[Xmca-l] Re: New Year's Perezhivanie

[mike cole]

All-

I suggest that those following the perezhivanie discussion check out the
materials from the special issue that Alfredo just posted. This material
provides an explanation of why we went to all of the trouble we did in
creating the special issue and some rough guide posts, such as a dictionary
definition from an appropriate Russian dictionary and other relevant
context for Marc's article.

I was composing the following message when I got the links from
Alfredo.  I hope this adds to the coherence of the conversation that Larry
mentions as a problem. It IS a problem. This is a really difficult issue
for distinguishing between disagreements and misunderstandings. !!

****
Rob-- Thanks for all of that. Regarding your second question:

  2) What is the nature of the relationship between perezhivanie and force,
> either in terms of the internal process or in terms of how it finally
> "ends"?  (Not to mention, how it begins). It would seem that in both
> conceptions discussed in the article there is a certain intensity
required.
> But does this in some cases require something more explosive - and does
> Vasilyuk's conception of perezhivanie as activity speak more to this
> possibility? And how do we reconcile this with the less "forceful" notion
> of enduring, revisiting, and working through?

One of the ways in which one can use pererzhivanie in Russian is
illustrated by the following sentence I heard often as a post-doc in the
dorm out on what was then Lenin Hills. "I just perezhil the 111 bus ride"

The 111 bus from the Department of Psychology to the dorm was incredibly
crowded at its first stop near the Kremlin all the way to the University.
Think of the Tokyo subway at rush hour but everyone wearing heavy fur and
wool against the cold in a rickety bus. It required a LOT of force to get
from the Department to the dorm without freezing to death. Everyone was
plenty warm when the bus pulled up to the building.

In *that* context, where people know/have themselves experience, the
conditions being referred to, I think perezhil (past tense verb form) meant
"I survived the 111 bus." That may be a low level example in your terms,
and it is certainly not like the discovery that your wife and children have
been murdered and you have to live through, survive. THAT sort of a
discontinuity in your life/experience (perezhivanie) may indeed require a
good deal of activity, which of course ensues in Macbeth. Its a struggle
called war.
***
A general comment about reading the Vasiliuk of the 1980's as the
contemporary Vasiliuk. David makes the comment that Vasiliuk does not talk
about Vygotsky. The 1980's were a period in which a number of the Russian
Vygotskians were under great (political) pressure and Leontiev's version of
his writings was taking as authoritative. Reference to LSV was
circumscribed in a lot of public settings, like books and journal articles
and access to people.

 Pentti- Are there recent articles in English by Fedor Vasiliuk you could
recommend form JREEP?

mike

On Fri, Jan 6, 2017 at 6:49 AM, R.J.S.Parsons <r.j.s.parsons@open.ac.uk>
wrote:

> And this machine thinks I'm a fraud. Hmmm. Perhaps it knows more than I
> do !?!?!?
>
> Rob
>
> On 06/01/2017 14:41, R.J.S.Parsons wrote:
> > [This sender failed our fraud detection checks and may not be who they
> appear to be. Learn about spoofing at http://aka.ms/LearnAboutSpoofing]
> >
> > In thinking about "experience as struggle", I found myself considering
> > Nozick's thought experiment of the experience machine, which he uses to
> > explore the issue of ethical hedonism.* Consider a machine which could
> > stimulate a person's brain to induce pleasurable experiences that the
> > subject could not distinguish from those he would have apart from the
> > machine. Nozick then asks, if given the choice, would we prefer the
> > machine to real life? (this description from Wikipedia). It strikes me
> > that the experience delivered by the machine is experience without
> > struggle. There is no activity from the subject, meaning making is not
> > necessary, and therefore there is no development.
> >
> > Clara quotes Vygotsky "A perezhivanie is a unit where, on the one hand,
> > in an indivisible state, the environment is represented, i.e. that which
> > is being experienced—a perezhivanie is always related to something which
> > is found outside the person—and on the other hand, what is represented
> > is how I, myself, am experiencing this," - the thought experiment breaks
> > the unit, and in doing so, I think, demonstrates how important its
> > existence as a unit is.
> >
> > *Also brilliantly explored in the "Total Immersion Video game" in Red
> > Dwarf Season 5 episode 6 Back To Reality.
> > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IzX6b1YJHI
> >
> > Rob
> >
> > On 03/01/2017 17:37, Christopher Schuck wrote:
> >> It's an interesting question (about the brick and perezhivanie), partly
> >> because that extended, "living-through", repeated doubling-back process
> >> evoked by the Vygotskian sense of the concept would seem to be at odds
> with
> >> a single, discrete act of "smashing" that is immediate, forceful and
> even
> >> violent. It would suggest that part of what perezhivanie means is
> wrapped
> >> up in the symbolic marking of its end - and that this end, when it
> comes,
> >> can be forceful. Certainly, the image could not be more unified and
> >> embodying of a particular set of meaningful experiences. But is that how
> >> perezhivanie works? This leads me to ask:
> >>
> >> 1) what are the problems and contradictions encountered in using
> particular
> >> metaphors to depict perezhivanie, where perezhivanie is itself so
> defined
> >> by imagination and narrativity? Part of this might also be a question of
> >> what it means to describe and represent one's own perezhivanie
> >> figuratively/narratively (whether to others, or to oneself), as opposed
> to
> >> living that perezhivanie. Especially if the attempt to capture/represent
> >> one's own perezhivanie is, perhaps, also central to the living of it?
> >>
> >>    2) What is the nature of the relationship between perezhivanie and
> force,
> >> either in terms of the internal process or in terms of how it finally
> >> "ends"?  (Not to mention, how it begins). It would seem that in both
> >> conceptions discussed in the article there is a certain intensity
> required.
> >> But does this in some cases require something more explosive - and does
> >> Vasilyuk's conception of perezhivanie as activity speak more to this
> >> possibility? And how do we reconcile this with the less "forceful"
> notion
> >> of enduring, revisiting, and working through?
> >>
> >> On Monday, January 2, 2017, mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu> wrote:
> >>
> >>> The pieces of brick thrown up by this political hammering have not yet
> >>> fallen and made the devastation personally experienced by the
> nation/world.
> >>>
> >>> Still, genuinely, we can wish all of us 7.3 billion well in the new
> year.
> >>>
> >>> So what do you think chuck, is this a good representation of
> perezhivanie?
> >>> :-)
> >>> Mike
> >>>
> >>> On Mon, Jan 2, 2017 at 11:24 AM Charles Bazerman <
> >>> bazerman@education.ucsb.edu> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> So you think 2017 has any hope of being any better?
> >>>>
> >>>> Chuck
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> ----- Original Message -----
> >>>>
> >>>> From: mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu>
> >>>>
> >>>> Date: Monday, January 2, 2017 11:01 am
> >>>>
> >>>> Subject: [Xmca-l]  New Year's Perezhivanie
> >>>>
> >>>> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>> With the New Year, as our Russian colleagues put it!
> >>>>> This image forwarded from a friend more or less sums up my experience
> >>>>> of
> >>>>> the past year. Thought you might find it interesting too.
> >>>>> Vis a vis the discussion of perezhivanie: Does this image provide us
> >>> with
> >>>>> used (re-presented) behavioral evidence of a person undergoing
> >>>> perezhivanie?
> >>>>
> >>>>> Looking forward to the discussion.
> >>>>> Feliz año nuevo!
> >>>>> Mike
> >>>>
> >>>>
>
>