[Xmca-l] Re: Trump's speech and Perezhivanie
Peg Griffin
Peg.Griffin@att.net
Sun Jan 22 08:27:28 PST 2017
Sorry, Greg, I can't help with treating that "speech in a CHAT kind of way." But I'll read with interest what develops.
>From my perspective, there's a whole (and some holes?) that would need to be considered. Sometime, I'd like to think with this group about "intersectionality vs. unity" which a lot of folks around the WMW have been grappling with. Right now there is too much grunt work to do to get into either of those properly.
MEANWHILE, a warning!
Periods have been conscripted for duty in the WTWS (“Whatever T-rump Wants Service,” not clear yet if it is openly and officially one of the armed services). Here's an example:
“Despite the lack of numbers he cited, Spicer went on to assert 'this was the largest audience to ever witness the inauguration period both in person and around the globe.'"
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/sean-spicer-media-coverage-inauguration-crowd/
CBS has partially acceded to the new way. Typical of the unfair media they still use the punctuation mark version. It used to be used at the ends of sentences and abbreviations. That's too complicated; a space or a new line is enough and will cut down on costs at the Government Printing Office. Saving billions. Many people have been asking for this for a long time but they have been ignored.
(Well, there should have been a pre-warning: I find myself fondly revisiting the Yippies of yore, especially the Pie Man, but of course cannot really do that work very well.)
Peg
-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Greg Thompson
Sent: Sunday, January 22, 2017 2:22 AM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Cc: Alfredo Jornet Gil
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trump's speech and Perezhivanie
Loving everything I'm seeing on facebook about the marches today around the country and around the world. Really inspiring stuff, particularly after what happened yesterday. And yes, there is a feeling, a mood here that gives me great hope. (and thanks Peg for the sign slogan, I posted it to my fb page).
But back to the nasty business that Alfredo proposed we deal with, here is a description of some of Mr. Trump's words:
"Mr. Trump on Friday described the nation as a landscape of “rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones” and inner cities infested with crime, gangs and drugs."
I wonder, for whom might this resonate?
Similarly, who would accept the premise of this statement:
"The American carnage stops right here and stops right now,"
I fear that this is striking a nerve with many people's perezhivanie abuilding over the past 10 years or so (I'm still a little unsure of how best to use perezhivanie, help please). Anyway, I'm still wondering about the circumstances and experiences of Trump sympathizers. Some of you out there must have some first-hand contact with such folks.
But perhaps this is getting too far afield from CHAT since it seems like it starts to get into an area of communication theory called Media Ecology - the media environments of people in various places (The problem of the
(media) environment?).
Alfredo, Peg, Helena, Andy, maybe you guys can give us some advice about how to go about treating Trump's speech in a CHAT kind of way? How to proceed with this endeavor?
-greg
On Sat, Jan 21, 2017 at 9:48 PM, Helena Worthen <helenaworthen@gmail.com>
wrote:
> Hello -
>
> I hope we pause and consider Alfredo’s suggestion. Thank you, Alfredo
> for the phrase “gut feeling of true tragedy.” Can we work with that?
>
> How, given the xmca medium of long-chain texts from voices all over
> the world, would we carry out such a project? Let me see if I can say
> Alfredo’s proposal in my own words: to read Trump’s speech at his
> inauguration and ask, “Who could find this speech hopeful, inspiring, uplifting, comforting?
> Who would listen to it and think, ‘I am glad I voted for this man and
> I am glad he is my President.’” But also ask, “Who could find this
> speech horrifying and frightening? This man Trump is lying to us all
> and I am sick to think that he is my President.” The social situation
> — like the alcoholic mother in the case with the three children each
> with a different perezvhanie - is the same for both people who are
> listening to the speech, but the people (like the children) respond differently.
>
> This sounds to me like a project for going out and finding strangers
> to talk with. Thank you, Greg, for bringing attention to Arlie
> Hochschild's book, Strangers in their Own Land. I have only read the
> first chapter of it, but I think this is what she is trying to do:
> give us insight into the person who might find the inauguration speech
> something other than a case of a celebrity clown practicing The Big Lie.
>
> Joe and I spent today at the Women’s March in Oakland, California. The
> police estimated 60,000 people there. Although there was supposed to
> be first a march and then a rally, there were too many people to fit
> into the streets between the starting point of the march and the
> destination, so many marchers never got to the end. However, that
> didn’t seem to be a problem. there were all kinds of small (200
> person) gatherings going on all over the place. The mood was cheerful,
> mainstream, determined, friendly — tremendous variety of signs
> including the one that Peg saw in DC about regulating women’s bodies
> but not corporations. I actually feel better right now than I did
> yesterday at this time. There sure were a lot of us out there. So my perezvhanie has been expanded by a day on the street.
>
> Helena
>
>
> Helena Worthen
> helenaworthen@gmail.com
> Berkeley, CA 94707
> Blog about US and Viet Nam: helenaworthen.wordpress.com
>
>
>
> > On Jan 21, 2017, at 5:47 PM, Greg Thompson
> > <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > Alfredo,
> > I find this to be a fantastic suggestion.
