[Xmca-l] Re: Jules Payot - The Education of the Will

[David Kellogg]

Ulvi--

I think Vygotsky is indirectly referring to "education of the will" at the
end of Chapter 12 of the History of the Development of Higher Mental
Functions (Self-Control). He lays out a position which is diametrically
opposite to that of Payot (who is a Cartesian). That position is based on
Spinoza (and of course Engels) and "recognition of necessity". It is a view
that Thomas Sowell would certainly call "constrained"--free will is the
recognition of necessity.

I agree with you on Payot's relation to Marxism. He was a Savoyard, and the
Savoie isn't exactly French or German, so his pacifism was highly
conditional and certainly didn't apply to "lesser breeds without the law".
The French had a different model of colonization from the British--the
Brits liked to suborn the local bourgeoisie and cream off profits (India,
Nigeria, Palestine, Iran, Turkey...). The French preferred to kill
everybody and then deport their unwanted population (Algeria, Indochina,
Nouvelle Caledonie, Haiti). But of course the Brits could use the French
strategy (America and Australia) and the French sometimes used the British
one (West Africa) In the end, they were both guided by the same  material
conditions on the ground: Is there a local bourgeoisie to coopt? Are there
too many workers and peasants to murder?

What Payot writes is very much in the French tradition of "merciless
rationalism"--"the Mediterranean flows through France", etc. I also think
that his obsession with "education of the will" reflects a contemporary
centrepiece of moral education that we don't really think of these
days...preventing masturbation!

I had a student who taught in a Waldorf academy for a number of years. The
Waldorfers are big on Payot.

David Kellogg
Sangmyung University

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On Fri, Jun 5, 2020 at 8:17 PM Ulvi İçil <ulvi.icil@gmail.com> wrote:

>
> I simply noticed that he has colonialist tendencies about redskins
> preferring extermination to "regular labour" he says.
>
>
>
> 5 Haz 2020 Cum 13:54 tarihinde Ulvi İçil <ulvi.icil@gmail.com> şunu yazdı:
>
>>
>> Can I ask some short comments on this book please?
>>
>> Is this one of the best in the field? Any other and better?
>>
>> Is there a comment of Vygotsky on this book?
>>
>> Any critique from a Marxist dialectical perspective? How distanced was
>> Payot to Marxism?
>>
>> It seems to me that the education of the will is quite actual in the
>> education of today's youth at this stage of capitalism/imperialism.
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>> Ulvi
>>
>
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