[Xmca-l] Re: vygotsky's theory and symbolic interactionism

[mike cole]

Darwin would weigh in on the process of luniness?
mike


On Wed, Apr 2, 2014 at 10:47 AM, Greg Thompson <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>wrote:

> Mike,
> I wonder how to be critical without being "crazy"?
>
> It seems like "lunatics"* are the best at providing alternative
> imaginaries.
>
> But it is also true that those who are most "critical" are often
> considered to be "lunatics".
>
> So does it matter?
>
> -greg
> *Please note the scare quotes around the words crazy and lunatic - they
> are intended to scare! i.e. they are NOT my categories or my definitions of
> them, rather I use the scare quotes to indicate that they are as perceived
> by society - "crazy" or "lunatic" as perceived by society.
>
>
> On Wed, Apr 2, 2014 at 9:27 AM, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Seems like you nailed it, Robert, (and Benjamin read it there?).
>>
>> The lesson I take away from this is that we are all "so-called thinkers"
>> by
>> virtue  of the fact that our consciousness is mediated through culture.
>> The
>> imagined present never precisely matches the encountered future.
>>
>> In so far as there is an antidote to this characteristic of humans, so far
>> as I can figure out, it is develop cultural practices that might be called
>> "critical" in that they diverge from the common imaginary worlds. Having
>> criticized, the preferred next step would be to test out your imagined
>> world in practice in order to discover its flaws.
>>
>> What do others conclude?
>> mike
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 7:56 PM, Robert Lake <boblake@georgiasouthern.edu
>> >wrote:
>>
>> > See highlighted phrase below :-).
>> >
>> > Marx-Engels Correspondence 1893
>> > Engels to Franz Mehring Abstract
>> > ------------------------------
>> >
>> > Source: *Marx and Engels Correspondence*;
>> > Publisher: International Publishers (1968);
>> > First Published: *Gestamtausgabe*;
>> >  Translated: Donna Torr;
>> > Transcribed: Sally
>> > Ryan<http://www.marxists.org/admin/volunteers/biographies/sryan.htm>in
>> > 2000;
>> > HTML Markup: Sally Ryan.
>> > ------------------------------
>> > London, July 14, 1893
>> >
>> > Today is my first opportunity to thank you for the *Lessing Legend* you
>> > were kind enough to send me. I did not want to reply with a bare formal
>> > acknowledgment of receipt of the book but intended at the same time to
>> tell
>> > you something about it, about its contents. Hence the delay.
>> >
>> > I shall begin at the end -- the appendix on historical materialism, in
>> which
>> > you have described the main things excellently and for any unprejudiced
>> > person convincingly. If I find anything to object to it is that you
>> > attribute more credit to me than I deserve, even if I count in
>> everything
>> > which I might possibly have found out for myself - in time - but which
>> Marx
>> > with his more rapid *coup d'oeil* (grasp) and wider vision discovered
>> much
>> > more quickly. When one has the good fortune to work for forty years
>> with a
>> > man like Marx, one does not usually get the recognition one thinks one
>> > deserves during his lifetime. Then if the greater man dies, the lesser
>> > easily gets overrated, and this seems to me to be just my case at
>> present;
>> > history will set all this right in the end and by that time one will be
>> > safely round the corner and know nothing more about anything.
>> >
>> > Otherwise there is only one other point lacking, which, however, Marx
>> and I
>> > always failed to stress enough in our writings and in regard to which we
>> > are all equally guilty. That is to say, we all laid, and *were bound to
>> > lay*,
>> > the main emphasis, in the first place, on the *derivation* of political,
>> > juridical and other ideological notions, and of actions arising through
>> the
>> > medium of these notions, from basic economic facts. But in so doing we
>> > neglected the formal side -- the ways and means by which these notions,
>> > etc., come about -- for the sake of the content. This has given our
>> > adversaries a welcome opportunity for misunderstandings, of which Paul
>> > Barth is a striking example.
>> >
>> > Ideology is a process accomplished by the so-called thinker consciously,
>> > indeed, but with a false consciousness.
>> >
>> >
>> > On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 9:24 PM, Martin John Packer
>> > <mpacker@uniandes.edu.co>wrote:
>> >
>> > > Wikipedia attributes the phase to Engels.
>> > >
>> > > Martin
>> > >
>> > > On Apr 1, 2014, at 8:13 PM, Douglas Williams <djwdoc@yahoo.com>
>> wrote:
>> > >
>> > > > Hi--
>> > > >
>> > > > The term false consciousness is from Walter Benjamin in a 1930
>> review
>> > of
>> > > Siegfried Kracauer's Die Angestellten, drawing from Marx. The idea in
>> > Marx
>> > > is described in terms of alienation and estrangement from real objects
>> > and
>> > > activity.
>> > > >
>> > > >
>> > https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/labour.htm
>> > > >
>> > > >
>> > > > ________________________________
>> > > > From: Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
>> > > > To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>> > > > Sent: Tuesday, April 1, 2014 5:14 PM
>> > > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: vygotsky's theory and symbolic interactionism
>> > > >
>> > > >
>> > > > Tom, so far as I know, the term "false consciousness" was invented
>> by
>> > > > feminists in the 1970s and was never used by Marx, and I don't think
>> > the
>> > > > concept is consistent with his ideas, as expressed in the Theses on
>> > > > Feuerbach which you quoted, for example.
>> > > > Andy
>> > > >
>> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> > > > *Andy Blunden*
>> > > > http://home.mira.net/~andy/
>> > > >
>> > > >
>> > > >
>> > > > Tom Richardson wrote:
>> > > >> ... In the first place, it should be noted that Marx, like Spinoza
>> and
>> > > later
>> > > >> Freud, believed that most of what men consciously think is "false"
>> > > >> consciousness, is ideology and rationalization; that the true
>> > > mainsprings
>> > > >> of man's actions are unconscious to him.
>> > > >>
>> > >
>> > >
>> > >
>> >
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
> Assistant Professor
> Department of Anthropology
> 883 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
> Brigham Young University
> Provo, UT 84602
> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
>