[Xmca-l] Re: Covid 19: Getting the Name Right
Andy Blunden
andyb@marxists.org
Fri Apr 17 19:46:30 PDT 2020
You've made your point, Ed. Henceforth I will say "the 1919
Flu pandemic."
andy
------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
Hegel for Social Movements <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://brill.com/view/title/54574__;!!Mih3wA!UTIVxuuWj2_bYMA5gFZ3IUiKbERO2aHSp0fZtxraDPGGqfliL1Lalb0OUn0STMaSBD1x5A$ >
Home Page <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm__;!!Mih3wA!UTIVxuuWj2_bYMA5gFZ3IUiKbERO2aHSp0fZtxraDPGGqfliL1Lalb0OUn0STMYn50-ZIQ$ >
On 18/04/2020 4:23 am, Edward Wall wrote:
> Regrettably, personal prejudices tend to produce answers
> rather than questions. Of course, I speak only for myself.
>
> Ed
>
> Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what he
> is not, and a sense of humor was provided to console him
> for what he is.
>
>> On Apr 17, 2020, at 2:01 AM, Andy Blunden
>> <andyb@marxists.org <mailto:andyb@marxists.org>> wrote:
>>
>> I read that in a book on the history of pandemics, about
>> a decade ago. Can't remember the author. But I really
>> hated what the author had to say about HIV, which he
>> characterised as a "life-style" illness of homosexual
>> men. So I checked his credentials with Prof. Short, an
>> epidemiology expert at the University, who confirmed that
>> the author was indeed authoritative, and it was
>> unfortunate that his personal prejudices let him down
>> when he came to HIV. So I took it that the Kansas story
>> was legit. In any case, it was never anything to do with
>> Spain.
>>
>> I see
>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu*Hypotheses_about_the_source__;Iw!!Mih3wA!UTIVxuuWj2_bYMA5gFZ3IUiKbERO2aHSp0fZtxraDPGGqfliL1Lalb0OUn0STMY4_nDwDA$
>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu*Hypotheses_about_the_source__;Iw!!Mih3wA!RVmjWrnqeBJAI3Z50ZvFTvUzhV5qGCVz7aRPbEzP-_dWzviP8MxkAPYK8Weo5MlThnCFEw$>
>> has a number of hypotheses.
>>
>> Andy
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> *Andy Blunden*
>> Hegel for Social Movements
>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://brill.com/view/title/54574__;!!Mih3wA!RVmjWrnqeBJAI3Z50ZvFTvUzhV5qGCVz7aRPbEzP-_dWzviP8MxkAPYK8Weo5MmpALOdRw$>
>> Home Page
>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm__;!!Mih3wA!RVmjWrnqeBJAI3Z50ZvFTvUzhV5qGCVz7aRPbEzP-_dWzviP8MxkAPYK8Weo5Mkp4uJW3Q$>
>>
>> On 17/04/2020 3:45 pm, Edward Wall wrote:
>>> An article I read in National Geographic (around 2014)
>>> gave a quite different story as regard incubation. I
>>> assume you are referring to a somewhat more recent and
>>> trustworthy source? I’d appreciate the reference as I
>>> used to study the mathematics behind things of this sort.
>>>
>>> Ed
>>>
>>> Imagination was given to man to compensate him for what
>>> he is not, and a sense of humor was provided to console
>>> him for what he is.
>>>
>>>> On Apr 16, 2020, at 9:54 PM, Andy Blunden
>>>> <andyb@marxists.org <mailto:andyb@marxists.org>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Well, the Americans did pretty well in naming the flu
>>>> pandemic which was incubated in a military camp in
>>>> Kansas and taken across the Atlantic to Spain en route
>>>> to the carnage in France, the "Spanish Flu."
>>>>
>>>> Andy
>>>>
>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> *Andy Blunden*
>>>> Hegel for Social Movements
>>>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://brill.com/view/title/54574__;!!Mih3wA!WkdkQgveBxmpghUoOmf7xks2JBWnLppU0ECMuZC0NNuLIi0R5MGMZdiJsQ85FPM0KExfeg$>
>>>> Home Page
>>>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm__;!!Mih3wA!WkdkQgveBxmpghUoOmf7xks2JBWnLppU0ECMuZC0NNuLIi0R5MGMZdiJsQ85FPPDBSRIdQ$>
>>>>
>>>> On 17/04/2020 8:21 am, Edward Wall wrote:
>>>>> If you’all want to get picky about names you
>>>>> might look here for some possibilities:.
>>>>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/types.html__;!!Mih3wA!UTIVxuuWj2_bYMA5gFZ3IUiKbERO2aHSp0fZtxraDPGGqfliL1Lalb0OUn0STMZCpeLt8Q$
>>>>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/types.html__;!!Mih3wA!QDqoHKfN9rsIen0hktwg62vWF_Zg0RnuNDpr6G3EFD42Kj1NDYzm2T7NEly6rlqhG6ZKwQ$>.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> In any case, I find the other name: SARS-CoV-2
>>>>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html__;!!Mih3wA!QDqoHKfN9rsIen0hktwg62vWF_Zg0RnuNDpr6G3EFD42Kj1NDYzm2T7NEly6rlqWKjRnFQ$> far
>>>>> more informative, far more relevant, and far more
>>>>> disturbing as regards the situation at hand.