> >
> > One interesting analysis that helps us understand the
> circumstances/context
> > in which many people experience Trump's speech as beautiful, even
> hopeful,
> > is this book:
> > http://thenewpress.com/books/strangers-their-own-land
> >
> > Democracy Now did a nice interview with her as well:
> > https://www.democracynow.org/2016/9/28/what_drives_trump_
> supporters_sociologist_arlie
> >
> > In the book (and the interview) Hochschild engages with, among
> > others,
> the
> > question of why someone who has had been directly deleteriously
> > affected
> by
> > the impact of fracking and oil production would support politicians
> > who
> are
> > against government regulation of those industries. She appears to
> > deal
> with
> > the situation very thoughtfully and compassionately, helping those
> > of us who can't understand Trump supporters see how they might have
> > a different experience of what Trump has to say.
> >
> > Hopefully this doesn't take too far off track, but seems relevant to
> really
> > consider the circumstances of Trump supporters in order to
> > understand
> their
> > experiences.
> >
> > Just a thought.
> >
> > -greg
> >
> >
> >
> > On Sat, Jan 21, 2017 at 6:29 PM, <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Alfredo,
> >> I will share an impression I had as I listened to a particular
> >> group
> being
> >> interviewed who were inspired by the Trump speech.
> >> The group were ‘the biker’s for Trump’. I asked what symbolic form
> >> they were inhabiting or living out? The answer i came up with was
> >> the modern symbolic of being ‘On the Road Again’ and distancing
> >> from the perceived limitations of social con/striction. Then Thelma
> >> and Louise came to
> mind.
> >> Now how does this modern American cultural imaginary of being on
> >> the
> road
> >> again inter/sect with Trump’s speech.
> >> Trump said now there is only the future. No doubling back. The form
> >> changes, but there is a deeper (layered) imaginary being expressed
> >> that
> is
> >> shared between the biker’s for Trump and Trump’s speech. This
> >> symbolic (taking multiple forms) is profoundly anti-historical in
> >> rhetoric. It creates ‘dramatic places’ in which people ‘fall into’
> >> and become
> animated
> >> and encouraged and re-enchanted and re-vitalized. There is a
> >> re/lease
> from
> >> perceived constraints.
> >>
> >> Alfredo, My impression watching the inauguration and the motivating
> >> dramatic place Trump opens for some while sending a shudder down
> >> the
> spine
> >> for others. The myth of escape from the shackles of history runs
> >> deep
> as a
> >> symbolic imaginary that takes multiple ‘forms’ in the American dream.
> >>
> >> This is only one quick pass through as an impression.
> >>
> >> Sent from my Windows 10 phone
> >>
> >> From: Alfredo Jornet Gil
> >> Sent: January 21, 2017 12:46 PM
> >> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> >> Subject: [Xmca-l] Trump's speech and Perezhivanie
> >>
> >> Dear Helena, Andy, all,
> >>
> >>
> >> Unfortunately, I have not been able to find the time to watch the
> >> movie Fate of a Man, but I have followed the very interesting
> >> analyses and conversations about it. I am opening this thread as
> >> connexions between those analyses, perezhivanie, and current tragic
> >> social and political situation in the US and elsewhere. This also
> >> connects with the article
> that
> >> Mike shared on the position of the Learning Sciences with regard to
> >> this situation (how happy I was to see this initiative!).
> >>
> >>
> >> In particular, I wanted to pick up on Helena's very true comment
> >> that
> "the
> >> US is going to have to produce some works of scholarship or art, or
> both,
> >> that attempt to explain what is happening now here in the US -- for
> >> example, this afternoon, under President Trump."
> >>
> >>
> >> Yesterday, we saw at home Trump's speech. Although we had followed
> Trump's
> >> campaign and its denigrating tenor, it was yesterday, for the first
> time,
> >> that my wife and me got this gut feeling of true tragedy, of a real
> *drama*
> >> as we heard those empty, but to recover the prior article for
> discussion,
> >> hollowed and hollowing words coming out of that mouth. It came upon
> >> us
> that
> >> there may be lots of people for whom those words are not hollowed,
> >> but actually encouraging, rich, beautiful. How can you hear that as beauty?
> >>
> >>
> >> So, I was wondering, and in following up with our 2016 MCA Issue 4
> >> discussion, whether we could not actually conduct an analysis of
> >> the
> sort
> >> Marc offers in his article of the perezhivanie. Just as Vygotsky
> explains
> >> how 3 different children experience the situation of an alcoholic
> >> mother differently, could not we perform an analysis ?of that
> >> perezhivanie in which a person experiences yesterday's situation as
> >> one of
> encouragement,
> >> of freedom and hope. Would that not be a way to try to understand
> >> what
> is
> >> going on? This would not be a piece of art, but could be something
> >> we
> could
> >> do to try to understand and change this situation.
> >>
> >> We could then contrast that perezhivanie with the one many of as
> >> have,
> in
> >> which the situation is experience as a real TRAGEDY. I think in the
> first
> >> case, there is no hope for change, there is contempt; in the
> >> second, hearing those words as hollowed and hollowing require that
> >> you live the situation as a doubled situation in which you
> >> experienced it from a very different developmental stage. One in
> >> which the speech sounds as a case
> of
> >> involution.
> >>
> >> Should we find the transcribed speech and perform such analysis?
> >>
> >>
> >> Going now to support the Woman's march here in Victoria BC.
> >>
> >> Alfredo
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> > --
> > Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
> > Assistant Professor
> > Department of Anthropology
> > 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
> > Brigham Young University
> > Provo, UT 84602
> > http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
>
>
--
Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology
880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602
http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
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