[Xmca-l] Re: Mediating Activity and Mediated Activity
Andy Blunden
ablunden@mira.net
Wed May 4 19:16:13 PDT 2016
Remarkable and beautiful!
andy
------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden
http://home.mira.net/~andy
http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making
On 5/05/2016 12:02 PM, Martin John Packer wrote:
> <http://www.historyofinformation.com/expanded.php?id=3285>
>
> <https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2011/04/16/where-on-earth-did-language-begin/>
>
> Martin
>
>> On May 4, 2016, at 6:47 PM, Martin John Packer <mpacker@uniandes.edu.co> wrote:
>>
>> David,
>>
>> No, Cavalli-Sforza studies human migration by tracing shared genes. I was referring to the work of Quentin Atkinson:
>>
>> Atkinson, Q. D. (2011). Phonemic diversity supports a serial founder effect model of language expansion from Africa. Science, 332, 346-349.
>>
>> I tried to include an image in my last message, but it seems to have been stripped out.
>>
>> Martin
>>
>>> On May 4, 2016, at 6:40 PM, David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Henry:
>>>
>>> Martin's referring to the work of Cavalli-Sforza, which assumes that you
>>> can trace the spread of language by studying mitochondrial DNA. This
>>> overlooks the fact the people do not simply inherit languages. They learn
>>> them.
>>>
>>> I think that this may be Vygotsky's most overlooked contribution.
>>> Vygotsky's description of the proto-language of the child's first two years
>>> of life, combined with Halliday's great "Nigel" studies, provides us
>>> with...the key to the origins of language.
>>>
>>> The question of the origins of language in linguistics is a little
>>> like string theory in physics; it's something linguists go into
>>> because they find working with data messy and unpleasant, and dead speakers
>>> tell no tales. For most of Western intellectual history, the only field
>>> workers were amateur archaeologists seeking Biblical confirmation: a quest
>>> for the Garden of Eden and the Tower of Babel. In the 19th Century, the
>>> field became so speculative that the Royal Society and the French Academie
>>> des sciences banned the acceptance of scientific papers on the subject.
>>> It was almost forgotten in the twentieth, and recent attempts to revive it
>>> by searching the Human Genome Project for a "language gene" have led
>>> absolutely nowhere.
>>>
>>> Vygotsky shows us what language looks like when the infant tries to invent
>>> it. When he says that thinking and speech have separate roots, and then
>>> come together, what he means is that the first languages, which are still
>>> being invented right in front of our noses, have separate two layers: a
>>> semantics and a phonetics, and these are then linked. But that link is not
>>> yet wording; it's not lexicogrammar: it's simply pointing out and naming
>>> things: matching sounds to objects.
>>>
>>> Halliday shows us how the child is able to exapt the lexicogrammar he sees
>>> and hears being enacted around him to his own functional purposes, his own
>>> semantics and his own phonetics. It's a big step, but it's a step that even
>>> a two year old human can make given the collaborative help of conspecifics.
>>> So it is not reasonable to assume that it was made only once. Throughout
>>> human history, the number of human languages has tended to diminish and not
>>> increase, either through genocide or through literacy or both. Babel was
>>> indeed our past, but the single language that supposedly preceded it is
>>> really a long-ago that is yet-to-come.
>>>
>>> David Kellogg
>>> Macquarie University
>>>
>>> On Thu, May 5, 2016 at 9:04 AM, HENRY SHONERD <hshonerd@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Gente,
>>>> As far as the invention of language, whether spoken, signed or written, do
>>>> we know whether it was invented once, or many times, independently? Are we
>>>> humans alone in the universe, the only inventors of language? Are these
>>>> questions relevant to the thread? If not, I only have questions, so they’re
>>>> my best shot.
>>>> Henry
>>>>
>>>>> On May 4, 2016, at 3:57 PM, David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Well, but then in hindsight everything coevolves with everything, Andy.
>>>> And
>>>>> only in hindsight. Three problems with that.
>>>>>
>>>>> First of all, this view of "co-evolution" renders the idea of evolution
>>>>> vacuous. There is no obvious reason why the larynx should be considered
>>>> the
>>>>> "rudiment" of language rather than the mouth or the ears or for that
>>>> matter
>>>>> the hand (Stokoe makes a very convincing argument that sign languages
>>>>> predate vocal ones). So then we have to say that speech co-evolved with
>>>>> mouths and ears and hands?
