[Xmca-l] Re: Why Computers Make So Little Difference

[HENRY SHONERD]

Thank you, Mike,
I looked into Vasiluk and found the following response on XMCA in November 2007 to you from Yordanka Valkanova on the meaning of “perezhivanie”:

"An analogous discussion to ours has taken place among the translators of
Stanislavsky's works. Stanislavsky considered perezhivanie as a main concept
of his system. He used the term in a different sense. He referred to the
actor's 'living the role', or experiencing being the other and feeling the
emotions of this other as his/her own. Although the meaning of
Stanislavsky's perezhivanie is in a way distant from Vygotsky's concept, the
discussion around its translation illustrates how difficult it is to express
the meaning of this old Slavonic word into English.”

I find all of the connections between Vygotsky and performance to be very interesting. Perizhivanie definitely has the sense of performance. And a unity of an external act and an internal thinking/feeling. 

Henry






> On Mar 12, 2015, at 10:24 AM, mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu> wrote:
> 
> Your query, Henry, returns us to the discussion of LSV's article on the
> environment from a couple of months ago and the concept of perezhivanie,
> the translation of which several experts are certain they know the proper
> interpretation. Unfortunately, they are not in agreement. (This is true of
> both Russian and English-writing scholars within and between
> language/culture communities)
> 
> Vasiliuk's book, "The psychology of experiencing" is floating around in pdf
> form somewhere. His focus there is on perezhivanie. More recently he has
> been focused on this concept with respect to psychotherapy. I believe this
> work is being translated now, and is about to appear in English, but am not
> sure.
> 
> mike
> 
> On Thu, Mar 12, 2015 at 9:05 AM, HENRY SHONERD <hshonerd@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Hi Too,
>> Annalisa has spilled some virtual ink pondering affect and feeling. I have
>> struggled with the same issue. Andy, through Academia, has just made
>> available his article. “The Germ Cell of Vygotsky’s Science”, from which
>> the following quote:
>> 
>> "In each of the areas of psychological research into which Vygotsky went,
>> his aim was to establish a unit of analysis. He was not always successful,
>> and for example, his study of the emotions failed to arrive at a unit of
>> analysis before his death in 1934.”
>> 
>> How and why did Vygotsky fail? This question may be off-thread, or not.
>> 
>> Henry
>> 
>> P.S. Annalisa, you use the term “repair”. Could you explain how that fits
>> with affect and feeling?
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> On Mar 11, 2015, at 5:58 PM, Annalisa Aguilar <annalisa@unm.edu> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Hi,
>>> 
>>> These examples of tape recorders in language labs verses automated
>> recordings on buses seem to say a lot about contexts to me. Specifically
>> environments (which include subject-objects, object-subjects, subjects, and
>> objects).
>>> 
>>> But ALSO not just environments and others: Affects and feelings and
>> motivations, *too*.
>>> 
>>> That all of these are exceptionally important to take into consideration
>> when reading, listening, judging, and comparing, and then writing.
>> Sometimes we skip steps, not intentionally, but also, not all the time.
>>> 
>>> (I am learning about affects lately, thanks to a book Paul Mocombe
>> recommended, BTW)
>>> 
>>> Apparently an affect is like a wordless feeling; Something coming from
>> the environment (which can be from another person or people, though I
>> wonder if it's possible just from the environment without people, as well).
>> Affect seems to be something unconscious. Feeling, however is more
>> concrete, and therefore more conscious, and thus seated within our embodied
>> experience in a different way than affect is embodied, whereby for a
>> feeling, the affect has been transformed into a thought, but not a thought
>> in the sense of a cerebral-thought, but a feeling-thought. Unfortunately my
>> vocabulary fails me here.
>>> 
>>> Hence: Affect + Transformation into thought = Feeling
>>> 
>>> Trouble arises when affect isn't transformed. Perhaps tool use (such as
>> when speaking or writing or reading, or baking lasagna, running, raking
>> leaves, playing the saxophone) assists in this transformation.
>>> 
>>> I can't help but include in this concept in this thread about the impact
>> of computers. That much of the profile of computer usage, just like other
>> tools, is how they transmit emotion to us, and how do we know (with
>> certainty) what is authentic emotion in something like an email or a list
>> serve post?
>>> 
>>> Posts on listservs are not just words.
>>> 
>>> Something does convey even if the sense is a shattered or muffled sense.
>> What is lacking in the profile of this tool called a computer, is the means
>> of repair that is usually done in the world without computers in the
>> middle. Likely because there is not a stable context or environment in
>> which to do that. Particularly where people are in different timezones.
>>> 
>>> This feature is absent from the printing press and distribution of
>> books, because the feedback loop was entirely different with many
>> gatekeepers. Computers attached to a network has little friction (compared
>> to 1400 transmissions of words in books).
>>> 
>>> Even we see something similar in the cameras as apparatus (apparati?) A
>> large format camera takes an entirely different photograph from a 35mm
>> camera from a 2-¼ format camera. This has to do with lenses, f-stops, film
>> speed, whether a tripod is required or not. One really understands this
>> concept after using different cameras. The comparison can be made for those
>> of us who used Instamatics and now use an iPhone to take pictures, so I
>> don't mean to privilege this to only committed photogs.
>>> 
>>> Since computers and the manner that they transmit affect and feeling can
>> have such an impact on so many people, I'm not sure how that doesn't make a
>> difference.
>>> 
>>> Certainly, television has made a difference to us. It fired all the
>> babysitters for example. Now the televisions are being fired in favor of
>> video games, youTube, and other various preoccupations on the digital wave.
>>> 
>>> Some researchers are saying that kids brains are being rewired from this
>> ubiquitous use of computers. I'm not sure how I feel about that, but it
>> does seem that kids take to playing with them in an easier fashion than
>> their parents.
>>> 
>>> I don't think we can therefore isolate words from our experience, but as
>> you point out David, they that must be contextualized in the wider world. I
>> am reading that as what you are saying.
>>> 
>>> Of course I may have misunderstood your affect, feelings, and
>> motivations, or you may also misunderstand mine.
>>> 
>>> And so we cast ourselves into the void and hope for the best, giving the
>> other the benefit of the doubt.
>>> 
>>> We hope.
>>> 
>>> Kind regards,
>>> 
>>> Annalisa
>>> 
>>> 
>> 
>> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> It is the dilemma of psychology to deal as a natural science with an object
> that creates history. Ernst Boesch.