It would be, I told Marge, like being in 
> a rainstorm and trying to avoid the raindrops if a child were 
> off-all-the available operating tasks!
> > We had "center table" rituals and "fifth dimension" constitutions 
> that exposed the merely understood motives. And we had participant 
> structures, tasks, procedures, a lot of bells and whistles that fit in 
> dual activity systems/motives, some combonation of which elicited the 
> child's voluntary engagement in a really effective way.
> > Peg