>>>>>
>>>>> Secondly, to pre-empt a little the upcoming issue of MCA, that this view
>>>> of
>>>>> co-evolution also makes it impossible to explain crises as internal
>>>>> phenomena. The pace of change of language is qualitatively different from
>>>>> the pace of change of the "rudiment" of language, wherever you choose to
>>>>> locate it, and this changing of gears needs to be explained. It wasn't a
>>>>> simple adaptation to the environment, whatever it was; it doesn't appear
>>>> to
>>>>> be environment specific at all.
>>>>>
>>>>> Thirdly, this notion of co-evolution, discovering "rudiments" in
>>>> accidents,
>>>>> does not give us a unit of analysis that has all of the properties that
>>>> we
>>>>> are interested in studying. The quipu and the notched stick
>>>>> are deliberately endowed with meaning, but the larynx is not.
>>>>>
>>>>> Perhaps what you mean is not the larynx but the vocal tract: the lungs,
>>>>> the bronchial tubes, the wind pipe, the voicebox, the oral cavity, the
>>>>> tongue, the lips and the nose and nasal passages. But this did not evolve
>>>>> at all; in fact, as a physiological organ the vocal tract does not even
>>>>> exist. It's not an adaptation but an exaptation--a bringing
>>>>> together of organs which evolved with very different functions for
>>>>> a purpose which is not an adaptation to the environment but an attempt to
>>>>> create a qualitatively new type of environment, namely a semiotic one.
>>>>>
>>>>> The notion of the co-evolution of tools and signs not only renders the
>>>> idea
>>>>> of evolution almost meaningless, it also makes it next to impossible to
>>>>> consciously and deliberately and rationally introduce design into
>>>>> development. If signs are, like tools, just ways of slavishly adapting to
>>>>> an environment or (worse) slavishly adapting the environment to human
>>>>> whims, we can only stagger and struggle against each other, from one
>>>>> adaptation to the next. But if speech is an audaciously wise attempt to
>>>>> create an environment of an entirely new type, an environment made of
>>>>> meaning rather than merely of matter, then we humans might have some hope
>>>>> of transforming the bitter blind combat of each against all into a common
>>>>> collaborative project. That would be co-evolution indeed.
>>>>>
>>>>> David Kellogg
>>>>> Macquarie University
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Wed, May 4, 2016 at 2:09 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> David, I am responding to "Tool use--and even tool manufacture--is quite
>>>>>> common in higher primates. But while the higher primates regularly use
>>>>>> gesture, there is no evidence of any other species developing anything
>>>> like
>>>>>> a lexicogrammar."
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In his somewhat discredited book "Ape, Primitive Man and Child,"
>>>> Vygotsky
>>>>>> makes the point that the form of activity which is found in non-human
>>>>>> animals in *rudimentary* form but is fully developed in humans, is the
>>>> key
>>>>>> to the "transition from ape to man" and is thus the "essence of man" (to
>>>>>> use a lot of 19th century language). That is why he was so determined,
>>>> at
>>>>>> the time, to find "rudimentary" forms of writing among not-literate
>>>> peoples
>>>>>> (those memory sticks and knots).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> For all the faults of this work, I think this was a profound insight.
>>>> What
>>>>>> he seemed to have been blind to is that the larynx evolved together with
>>>>>> the hand, and human beings learnt to speak at the same time as they
>>>> learnt
>>>>>> to make tools. It was only in 1931 that he recognised that a spoken word
>>>>>> was as much a sign as a piece of technology manufactured for
>>>> communicative
>>>>>> purposes - which nonetheless, did turn out to mark a qualitative leap in
>>>>>> human cultural development.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The great insight from this work is that despite himself, he looked
>>>> *not*
>>>>>> at the attribute of human beings which was exclusively found among
>>>> humans
>>>>>> (lexicogrammar) as the "essence of man," but on the contrary to the
>>>>>> mediating activity which produced the change from one species to
>>>> another.
>>>>>> This is the Hegelian idea of concept, a.k.a. species, as opposed to the
>>>>>> positivist concept of species/concept which looks for "essential"
>>>>>> attributes as definitive. But he didn;t know that until 1931.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Andy
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>> Andy Blunden
>>>>>> http://home.mira.net/~andy
>>>>>> http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making
>>>>>> On 4/05/2016 1:48 PM, David Kellogg wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Greg:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Tool use--and even tool manufacture--is quite common in higher
>>>> primates.