>>>>>
>>>>> Gadamer writes “Thus a person who wants to
>>>>> understands must question what lies behind what is
>>>>> said. He must understand it as an answer to a
>>>>> question. If we go back behind what is said then we
>>>>> inevitably ask questions beyond what is said.” So,
>>>>> perhaps, I have problems with a thinking that believes
>>>>> it has landed on the “correct” definition/answer (and
>>>>> all other thinkers are fools) as that may well entail,
>>>>> perhaps innocently, a curtailing of the crucial
>>>>> question. I find that the the answer 'COVID-19’
>>>>> obscures a lot (and, to be fair, does some illumination).
>>>>>
>>>>> Ed
>>>>> Imagination was given to man to compensate him for
>>>>> what he is not, and a sense of humor was provided to
>>>>> console him for what he is.
>>>>>
>>>>>> On Apr 16, 2020, at 3:35 PM, David Kellogg
>>>>>> <dkellogg60@gmail.com <mailto:dkellogg60@gmail.com>>
>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I won't pretend to you that this is on my night
>>>>>> table. Someone recently sent me the following quote
>>>>>> from Hegel:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> “For although it is commonly said that reasonable men
>>>>>> pay attention not to the word but to the thing
>>>>>> itself, yet this does not give us permission to
>>>>>> describe a thing in terms inappropriate to it. For
>>>>>> this is at once incompetence and deceit, to fancy and
>>>>>> to pretend that one merely has not the right /word/,
>>>>>> and to hide from oneself that really one has failed
>>>>>> to get hold of the thing itself, i.e. the Notion. If
>>>>>> one had the Notion, then one would also have the
>>>>>> right word.” (p.198) – sec. 329
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Vygotsky liked to quote Tolstoy: Слово почти всегда
>>>>>> готово, когда готово понятие (the word is nearly (!)
>>>>>> always read when the concept is ready) but it seems
>>>>>> to me that in this case he would have stressed the
>>>>>> word "nearly". There was a long debate over what to
>>>>>> call Covid 19 at the WHO, and many people (including
>>>>>> Michael Lin at Stanford) opine that they got it wrong.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I think that they got it right, but that it took a
>>>>>> while. I don't think it is
>>>>>> non-argument to point out that repeated attempts to
>>>>>> change the name to "Chinese virus" or the nineteenth
>>>>>> iteration of Covid or whatever are also motivated and
>>>>>> not in a good way.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> More importantly (because as Hegel says mere
>>>>>> incompetence and transparent self-deceit are at stake
>>>>>> in this instance) I think in most societies naming is
>>>>>> a process--a child has different names at different
>>>>>> times of life, and LSV is probaby wrong to treat
>>>>>> naming as a single function of speech that is simply
>>>>>> replaced by signifying and does not itself develop.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> What disturbs me about the Hegel quote (and LSV's
>>>>>> obvious enthusiasm for it) is that it seems to
>>>>>> suggest that everything has, in the final analysis,
>>>>>> only one correct name. But perhaps it all depends on
>>>>>> that final analysis.
>>>>>>
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>>>>>> David Kellogg
>>>>>> Sangmyung University
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>>>>>> Book Review: 'Fees, Beets, and Music: A critical
>>>>>> perusal of/Critical Pedagogy and Marx, Vygotsky and
>>>>>> Freire: Phenomenal forms and educational action
>>>>>> research' in/Mind Culture and Activity//
>>>>>>
>>>>>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10749039.2020.1745847__;!!Mih3wA!UTIVxuuWj2_bYMA5gFZ3IUiKbERO2aHSp0fZtxraDPGGqfliL1Lalb0OUn0STMZci9Gw5g$
>>>>>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10749039.2020.1745847__;!!Mih3wA!RxSyHRy22kiqZQHwsKuP3HGFuU9O2uo9DyVwSIIsNFfE0O3RpibgknJS735vbN8JpRvTyw$>
>>>>>> /
>>>>>> /
>>>>>> Some free e-prints available at:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/QBBGIZNKAHPMM4ZVCWVX/full?target=10.1080*10749039.2020.1745847__;Lw!!Mih3wA!UTIVxuuWj2_bYMA5gFZ3IUiKbERO2aHSp0fZtxraDPGGqfliL1Lalb0OUn0STMbjOdwk0w$
>>>>>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/QBBGIZNKAHPMM4ZVCWVX/full?target=10.1080*10749039.2020.1745847__;Lw!!Mih3wA!RxSyHRy22kiqZQHwsKuP3HGFuU9O2uo9DyVwSIIsNFfE0O3RpibgknJS735vbN8Ro16M0A$>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> New Translation with Nikolai Veresov: "L.S.
>>>>>> Vygotsky's Pedological Works Volume One: Foundations
>>>>>> of Pedology"
>>>>>>
>>>>>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!UTIVxuuWj2_bYMA5gFZ3IUiKbERO2aHSp0fZtxraDPGGqfliL1Lalb0OUn0STMavRhRTUA$
>>>>>> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!RxSyHRy22kiqZQHwsKuP3HGFuU9O2uo9DyVwSIIsNFfE0O3RpibgknJS735vbN-3hPm_Zw$>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>
>
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