[Xmca-l] Re: Having an experience
Andy Blunden
ablunden@mira.net
Fri Jul 17 20:11:21 PDT 2015
According to Mikhail Munipov (whom you have met on FaceBook,
Beth) that process of "life standing still" is
characteristic of the cathartic moment of a perezhivanie.
And David, if I associate catharsis with perezhivanie I am
more referring to its meaning in Greek drama, not 19th
century medicine or Freudian psychoanalysis, all of these
being derivatives of the original Greek, I think,
Andy
------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
On 18/07/2015 1:03 PM, Beth Ferholt wrote:
> Yes, this really makes sense! So it is the doing that is
> the practical energy. SO Marx was writing about a method
> of perezhivanie?
>
> I may be conflating things but I am trying to piece
> together several pieces (like how in a big city you know a
> whole neighborhood as a world unto itself, and then you
> find out it is in the same area as another neighborhood
> that you know well -- but you did not know they were
> connected -- ).
>
> Actually that process of piecing together across the gaps
> is also related to what we are talking about. Of course.
> When you age in a city you also have the depth of the
> memories in layers at a given place, and this stringing
> together across time and place is what Virginia Woolf
> calls life: moments in which "life stands still her"
> strung together like a strand of pearls = with gaps
> between them.
>
> Beth
>
> On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 10:42 PM, Andy Blunden
> <ablunden@mira.net <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:
>
> Like you, Beth, I have found this xmca thread
> particularly exciting!
> There is one thing I'd like to add, which is implicit
> in Mike's quote from Marx:
> https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/comm.htm#art
> which is that Dewey holds an experience to be both
> suffering and *doing* [Tatigkeit in German].
> The doing means that an experience (to be an
> experience, and stand out from the background of
> experience, have significance and form a whole)
> entails wilfully changing the world, even if that
> changing is trivial, such as changing other people's
> attitudes to you or most trivially changing how you
> henceforth interact with a certain kind of situation,
> person or whatever. But doing is doing, it is not just
> going through the motions or habit. And that is why
> experiences in this sense are so important to the
> development of the personality and the world,
>
> Andy
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> *Andy Blunden*
> http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
> <http://home.pacific.net.au/%7Eandy/>
> On 18/07/2015 4:40 AM, Beth Ferholt wrote:
>
> This chain of ideas is the closest I have ever
> felt to what interests me
> most. It covers all the interests that brought me
> first to play and then
> to the playworlds and then to perezhivanie.
> Before I went to LCHC I was a
> preschool teacher and this is a profession that I
> think can be described as
> being, in its first part, responsible for
> reflecting upon the 'having an
> experience' that is happening all around you every
> day (time is so
> condensed for young children so it is happening
> all the time) so that you
> can support the self-creation beings who are able
> to "have an experience''?
>
> Like with Greg's students, as a preschool teacher
> you find that what is
> most important is to describe what is happening in
> a way that is true to
> the children's experiences. Vivian Paley shows us
> how to do this. If you
> don;t do this you find dealing with the Golem who
> has had the words that
> give it life removed from its mouth: you just have
> dirt, nothing even
> remotely related to the Golem, not even weight.
>
> I think it is the teacher/artists who can find for
> us those properties that
> will characterize the experience as a whole. What
> Monica named 'preschool
> didactics from within' is a process of working
> with these people in
> research. This sounds like 5D.
>
> Andy, Vygotsky is talking about the the two
> purposes of art criticism. One
> is entirely in the domain of social life, he says,
> guiding what art creates
> in its audience in useful directions. The other
> is to 'conserve the effect
> of art as art'. He says we know this is needed,
> because art is a unity,
> and without the whole criticism is not related to
> art -- he calls what we
> have left, without the unity, a wound. But
> criticism of art treats art as
> a parliamentary speech -- often -- he says.
> Vygtosky shows how to avoid
> this in the chapter on Bunin's short story.
>
> As a preschool teacher you know that art is life
> because if you forget this
> then you have unhappy children and your job is
> impossible, or worse. As an
> researcher, every time you hit something hard you
> can revert to the first
> purpose of art/life criticism, or anyhow to the
> part that does not conserve
> the effect, without any consequences on your
> livelihood. If we could have
> a system of science that makes it impossible to
> leave the hardest questions
> to the first purpose of criticism, then we could
> have so many people
> working on these hardest questions in a meaningful
> way, but I do not know
> how to do this even in my own work.
>
> Except one way is to place the desires of the
> teachers and children before
> your own. This is sort of a method of love or
> empathy. Kiyo suggested The
> Method of Hope by Miyazaki (no relation I think)
> and this is related, also
> Edith Turner's work where she sees the reality
> that the people she is
> studying see.