>>>>>>> But while the higher primates regularly use gesture, there is no
>>>> evidence
>>>>>>> of any other species developing anything like a lexicogrammar. It's in
>>>>>>> that
>>>>>>> sense that I was arguing that tool use has temporal priority over
>>>> signs. I
>>>>>>> don't think tools and signs co-evolved phylogenetically any more than
>>>> they
>>>>>>> co-evolve ontogenetically. I think that practical intelligence and
>>>>>>> speech have separate genetic roots and separate functional paths, the
>>>> one
>>>>>>> oriented towards the environment and the other towards conspecifics.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> While he was in prison, Oscar Wilde was allowed one sheet of paper a
>>>> day,
>>>>>>> which was issued to him in the morning and then locked in a safe in the
>>>>>>> evening. He used this to write a very long letter to his lover Lord
>>>> Alfred
>>>>>>> Douglas (about a third of this letter, with the long and highly
>>>>>>> contradictory complaints removed, was published as "De Profundis").
>>>> But it
>>>>>>> was only after his release that he was able to transform the sorry mess
>>>>>>> into great art, a ballad about a trooper who was hanged while he was in
>>>>>>> prison.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> He did not wear his scarlet coat
>>>>>>> For blood and wine are red
>>>>>>> And blood and wine were on his hands
>>>>>>> When they found him with the dead
>>>>>>> The poor dead woman that he loved
>>>>>>> And murdered in their bed
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> It's all there: the blue coat of the trooper is now red, Christ
>>>> transforms
>>>>>>> blue water into red wine at Canaa, wine is transformed into blood
>>>> before
>>>>>>> Gethsemane and Golgotha, and even the main complaint Wilde has against
>>>>>>> Douglas in "De Profundis", which is that "each man kills the thing he
>>>>>>> loves
>>>>>>> but each man does not die" is changed into "murdered in their bed". But
>>>>>>> the
>>>>>>> very first step in this transsubstantiation of mere suffering into
>>>> great
>>>>>>> art happens in the very first word, where Wilde begins with "he"
>>>> instead
>>>>>>> of
>>>>>>> "I".
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Of course it's possible to use your personal misery to create great
>>>> art.
>>>>>>> But it's hard, for (at least) three reasons. First of all, it's hard to
>>>>>>> stand back and let the material alone rather than try to whip it into
>>>>>>> shape. Second, it's hard to reconcile the sense that your pain is the
>>>> one
>>>>>>> and only and incomparable and ineffable and the sense that you are at
>>>> the
>>>>>>> same time everywoman. Thirdly, pain is debilitating: it withers your
>>>>>>> embrace right at the very moment when you need to reach out, makes you
>>>>>>> unfit for companionship right when you need it most, fills your mouth
>>>> with
>>>>>>> incoherent screams precisely when you most need the precision of words
>>>> to
>>>>>>> convey what you are feeling to others. On top of that, as Vygotsky
>>>> says,
>>>>>>> really good art is not the contagion of feeling: it's the
>>>> individuation of
>>>>>>> social emotion and not the socialization of individual emotion.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The unmotivated reconciliation that ends "Lemonade" is deus ex machina,
>>>>>>> i.e. both unartistic and unrealistic. Either it was manufactured for
>>>> mass
>>>>>>> market consumption, or the raw emotion that preceded it was. Or both.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> David Kellogg
>>>>>>> Macquarie University
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Tue, May 3, 2016 at 11:05 AM, Greg Mcverry <jgregmcverry@gmail.com>
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I would have to agree with Andy on the co-evolution of the tools. To
>>>>>>>> separate one as developing phylogenetically as ontogenetically seems
>>>>>>>> false.
>>>>>>>> Could one argue that agriculture was a pre-cursor to formal writing
>>>>>>>> systems
>>>>>>>> but sign systems evolved as a form of communication long before? I am
>>>>>>>> not a
>>>>>>>> cultural anthropologist. I really do not know if there has been a
>>>> writing
>>>>>>>> system developed in a hunting and gathering culture.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Yet that does not mean those same cultures were not ripe with sign
>>>>>>>> systems
>>>>>>>> and meaning makings.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I think the mediation and differentiation of tools coevolving is even
>>>>>>>> more
>>>>>>>> stark when we consider the age of the web. For the first 25 years of
>>>> the
>>>>>>>> web the people building the web were also doing their own identity
>>>> work.
