[Xmca-l] History(ies) of this discourse community and futures past

[Greg Thompson]

Folks,
Mike asked me to forward this link to the list:

http://lchcfestschrift.wikispaces.com/The+Story+of+LCHC+-+An+Unfinished+Polyphonic+Autobiography

This is the link to the wiki-history of LCHC, the forerunner of the XMCA
discourse community.

Mike has proposed (see forwarded message below) that we all familiarize
ourselves with this history (particularly those that are new to XMCA).

To that end, I thought I'd pose a couple questions:
What do you find interesting/surprising about the history of LCHC?
What current threads (!) are being pulled through to the present day XMCA
conversations? Here and elsewhere?
How might we make sense of this history?

I'm not sure if this is what Mike is pointing to, but it seems that there
are some substantial discontinuities between the XMCA conversations of the
past few years and what LCHC has been doing throughout most of its history.
This isn't to say that is a bad thing, simply to point it out and to ask:
why the differences?

Finally, you'll notice that the chapters are chronological leading up to
the last chapter titled The Future.
That one remains unwritten but will soon be history.

-greg




---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu>
Date: Wed, Nov 26, 2014 at 11:48 PM
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Fate, Luck and Chance [Language as a form]
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>


Carol Et al

It is a short holiday week in the US and I am on the road visiting family
and friends. I have only limited access and am trying to think about what
it means to have participants with such varied histories with the discourse
community and its topic and such varied backgrounds. Uncharted territory.

For those who care to see XMCA continue, I suggest that you read and
reflect on the 30+ history of this discourse community. The summaries that
I know of can be found at
LCHC.ucsd.edu under history archives. There are two summaries there that go
back to roughly 1983.

Further comment without people stopping to familiarize themselves with
prior history and without having participants ceasing to seek  solutions to
the current confusions in the iniatives taken by others rather than in
collective action in which they share responsibility seems unlikely to bear
fruit that can nourish a productive future.

All sorts of alternatives are possible.

One alternative is not possible, and that is to eschew personal
responsibility and lay it on the shoulders of a 76 year old "retired
professor" whose inadequate understanding of the core issues of the role of
culture in the development have been thoroughly documented by numerous real
experts over decades.

The record is there, open to all.
Check it out. Then we can assess the future.

Good luck to us all

Mike