>
> Maybe it is a method of perezhivanie.
>
> Beth
>
>
> On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 1:58 PM, Alfredo Jornet
> Gil <a.j.gil@iped.uio.no <mailto:a.j.gil@iped.uio.no>>
> wrote:
>
> Mike, could you elaborate on that?
>
> Alfredo
> ________________________________________
> From:
> xmca-l-bounces+a.g.jornet=iped.uio.no@mailman.ucsd.edu
> <mailto:iped.uio.no@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> <xmca-l-bounces+a.g.jornet=iped.uio.no@mailman.ucsd.edu
> <mailto:iped.uio.no@mailman.ucsd.edu>> on
> behalf of
> mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu <mailto:mcole@ucsd.edu>>
> Sent: 17 July 2015 19:40
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Having an experience
>
> Alfredo--
>
> a "method of organization" seems close to a
> synonym for design.
>
> mike
>
> On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 9:42 AM, Alfredo
> Jornet Gil <a.j.gil@iped.uio.no
> <mailto:a.j.gil@iped.uio.no>>
> wrote:
>
> I like very much how Greg brings in a
> methodological issue here with his
> mention about ethnography and his reading
> of "fidelity"; that the latter
>
> is
>
> not about representing exactly, but about
> describing events in terms of
> consequences for the participants, which
> they display for each other in
> their actual practice.
>
> This methodological aspect makes me think
> that the the notion of ANALYSIS
> BY UNITS, which has been discussed in xmca
> before, is useful here. Unit
> analysis reminds us that, as units,
> experiences, as concrete and real
> phenomena, have some form of organization
> that extends in time. That is
> why, if I understood the discussion below
> correctly, Beth is warned not
>
> to
>
> think of the unit of experience as a unit
> "in itself".
>
> Dewey and Bentley 1949 made the
> differentiation between self-action and
> transaction. In self action, things are
> explained by their own powers.
>
> This
>
> is, I believe, what Vygotsky would have
> referred to as analysis by
> elements. In transaction, they say,
> “deal[s] with aspects and phases of
> action, without final attribution to
> ‘elements’ or other presumptively
> detachable ‘entities,’ ‘essences,’ or
> ‘realities,’ and without isolation
>
> of
>
> presumptively detachable ‘relations’ from
> such detachable ‘elements’”. An
> experience can be studied precisely
> because it is not a thing in itself:
>
> it
>
> is always a moving, gesture, a "method of
> organization" as Dewey &
>
> Bentley
>
> write.
>
> I thought this my add something to your
> fascinating discussion,
> Alfredo
>
>
> ________________________________________
> From:
> xmca-l-bounces+a.g.jornet=iped.uio.no@mailman.ucsd.edu
> <mailto:iped.uio.no@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> <xmca-l-bounces+a.g.jornet=iped.uio.no@mailman.ucsd.edu
> <mailto:iped.uio.no@mailman.ucsd.edu>> on
> behalf of
> mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu
> <mailto:mcole@ucsd.edu>>
> Sent: 17 July 2015 18:23
> To: Andy Blunden; eXtended Mind, Culture,
> Activity
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Having an experience
>
> Marx: It is only in a social context that
> subjectivism and objectivism,
> spiritualism and materialism, activity and
> passivity, cease to be
> antinomies and thus cease to exist as such
> antinomies. The resolution of
> the theoretical contradictions is possible
> only through practical means,
> only through the practical energy of man.
> Their resolution is not by any
> means, therefore, only a problem of
> knowledge, but is a real problem of
> life which philosophy was unable to solve
> precisely because it saw there
>
> a
>
> purely theoretical problem."
>
> On Thu, Jul 16, 2015 at 10:45 PM, Andy
> Blunden <ablunden@mira.net
> <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>>
>
> wrote:
>
> No, no, Beth. As Dewey says:
>
> "This unity is neither emotional,
> practical, nor
> intellectual, for these terms name
> distinctions that
> reflection can make within it. In
> discourse//about//an
> experience, we must make use of
> these adjectives of
> interpretation. In going over an
> experience in
> mind//after/ /its occurrence, we
> may find that one
> property rather than another was
> sufficiently dominant
> so that it characterizes the
> experience as a whole."
>
> Isn't this beautiful scientific prose!