>>>>>>>> People that hung out on the the Well, Usenets, chat rooms. xmca
>>>>>>>> listservs,
>>>>>>>> etc were defining the tools in a way to help define themselves. Here
>>>> is
>>>>>>>> agreat piece by Ben Werdmuller reflecting on how his tool development
>>>>>>>> could
>>>>>>>> not be separated from his own ontological development:
>>>>>>>>
>>>> https://words.werd.io/we-are-the-monkeys-of-rum-70f81d4a02df#.n0x23ugom
>>>>>>>> In terms of Beyonce. Whether you call it a mediating activity or a
>>>>>>>> mediated
>>>>>>>> activity. I am not sure it matters. The point is to be a force. For
>>>> those
>>>>>>>> not in the states her latest release has been seen as a call to women
>>>> of
>>>>>>>> color. Her Super Bowl performance was both celebrated and vilified.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I haven't heard Lemonade yet ( I suffer from severe pop culture
>>>> deficit)
>>>>>>>> but I hear it getting talked about all over the web. I wonder how
>>>> Hegel
>>>>>>>> would think of something like the web where the culture is both
>>>> affected
>>>>>>>> by
>>>>>>>> market pressures but not limited to any one national identity. Is the
>>>> web
>>>>>>>> the world spirit?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 8:44 PM Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>> I think the evidence is in that speech and labour (i.e.,
>>>>>>>>> tool-use) co-evolved, but writing came a whole epoch later.
>>>>>>>>> I do not think it is a sustainable "developmentalist" point
>>>>>>>>> of view that a form of activity can first be differentiated
>>>>>>>>> and then be mediated: the mediation and the differentiation
>>>>>>>>> co-evolve (so to speak). That's the whole point.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> On my update to:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>> https://www.academia.edu/4781886/From_where_did_Vygotsky_get_his_Hegelianism
>>>>>>>>> I never claimed that Vygotsky only got his Hegel through
>>>>>>>>> Marx: his knowledge of Hegel was mediated through a number
>>>>>>>>> of sources (including Lenin and Engels and probably
>>>>>>>>> Plekhanov, followers of Deborin and Lewin). The correction
>>>>>>>>> you referred to was my admission that the passage you drew
>>>>>>>>> my attention to in HDHMF I had overlooked in my catalogue,
>>>>>>>>> and that it had to be included with the one or two other
>>>>>>>>> allusions which seem to have come from a reading of the
>>>>>>>>> section of Hegel's Subjective Spirit named "Psychology".
>>>>>>>>> Someone, c. 1931, drew his attention to these passages.
>>>>>>>>> There are other passages of The Subjective Spirit which
>>>>>>>>> would have been of great interest to Vygotsky and would
>>>>>>>>> certainly have been appropriated if he had ever read them,
>>>>>>>>> but he hadn't, far less the Logic (though he had studied
>>>>>>>>> Lenin's Annotations on the Logic) or the Phenomenology,
>>>>>>>>> which no Marxist or Psychologist read in the period of his
>>>>>>>>> lifetime.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Is it time yet, David, for you to make a correction to your
>>>>>>>>> claim that the Vygotsky archive would eventually turn up
>>>>>>>>> Vygotsky's annotations on the Phenomenology?
