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

Mon Jan 23 20:29:15 PST 2017

Helena:

Yes, I included it. And Alfredo actually managed to incorporate it into the
Google doc draft somehow.

But to tell you the truth, I was pretty exhausted when I finished the
speech--nothing was quite what it seemed, and in particular the pronouns
seemed to be wandering all over the place, as if the speaker was speaking
exophorically all the time, with a kind of parade of different people
passing in front of his eyes like a pageant. So I didn't write much of an
introduction, and I managed to write a completely incoherent posting to go
with it, in lieu of my usual half-incoherent one.

Here's a somewhat tidier version of the very untidy speech, with a bit of
an intro and an executive summary for those who don't have the endurance to
submit themselves to the speech again. A coarse analysis of a coarse bit of
oratory.

David Kellogg
Macquarie University

On Tue, Jan 24, 2017 at 12:16 PM, Helena Worthen <helenaworthen@gmail.com>
wrote:

> David, did you include the “coarse analysis”? I’d be interested.
>
> H
>
> Helena Worthen
> helenaworthen@gmail.com
> Berkeley, CA 94707
> Blog about US and Viet Nam: helenaworthen.wordpress.com
>
>
>
> > On Jan 22, 2017, at 9:52 PM, David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > 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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