[Xmca-l] Re: Hope and Despair as a "blues Hope In Morten Nissen's Ethical Prototype

[mike cole]

The title of the article is exciting, Martin. The idea of "the utopian
surplus of human agency" (could we substitute action for agency) reinforces
my belief, inspired by my Vygotskian habitations, that imagination is the
central nexus of human experiencing. Look forward to reading it.
mike

On Mon, Feb 16, 2015 at 8:55 AM, Morten Nissen <mn@edu.au.dk> wrote:

> Hi xmca
> Definitely SCHAT scholars should learn from Ernst Bloch, and even beyond
> his introduction. I was first introduced to Bloch by Athanasios Marvakis
> who wrote in his PhD in German about appropriating Bloch for the Berlin
> branch of Vygotskian critical psychology. He also wrote something in
> English.
> See
> https://www.academia.edu/attachments/4442791/download_file?st=MTQyNDEwNTM2Myw1LjEwMy4yMzEuNzUsMTUzMzk4MzU%3D&s=swp-toolbar
> Or if you are not logged in, try first
> http://www.academia.edu/763137/THE_UTOPIAN_SURPLUS_IN_HUMAN_AGENCY_USING_ERNST_BLOCH_S_PHILOSOPHY_FOR_PSYCHOLOGY
>
> Best,
> Morten
>
> Morten Nissen
> PhD, Dr. Psych.
> Professor
> Department of Education
> Aarhus University
> Tuborgvej 164<x-apple-data-detectors://0>
> 2400 Copenhagen<x-apple-data-detectors://0> NV
>
> Tlf: +45 30282418<tel:+45%2030282418>
> www.edu.au.dk/<x-apple-msg-load://EA90CF6E-E3C2-4513-9F1E-1798D3EDF929/
> www.edu.au.dk/>
> [Beskrivelse: cid:image004.png@01CC31B2.EB3C2970]
>
> Den 16/02/2015 kl. 17.29 skrev mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu<mailto:
> mcole@ucsd.edu>>:
>
> I also read only the preface as a kind of summary, and skimmed, Larry.
> Perhaps Morten will know of a particular essay that can provide the sort of
> "short form" that Annalisa was asking for. I do not know of such a summary
> by Bloch.  600 pages is a lot, never mind 1000. Others have provided
> synopses and the topic has apparently been rather widely debated.
>
> I am dealing with a number of simultaneous deadlines, one of which is the
> next issue of MCA so cannot be of much help here for now.
> mike
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, Feb 16, 2015 at 7:51 AM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com<mailto:
> lpscholar2@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Mike,
> I have read the introduction of Bloch's book on hope.
> [PAGE xxviii] has a fascinating exploration as both the objective factor
> and the subjective factor developing each within the other to form a new
> possibility which is "not yet" formed.
>
> I find this way of understanding parelling Vygotsky's notion of the "unity"
> of word meaning as the germ cell.  Can a case be made that at the micro
> level of "words" devoid of meaning are empty shells [dead forms]  AND the
> micro level of "meaning" without thought cannot go "inner"
> That the same [possibly universal] human process applies to human
> being/becoming.
>
> Subjectivity without the objective factor is meaningless subjectivity but
> objectivity without the subjective factor is "dead" or lacks the "force"
> [power] of life-vitality and becomes "merely" objects.  Human being
> therefor is a "unity" [a new form] that may become more or less
> "crystallized" human being which participates within the "gaps" which
> "exist" between the crystallized "unity" of the "self" and the "not yet"
> possibility.
>
> Can "human being" as a "unity" [subjective and objective factors which BOTH
> develop begin from different "roots" become, through development a new
> synthesis that is an "expansion" beyond either mere preconscious
> subjectivity [or a term that may reflect an embryo that must incubate] and
> also an expansion beyond "mere" preconscious objectivity [the always
> already thrown crystallized facet of objective form.
> To separate this "unity" of human being is "as if" separating the "unity"
> of word meaning into "words" and "meanings" destroying the unity and
> leaving merely "generalization" that looses the specificity of "concrete
> universals" [prototypes] [situated events].
>
> Bloch is offering us a personal way  of making "sense" [Bahktin's themes],
> emerging within German Idealism [Kant, etc] AND German Romanticism.
>
> Just speculating, going out on limb, playing with figurative worlds.
> Bloch seems to invite a close reading of  his 3 volumes containing over