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Andy
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>>>>> Andy Blunden
>>>>>>>>> http://home.mira.net/~andy
>>>>>>>>>
>>>> http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making
>>>>>>>>> On 3/05/2016 9:00 AM, David Kellogg wrote:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Andy:
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> You and I both come out of the pugilistic left, and
>>>>>>>>>> we live in a country where socks are considered formal
>>>>>>>>>> apparel. So I imagine that no question mark is required to
>>>>>>>>>> start a discussion; nor pulling of punches to finish one.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> I think I made the case that the distinction was pretty
>>>>>>>>>> useful, at least to Beyoncé fans--if not, see Vygotsky's
>>>>>>>>>> conclusion to Chapter Two of HDHMF, where he points out
>>>>>>>>>> that the precise nature of the relationship of signs and
>>>>>>>>>> tools needs to be worked out yet, but in any case that
>>>>>>>>>> relation is indirect; it MUST pass through a
>>>>>>>>>> super-category he calls MEDIATING activities. For YOU and
>>>>>>>>>> for HEGEL, all activity can be said to be both mediating
>>>>>>>>>> and mediated, but this is a non-developmental point of
>>>>>>>>>> view: for a developmentalist, one must perforce be
>>>>>>>>>> differentiated first. Phylogenetically, it seems likely
>>>>>>>>>> that tools were differentiated before signs, but
>>>>>>>>>> ontogenetically it is usually the other way around.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> What really IS academic in the extreme is your
>>>>>>>>>> own distinction between "really quoting" Hegel and
>>>>>>>>>> quoting Hegel in a footnote to Marx academic. It's also
>>>>>>>>>> quite unprovable. By the way, this might be a good place
>>>>>>>>>> to acknowledge the corrections you have recently made to
>>>>>>>>>> your assertion that every single Hegel reference you have
>>>>>>>>>> found in Vygotsky's work can be found verbatim in Marx.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> David Kellogg
>>>>>>>>>> Macquarie University
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 12:00 PM, Andy Blunden
>>>>>>>>>> <ablunden@mira.net <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> I didn't see a question mark anywhere David, but (for
>>>>>>>>>> reasons of my own) could I just note that Vygotsky is
>>>>>>>>>> not really quoting Hegel, but rather quoting Marx
>>>>>>>>>> quoting Hegel's Shorter Logic in an author's footnote
>>>>>>>>>> to /Capital/. Marx puts an interesting twist on the
>>>>>>>>>> point Hegel is making in the original. I think it is a
>>>>>>>>>> twist which preserves Hegel's meaning, but it is
>>>>>>>>>> really the opposite of what Hegel is saying.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> By "the cunning of Reason" Hegel means how History and
>>>>>>>>>> social processes in general unfold according to their
>>>>>>>>>> own logic, irrespective of the intentions of their
>>>>>>>>>> human actors. Marx twists this to make the point that
>>>>>>>>>> natural objects act according to human purposes, not
>>>>>>>>>> their material properties as such.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> I agree that when Hegel is talking about human
>>>>>>>>>> affairs, "Spirit" means "Activity", but of course
>>>>>>>>>> unlike Marx, Hegel deifies Spirit. For Marx, men make
>>>>>>>>>> history, only not under conditions of their own
>>>>>>>>>> choosing. For Hegel, men are mere tools of the
>>>>>>>>>> Weltgeist (world spirit).
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> I was able to grasp the distinction between mediating
>>>>>>>>>> and mediated activity, though given that all activity
>>>>>>>>>> is mediated and all activity is mediating, the
>>>>>>>>>> distinction strikes me as academic in the extreme. I
>>>>>>>>>> remain to be convinced that Hegel knoew of any such
>>>>>>>>>> distinction.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> The paragraph following the note on "cunning of
>>>>>>>>>> Reason" in the Shorter Logic is an interesting one:
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> TheRealised Endis thus the overt unity of subjective
>>>>>>>>>> and objective. It is however essentially
>>>>>>>>>> characteristic of this unity, that the subjective and
>>>>>>>>>> objective are neutralised and cancelled only in the
>>>>>>>>>> point of their one-sidedness, while the objective is
>>>>>>>>>> subdued and made conformable to the End, as the free
>>>>>>>>>> notion, and thereby to the power above it. The End
>>>>>>>>>> maintains itself against and in the objective: for it
>>>>>>>>>> is no mere one-sided subjective or particular, it is
>>>>>>>>>> also the concrete universal, the implicit identity of
>>>>>>>>>> both. This universal, as simply reflected in itself,
>>>>>>>>>> is the content which remains unchanged through all the
>>>>>>>>>> three/termini/of the syllogism and their movement.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Andy
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>>>>>> Andy Blunden
>>>>>>>>>> http://home.mira.net/~andy <http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>> http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making
>>>>>>>>>> On 2/05/2016 9:03 AM, David Kellogg wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> I'm reading a chapter by Janette Freidrich in the
>>>>>>>>>> collection "Vygotski
>>>>>>>>>> maintenant" published in 2011. It's an imaginary
>>>>>>>>>> dialogue between Buhler
>>>>>>>>>> and Vygotsky on the former's theory of language
>>>>>>>>>> and the latter's criticisms
>>>>>>>>>> thereof, very cleverly written in INDIRECT SPEECH
>>>>>>>>>> so that Friedrich doesn't
>>>>>>>>>> have to waste time trying to imitate the voice of
>>>>>>>>>> each or pretend that she
>>>>>>>>>> knows the exact wording of each argument.