> We make these distinction when
>
> we
>
> *reflect* on an experience. And
> perhaps we include the experience in
>
> our
>
> autobiography, act it out on the
> stage, analyse it scientifically, all
>
> of
>
> which presupposes analysis and
> synthesis. But it is important to
>
> recognise
>
> that the unity is prior. It is not
> only a unity of emotion and
>
> cognition
>
> (for example) but also of attention
> and will - and any other categories
>
> you
>
> abstract from an experience.
>
> Andy
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> *Andy Blunden*
> http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
> <http://home.pacific.net.au/%7Eandy/>
> On 17/07/2015 3:00 PM, Beth Ferholt wrote:
>
> Or reproducing the part that
> represents the whole? Like a
> fractal? I
> think it is the similarity across
> scales that makes an experience
> proleptic, or gives that 'bliss
> conferred at the beginning of the road
>
> to
>
> redemption" that Vasilyuk refers
> to. You have an experience on
>
> several
>
> timescales and so a sense of
> deja-vu is central to having an
>
> experience.
>
> This is what I am thinking about
> after reading both the paper of
>
> Dewey's
>
> and your recent piece on
> perezhivanie, Andy, although I am
> picking up
>
> on a
>
> small piece of the last email in
> this chain -- : If something is only
> itself in its whole then you can't
> study it, is what is bothering me.
>
> Beth
>
> On Thu, Jul 16, 2015 at 11:22 PM,
> Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net
> <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>
> <mailto:ablunden@mira.net
> <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>>> wrote:
>
> Not "getting at something",
> Michael. Just pursuing
> this question you raised
> about Dewey's saying that the
> aesthetic quality of medieval
> buildings arises from
> their not being "planned"
> like buildings are nowadays.
> He goes on to say "Every work
> of art follows the plan
> of, and pattern of, a
> complete experience." The puzzle
> he is raising here is the
> completeness of an
> experience which gives it its
> aesthetic quality, and
> this cannot be created by
> assembling together parts in
> the way a modern building is
> planned. An experience -
> the kind of thing which
> sticks in your mind - is an
> original or prior unity, not
> a combination, and this
> is what gives a work of art
> that ineffable quality,
> something which can only be
> transmitted by reproducing
> that whole of an experience.
>
> Andy
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> *Andy Blunden*
> http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
> <http://home.pacific.net.au/%7Eandy/>
>
> <http://home.pacific.net.au/%7Eandy/>
> On 17/07/2015 2:32 AM,
> Glassman, Michael wrote:
>
> Andy,
>
> I'm still not sure about
> your question. Did I set
> out to have that
> experience, that morning...no, I
> don't think so (it was a
> long time ago, but I'm
> pretty sure no). Could I
> have just treated it as
> an indiscriminate
> activity, probably, I had done
> so before.
>
> But I am guessing you're
> getting a something here
> Andy?
>
> Michael
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From:
>
> xmca-l-bounces+glassman.13=osu.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu
> <mailto:osu.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> <mailto:
> osu.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu
> <mailto:osu.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu>>
>
> [mailto:xmca-l-bounces+glassman.13 <mailto:xmca-l-bounces%2Bglassman.13>
>
> <mailto:xmca-l-bounces%2Bglassman.13
> <mailto:xmca-l-bounces%252Bglassman.13>>=
>
> osu.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu
> <mailto:osu.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>
>
> <mailto:osu.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu
> <mailto:osu.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu>>] On
> Behalf Of
> Andy Blunden
> Sent: Thursday, July 16,
> 2015 12:21 PM
> To: eXtended Mind,
> Culture, Activity
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re:
> Having an experience
>
> YOu said: "... But that
> time I had the experience
> with the paintings..."
>
> I mean that was an
> experience. Did you set out
> that morning to have that
> experience?
> RE, your question: "what
> does he mean when he says
> you can't do things
> indiscriminately and have
> vital experience, but you
> also can't plan things?"
> Andy
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> *Andy Blunden*
> http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
> <http://home.pacific.net.au/%7Eandy/>
>
> <http://home.pacific.net.au/%7Eandy/>
> On 17/07/2015 2:09 AM,
> Glassman, Michael wrote:
>
> Well I'm not sure I
> understand your question
> Andy, but perhaps it has
> something to do with
> my grandfather's favorite
> saying (translated from
> Yiddish),
>
> Man plans, God laughs.
