[Xmca-l] Re: Resending LSV/ANL on crisis in ontogengy

[mike cole]

Ah, I see Huw.  In a sense I read ANL backward. Turns and shifts are
inevitable, but not crises. So ANL is saying there can be  turning points
and shifts but no crisis so long as it all happens on time under rational
control.

And you are saying that in your experience with your son, there were some
"negation experiments" but no crisis. So ANL is right and you and your wife
are rationally controlling
your the process of upbringing!

Obviously, even if no one else needs to, i need to go back and look at the
examples of crises that LSV writes about. I wonder what experiences with
his daughter could have led LSV
into error. :-))

thanks. my reading was inadequate.
mike




And



On Fri, Mar 20, 2015 at 4:31 PM, Huw Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Mike,
>
> In the paragraph you provide, ANL doesn't say that the development is
> continuous: "the turning points or breaks, the qualitative shifts in
> development".  The assertion that the crisis can be avoided isn't the same
> thing as saying that there will not be a fundamental change.
>
> In my recollection, we did not have any issues at 2.  We did have some
> interesting 'negation experimentation', but those 'no's seemed to have a
> special meaning, so it simply required a bit more attention.  That seems to
> support ANL's assertion.
>
> Huw
>
>
>
>
> On 20 March 2015 at 15:55, mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu> wrote:
>
> > Thanks for pointing out my error in using color to code the part of the
> > text I was trying to draw attention to, Andy. I will repeat here using
> > *italics.*
> >
> > You ask in a follow up note why I suggest that perhaps a return to LSV's
> > theory of alternating crises and lithic (relatively stable) periods of
> > development might be worth returning to investigate again after a few
> years
> > of the topic having been subsumed or scattered among
> > other topics: Because last time around we foundered for lack of clarity
> and
> > several issues and because my focal long term interest in the role of
> > culture in human development has not abated in the interim.
> >
> > No problem if its not interesting or potentially useful for xmca members.
> > mike
> >
> > --------------------
> > David ---
> > Picking on just one thread from your multiplex comments in the context of
> > the discussion on printing presses and digital computer
> > ​technologies, i would like to thank you for juxtaposing these​ two
> > paragraphs, one from LSV on crises in development, the other
> > from Leontiev. I have made a separate header because I am not agile or
> > learned enough to keep track of both at the same time,
> > the ontogenetic level of analysis is plenty enough for me to try to think
> > systematically about in a single message..
> >
> > \Vygotsky, (could you give pages in current English version so we enter
> the
> > relevant portion of the text?):
> >
> > These ages (i.e. stable ages--DK) and this type of child development have
> > been studied more completely than ages characterized by a different
> course
> > of child development (i.e.the crisis--DK). These latter were discovered
> by
> > empirical paths, one by one, in a haphazard manner, and many have still
> not
> > been shown by the majority of investigators in systems and are not
> included
> > in the general periodization of child development. Many authors have even
> > doubted the evidence of the inner necessity of their existence. Many are
> > inclined to take them more as “maladies” of development, as deviations of
> > the process fromthe normal path, than as internally necessary periods of
> > child development. Almost none of the bourgeois investigators have
> realized
> > their theoretical signfiicance, and the attempt in our book at their
> > systematization, at their theoretical interpretation, and at their
> > inclusion in the general scheme of child development for this reason
> should
> > be seen as perhaps the first attempt of this kind."
> >
> > Compare:
> >
> >   “These crises—the three year old crisis, the seven year old crisis, the
> > adolescent crisis, the youth crisis—are always associated with a change
> of
> > stage. They indicate in clear, obvious form that these changes, these
> > transitions from one stage to another have an inner necessity of their
> > own. The existence of development of crises has long been known and their
> > ‘classic’ interpretation is that they are caused by the child’s maturing
> > inner characteristics and the contradictions that arise on that soil
> > between it andthe environment. From the standpoint of that interpretation
> > the crises are, of course, inevitable, because these contradictions are
> > inevitable in any conditions. There is nothing more false, however, in
> the
> > theory of the development of the child’s psyche than this idea. In fact,
> > crises are not at all inevitable accomplishments of psychic development.
> It
> > is not the crises which are inevitable, but the turning points or breaks,
> > the qualitative shifts in development. T*he crisis, on the contrary, is*
> >
> >
> >
> > *evidence that a turning point or shift has not been made in time.
> > Thereneed by no crises at all if the child’s psychic development does not
> > takeshape spontaneously but in a rationally controlled process,
> > controlledupbringing.”  (pp. 398-399)*
> >
> > Leontiev, A.N. (1981). Problems of the Development of the Mind. Progress:
> > Moscow
> >
> > ​I take the *marked​* text to be the crux of the argument, and the kind
> of
> > difference we see in the two men's articles about the "problem of the
> > environment."
> >
> > In American developmental psychology the issue of continuities and
> > discontinuities in ontogenetic development
> > continues today the discussion taking place in the 1920's and 1930's.
> But I
> > have never seen anyone argue that (say) the syndrome
> > of behaviors identified as "the terrible twos" occurs because a turning
> > point has not happened in time, nor that ontogeny is rendered continuous
> by
> > rational control of parents/society. That, it seems, is the red thread of
> > Stalinism that is so offputting in ANL.
> >
> > I do not love LSV's characterization of non-Soviet psychologists
> treating
> > such periods "as deviations of the process from the normal path." I am
> not
> > sure who he is referring to, and perhaps he is right and I just need to
> dig
> > deeper into the history of European and American developmental
> psychology.
> > Piaget and Erikson,  two Europeans whose work was influential from the
> > 1950/60's don't, at least on the surface, fit this discussion. Maybe they
> > do below the surface, or there are other, allied issue to raised.
> >
> > --
> > 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.