>>>>>>>>>> Friedrich begins with Hegel's
>>>>>>>>>> distinction (from the LONGER Logic, the one that
>>>>>>>>>> I've never read) between
>>>>>>>>>> mediating activity and mediated activity.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Mediating activity is what Vygotsky talks about
>>>>>>>>>> using the quote from Hegel
>>>>>>>>>> in HDHMF Chapter Two: it's when your role is
>>>>>>>>>> essentially bystanding, when
>>>>>>>>>> you use one force of nature, more or less in the
>>>>>>>>>> natural state, against
>>>>>>>>>> another.For example, you arrange the downspout of
>>>>>>>>>> your house roof gutters
>>>>>>>>>> so that it bores a hole in a piece of limestone.
>>>>>>>>>> Or you hang your wet
>>>>>>>>>> laundry on a tree branch and let the sun dry it
>>>>>>>>>> out instead of trying to
>>>>>>>>>> wring it dry yourself..
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Mediated activity is in some ways the same, but in
>>>>>>>>>> others completely
>>>>>>>>>> opposite. It's the same in that you are using one
>>>>>>>>>> natural force against
>>>>>>>>>> another, but it's opposite in the sense that your
>>>>>>>>>> role is not bystanding;
>>>>>>>>>> you are yourself one of the forces of nature. For
>>>>>>>>>> example, instead of
>>>>>>>>>> arranging the downspout, you make a chisel or a
>>>>>>>>>> drill of some kind to bore
>>>>>>>>>> a hole in a piece of limestone and sculpt it into
>>>>>>>>>> a flagstone or a
>>>>>>>>>> tombstone. Or you beat the laundry dry with a tree
>>>>>>>>>> branch instead of just
>>>>>>>>>> hanging it there.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Friedrich points out that in Vygotsky's early work
>>>>>>>>>> (e.g. "The History of
>>>>>>>>>> the Crisis") Vygotsky speaks of psychic tools--he
>>>>>>>>>> is treating ALL activity
>>>>>>>>>> as "mediated" rather than mediating. But in HDHMF,
>>>>>>>>>> we know that he
>>>>>>>>>> CRITIQUES this point of view, precisely because it
>>>>>>>>>> equates the sign and the
>>>>>>>>>> tool. Now, you might think that the sign even more
>>>>>>>>>> like mediated activity
>>>>>>>>>> and even less like mediating activity than the
>>>>>>>>>> tool. After all, sign users
>>>>>>>>>> are not bystanders; they are even more intimately
>>>>>>>>>> and intensively and
>>>>>>>>>> deliberately involved as subjects than tools. But
>>>>>>>>>> that confuses the sign
>>>>>>>>>> user with the sign itself. It also ignores a key
>>>>>>>>>> difference between
>>>>>>>>>> mediating activity and mediated activity--which is
>>>>>>>>>> that in mediating
>>>>>>>>>> activity the force of nature is allowed to act
>>>>>>>>>> according to its own
>>>>>>>>>> properties. When I use a word, I do not try to
>>>>>>>>>> transform it from a sound
>>>>>>>>>> into something else; or rather, if I do, then I
>>>>>>>>>> get something that is less
>>>>>>>>>> obviously language and more like onomatopoeia.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> While I read, I am listening to Beyoncé's new
>>>>>>>>>> album "Lemonade", which is an
>>>>>>>>>> attempt to take a force of nature (the sour lemons
>>>>>>>>>> of a husband's
>>>>>>>>>> infidelity) and to transform it into something
>>>>>>>>>> larger than life or twice as
>>>>>>>>>> natural (the eponymous lemonade). It's an uneasy
>>>>>>>>>> cross between a mediating
>>>>>>>>>> activity ("for colored girls who have considered
>>>>>>>>>> suicide | when the rainbow
>>>>>>>>>> is enuf", where 20 imaginary characters are used
>>>>>>>>>> and Ntozake Shange simply
>>>>>>>>>> stands back) and a mediated one ("Black Macho and
>>>>>>>>>> the Myth of Superwoman",
>>>>>>>>>> where Michelle Wallace tries to use her own
>>>>>>>>>> experiences alongside a
>>>>>>>>>> traditional academic approach). Beyoncé can't
>>>>>>>>>> quite figure out whether she
>>>>>>>>>> wants to do this as a mediating choreographer for
>>>>>>>>>> an ineffable everywoman
>>>>>>>>>> or as a mediated activity by the one and only
>>>>>>>>>> Pasha Bey.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> David Kellogg
>>>>>>>>>> Macquarie University
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>
>
>
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