>
> Michael
>
> -----Original
> Message-----
> From:
> xmca-l-bounces+mglassman=
>
> ehe.ohio-state.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu
> <mailto:ehe.ohio-state.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>
>
> <mailto:ehe.ohio-state.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu
> <mailto:ehe.ohio-state.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu>>
>
> [mailto:xmca-l-bounces+mglassman
> <mailto:xmca-l-bounces%2Bmglassman>
>
> <mailto:xmca-l-bounces%2Bmglassman <mailto:xmca-l-bounces%252Bmglassman>>=
> ehe.ohio-state.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu <mailto:ehe.ohio-state.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>
> <mailto:ehe.ohio-state.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu
> <mailto:ehe.ohio-state.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu>>]
> On Behalf Of Andy Blunden
> Sent: Thursday, July
> 16, 2015 12:04 PM
> To:
> xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
> <mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>
> <mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
> <mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>>
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re:
> Having an experience
>
> So Michael, there was
> just that one occasion,
> in all your
> museum-going, when you had an
> experience. Was that
> planned?
> (I don't mean to say
> you haven't had a number
> of such experiences,
> Michael ... just some
> number actually)
>
> Andy
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
>
> *Andy Blunden*
> http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
> <http://home.pacific.net.au/%7Eandy/>
>
> <http://home.pacific.net.au/%7Eandy/>
>
> On 17/07/2015 1:19
> AM, Glassman, Michael wrote:
>
> Hi Larry and all,
>
> I think this is
> one of the most complex
> aspects of
> experience, what does he mean
> when he says you
> can't do things
> indiscriminately
> and have vital
> experience, but
> you also can't plan
> things? I have
> discussed (argued) about
> this a lot with
> my students. I have
> especially seen
> him raise this point in at
> least two of his
> great works, Democracy
> and Education and
> Experience and Nature -
> and again of
> course in Art as Experience
> (notice he is not
> saying how Art enters
> into experience
> but how art is experience
> - I have come to
> notice these little
> things more and
> more in his writing).
>
> The difficulty we
> have, at least in the
> United States
> because of the dominance of
> the idea of
> meta-cognition, is that we too
> often translate
> what individuals are
> bringing in to
> experience to organize it
> as a form of
> meta-cognition. It is kind
> of possible to
> make that interpretation
> from Democracy
> and Education, although
> what I think he
> is doing more is arguing
> against
> misinterpretations of his work as
> random, child
> centered activities. I
> think he is
> clearer in Experience and
> Nature that we
> bring in who we are at the
> moment into the
> activity, and use who we
> are (I don't want
> to say identity) as an
> organizing
> principle for what we do. It
> is perhaps one of
> the places where Dewey
> and Vygotsky are
> close. Perhaps I can use
> the same Jackson
> Pollock example. The
> first few times I
> saw his paintings I was
> trying to
> "apprecitate" them because I was
> told that was the
> best way to experience
> them. Dewey says
> no vital experience
> there because my
> activities become stilted
> and artificia
> l. Sometimes
> I went through the
> museum and just
> looked at pictures, one to
> the other. No
> vital experience there,
> just random
> threads. But that time I had
> the experience
> with the paintings I was
> allowing who I
> was, what had been built up
> in the trajectory
> of my life to enter into
> my experience
> with the painting, making it
> a vital
> experience. I think Dewey makes
> the argument in
> Experience and Nature that
> it is not just
> the experience the moment
> before, but the
> experiences leading to
> that experience,
> the context of my life,
> of my parent's
> life, of a long line of
> historical
> experiences.
>
> Anyway, my take.
>
> Michael
>
> -
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Beth Ferholt
> Assistant Professor
> Department of Early Childhood and
> Art Education
> Brooklyn College, City University
> of New York
> 2900 Bedford Avenue
> Brooklyn, NY 11210-2889
>
> Email: bferholt@brooklyn.cuny.edu
> <mailto:bferholt@brooklyn.cuny.edu> <mailto:bferholt@brooklyn.cuny.edu
> <mailto:bferholt@brooklyn.cuny.edu>>
> Phone: (718) 951-5205
> <tel:%28718%29%20951-5205>
> <tel:%28718%29%20951-5205>
> Fax: (718) 951-4816
> <tel:%28718%29%20951-4816>
> <tel:%28718%29%20951-4816>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Both environment and species change in the
> course of time, and thus
> ecological niches are not stable and given
> forever (Polotova & Storch,
> Ecological Niche, 2008)
>
>
>
> --
>
> Both environment and species change in the
> course of time, and thus
> ecological niches are not stable and given
> forever (Polotova & Storch,
> Ecological Niche, 2008)
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Beth Ferholt
> Assistant Professor
> Department of Early Childhood and Art Education
> Brooklyn College, City University of New York
> 2900 Bedford Avenue
> Brooklyn, NY 11210-2889
>
> Email: bferholt@brooklyn.cuny.edu
> <mailto:bferholt@brooklyn.cuny.edu>
> Phone: (718) 951-5205
> Fax: (718) 951-4816
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