> 1000 pages. [17 volumes in total he wrote]
> I was fascinated to know who he was friends with [Simmel, Lukacs, Benjamin,
> Adorno] but incarnating "hope"  The word incarnating seems appropriate to
> the way Bloch approached the unity of the human being and human nature.
>
> His personal autobiography through Europe and America  also seems relevant
> Larry
>
> On Sat, Feb 14, 2015 at 10:58 AM, Helena Worthen <helenaworthen@gmail.com
> <mailto:helenaworthen@gmail.com>>
> wrote:
>
> Larry, I noticed this too.
>
> Try substituting "hope" for "mission", "goal", "purpose" ,"object", etc
> in
> Activity theory, as in, the system is defined by its purpose.
>
> Try "The system is defined by its hope."  The meanings overlap enough to
> spring Activity theory free of its rather mechanical and technological
> aura.
>
> Andy uses "project" to give us another pespective on acitivity systems,
> so-called, and now Nissen proposes "hope."
>
> Good enough for me.
>
> H
>
> Helena Worthen
> helenaworthen@gmail.com<mailto:helenaworthen@gmail.com>
>
> On Feb 14, 2015, at 10:36 AM, Larry Purss wrote:
>
> For those engaged with Morten Nissen's collective project I would like
> to
> invite a close reading the concluding section [pages A36 to A39] in his
> article "Meeting Youth in Movement" [I have reattached for ease of
> access]
>
> Morten frames his "approach" as an approach of "hope". He writes,
>
> "what I am doing here, then, is articulating the hope, the possibility,
> the
> deeply historical emergent narrative, still very much unfinished - and
> perhaps temporarily halted - of a trans-pedagological tinkering of
> collectives, as part of an expanding and responsive welfare state. ....
> makes this a 'blues hope' in Cheryl Mattingly's sense of the term
> (2010)
> the kind of hope that remains close to its dialectical counterpart
> despair
> [LP and dread].  It shares with certain religious utopia a
> counterintuitive
> radicalism that calls forth doubt.  But contrary to religious versions
> of
> blues hope, this is written as inherently contestable, in the way that
> it
> still claims to present a real possibility, a concrete utopia in
> Bloch's
> sense."
>
> I would add that some prototypical versions with an ethics based in a
> religious ground could also include a hope that is inherently
> contestable
> open possibility that "could be". The term "religious" has multiple
> meanings and sense and some protypes enact concrete utopia in Bloch's
> sense.
>
> I also want to bring in Morten's understanding of "met-phor". On page
> A38
> that a version such as Morten's brings in a spatial or geographical
> instantiation. He says,
>
> "Although 'movement' and 'neutral ground' like Vygotsky's 'zone of
> proximal
> development' [and many other theoretical constructs], addresses space
> metaphorically, it is at the same time quite *corporeal. [LP-
> incorporated, embodied, incarnated]*. "
>
>
> The section following elaborates on Morten's notion of "spaces"  Morten
> makes a case that how our understanding can become prototypical [as
> concrete universals] is through the development of "models" [prototypes
> carry models and possibly metaphors or figural worlds]  Models AS
> methods.
> The concluding section of this article is titled "Theory: as
> Prototypical
> Narrative" Theory enacting hope and despair, hope and dread, and
> collectives [third spaces] being/becoming embodied places of meaning
> and
> relevance *AS ETHICAL AND POLITICAL places of empowerment*.
> Morten's concluding comment references Derrida as projecting hope
> endlessly
> postponed as the "places" of collective enactments, the places of
> "could
> be", and "yet to come" within a transformational participatory stance.
>
> I continue to search for ways to expand the understanding of "metaphor"
> beyond "mere" meataphor to indicate that metaphor is deeply "real"
> enacting
> and embodying collectives.  In other words "real" metaphor contrasted
> with
> "ornamental" metaphor which embellishes the literal.
>
> Larry
> <FEBRUARY 10 2015 NISSEN MORTEN Meeting Youth in Movement.pdf>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> It is the dilemma of psychology to deal as a natural science with an object
> that creates history. Ernst Boesch.
>



-- 
It is the dilemma of psychology to deal as a natural science with an object
that creates history. Ernst Boesch.