[Xmca-l] Re: Trump's speech and Perezhivanie

Sun Jan 22 21:52:29 PST 2017

Vygotsky argued for a "semantic" rather than a "cognitive" view of human
consciousness. What's the difference?

Halliday says that it is largely a matter of in which direction you
proceed. The semantic view takes language and works "inwards", from the
syntagm of speech to the paradigm of thinking. Things said acquire meaning
when we compare them, not with objects, or even objects of thought, but
with other things not said. This was Vygotsky in Chapter Seven of Thinking
and Speech. The consciousness model starts with knowledge and works
"outwards", from the ostensible structure of thought to the structure of
speaking. This means that perizhivanie isn't a form of knowledge but a form
of meaning. It's the definition Halliday offers for "experience": "the
reality that we construe for ourselves by means of language".

So for example one way to construe Trump's inaugural (see attached) is to
compare what he said with what he could have said and did not say. I think
that the most revealing part of the speech is actually the most frequent
Theme of all: "we".

Here's a rather coarse analysis of "Theme", "Subject" and "Actor" in the
speech to bear this out!

David Kellogg
Macquarie University

On Mon, Jan 23, 2017 at 6:47 AM, Helena Worthen <helenaworthen@gmail.com>
wrote:

> One more thought, before plowing ahead into this thickening conversation:
>
> The Destiny of a Man can be seen as an attempt (1959) to tell "The
> Russian/Soviet Story" in a way that brought as many as possible of the
> clashing contradictions into one narrative that makes it possible for the
> people who might watch it go forward. We can look around at examples of
> comparable attempts to tell “The American story.”  The nature of the story
> will correspond to the time in history when it “worked” as the right story
> for the time. The Destiny of a Man “worked” in 1959, when the generation
> that had suffered in the Great Patriotic War was still healing but a
> turning point (Kruschev’s speech) had been reached. It interpreted the
> perezvanhie of the war for the generation that had survived it. It
> distorted some things (what often happened to ex-prisoners of war, for
> example) and confirmed others (the gas chambers). It wasn’t history; it was
> art.
>
> I notice that Vygotsky says that perezvanhie is a unit that joins the
> internal emotional experience and the external situation. I am tempted to
> play with the Engestrom “unit of analysis” here but all refrain.
>
> So what works of art can we point out that would serve comparable
> purposes, related to their moment in time?
>
> How about Uncle Tom’s Cabin? The images of African Americans are
> cartoonish to modern eyes, but the book itself made the Black experience
> accessible to the readers of 1852. It widened the circle of perezvhanie -
> the environment - for white readers who were no doubt troubled but
> uncertain (social situation of development?) as they sensed the tremors
> that would flare up into the Civil War 10 years later.
>
> Note that the work of art that achieves this purpose (creates the right
> story for the time) is created in the moment when uncertainty, fear, etc
> are dominant — when it is needed, in other words - not when 100 years have
> gone by (or 60, as in the case of The Destiny of a Man) and we know, or
> think we know, what happened next. When its time is past, it becomes a
> “classic.”  Example: Steinbeck: The Grapes of Wrath.
>
> So what can we point to that achieves this purpose for us today?
>
>
> Helena Worthen
> helenaworthen@gmail.com
> Berkeley, CA 94707
> Blog about US and Viet Nam: helenaworthen.wordpress.com
>
>
>
> > On Jan 21, 2017, at 11:40 PM, Alfredo Jornet Gil <a.j.gil@iped.uio.no>
> wrote:
> >
> > Thank you all for following up on the Trump's speech suggestion.
> > Helena, the way you have re-phrased my proposal is exactly they way I
> had hoped it to be heard. I think Andy, Helena, Sue, Greg and Larry have
> offered empirical materials for and analyses of the type we would be
> producing if we were to follow the proposal. Thanks Greg for the reference,
> which seems right to the point, and Sue for the glimpse to people's best
> protest signs (they are good empirical materials for sure). Thanks Andy,
> too, offering your body and soul to scientific progress and undergoing the
> inaugural speech again. The way you describe it is very close to how I
> thought and felt yesterday.
> > My family and friends today joined the march here in Victoria, and, like
> Helena mentions, we all commented on how well it felt. There was a very
> cheerful, friendly atmosphere, and lots of affection. I too felt better
> today.
> >
> > In case we wanted to go forward with this project, I have created a
> google doc in which I am collecting the resources, empirical cases, and
> analyses that we have begun producing. I have also added additional links
> (like one to the "Bikers for Trump" site, and the full transcript of the
> inaugural speech plus a link from the Washington Post.
> >
> > The document should be accessible to everyone who follow this link:
> > https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Nmn77hKa8XhDJ043ZfVuTUtT7NxDA
> ibuzdv0KJDGqCo/edit?usp=sharing
> > I guess the easiest way is that I curate it, populating it with content
> shared in xmca, but everyone is able and welcome to edit.
> > Alfredo
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ________________________________________
> > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> on behalf of Helena Worthen <helenaworthen@gmail.com>
> > Sent: 22 January 2017 06:54
> > To: ablunden@mira.net; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trump's speech and Perezhivanie
> >
> > OK, got it.
> >
> > H
> >
> > Helena Worthen
> > helenaworthen@gmail.com
> > Berkeley, CA 94707
> > Blog about US and Viet Nam: helenaworthen.wordpress.com
> >
> >
> >
> >> On Jan 21, 2017, at 9:29 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:
> >>
> >> No, Helena, the *environment* is the same, but each are in a different
> *social situation of development*, thus the different perezhivanie.
> >>
> >> Andy
> >>
> >> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >> Andy Blunden
> >> http://home.mira.net/~andy
> >> http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making
> >> On 22/01/2017 3:48 PM, Helena Worthen wrote:
> >>> ... 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.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >
>
>
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