[Xmca-l] Re: Perezhivanie Without Experience

[David Kellogg]

Yes, one of the reasons why I often think of Vera John-Steiner (whose son
introduced me to Marxism, whose own work introduced me to Vygotsky) is that
she is a living link between the current struggle between the kinds of
anti-intellectual white nationalism that Annalisa's link shows us and their
Nazi forebears.

Spranger was one. Politically, he was a member of one of the conservative
aristocratic parties in the Nazi coalition. But he drafted the University
Professors Declaration of loyalty to Hitler and signed it. So Vygotsky
denounces him as a Nazi:

https://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/reader/p327.pdf

See p. 327-328.

Last winter (summer) in Australia I forced myself to read his "Types of
Man"--Spranger's argument is that we need to ignore the biological fact of
being one species and concentrate on the different "psychic" species that
exist. He says that what he has to say is true of the healthy, strong,
German adolescent, and to a lesser extent of American and British
adolescents, still less of Russians and Slavic adolescents, and of course
not at all of Jews.

There is some evidence that he turned against Hitler--he resigned his post
when Hitler took power (but took it up again with a year). In his private
letters he finds the Nazis anti-intellectual and plebeian. In the last part
of the war, he went to Japan and then returned; it has been said that he
was mixed up in a plot to kill Hitler, and that the Japanese ambassador
saved him from hanging. So I guess that he was a disgruntled Nazi. But when
I read his stuff, I can't tell the difference between him and Kroh, or
Jaensch, or Volkelt--it's all Nazi psych to me.

David Kellogg

On Sun, Nov 26, 2017 at 6:46 PM, Jussi Silvonen <jussi.silvonen@uef.fi>
wrote:

> David,
>
>
> do you really think, Spranger was a Nazi psychologist?
>
> JusSi
> ________________________________
> Lähettäjä: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.
> edu> käyttäjän David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com> puolesta
> Lähetetty: 25. marraskuuta 2017 13:43
> Vastaanottaja: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Aihe: [Xmca-l] Perezhivanie Without Experience
>
> Then he brings in the opposite,
> which he calls "cultural psychology". It's not what we call cultural
> psychology today but rather Nazi psychology, represented by Spranger. Of
> Spranger, Vygotsky writes:
>
>
> David Kellogg
>