[Xmca-l] Re: Emotion as "Sputnik"

Fri Jun 19 12:03:44 PDT 2020

Hello Phillip, Peg, Mike, and welcomed others,

A Juneteenth federal holiday would be marvelous. I'm sure it could be as marvelous if not more than to have something as grand as a Thanksgiving Day Parade in every city.

I like the idea of calling it Freedom Day (or even Liberation Day) as well, because that is a concept that everyone can value as something worth having. Apparently it used to be called Freedom Day once upon a time.

---
Getting back to the original topic, I would like to voice my skepticism about negative and positive emotions and their role in learning.

I believe that just emotion (whatever the quality) isn't something that "aids" learning. I think positive emotions are far more powerful in the registry of learning than negative ones.

What I think is likely of consequence with negative emotions that accompany a "situation" for learning, likely has to do with trauma and survival.

In other words, negative emotions do have a role and influence, but will wire into memory in a different way than positive ones would. This makes sense in terms of what we understand about PTSD and how it is that certain somatic reactions "bypass" conscious thought of the afflicted person after having suffered a traumatic experience (i.e., flashbacks).

I think I understand more why Mike and Phillip have indicated the coupling of emotion and learning can be misused by fascists, etc.
I don't exactly agree with this, but perhaps I'm not fully understanding the reference.

There is something deeply different going on with learning that maps with negative vs positive emotions, though we might not yet be able to determine the "mechanics" of these processes and how they are different.

I'm thinking about another article I read at the Intercept about facebook moderators. These are the digital turks of the Internet (No offense I hope to any Turks by using that phrase).

https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://theintercept.com/2020/06/18/facebook-moderator-ptsd-settlement-accenture/__;!!Mih3wA!XNTLGP4ko664qvzSyLs_cSQbCpJ6cjYSRXd-a8S1tTYir12Z7Kjok9JZT38ScSksDu_DMA$ 

Being exposed to negative imagery (that generates negative emotions) doesn't transform learning, it makes people unwell. If it were a neutral input (that it didn't matter if it were positive or negative), then people wouldn't be getting sick just from exposure to images.

Something very different is going on.

I sense that the next decades we will be learning more about the effects of trauma. That would be a good thing because it might also be instrumental in forging the means to prevent wars and other forms of group violence (genocide, refugee encampments, homelessness, other forms of deep, human suffering).

Maybe we can also defund the Pentagon and put some of that money into diplomacy. Or even start that US Department of Peace that Congressman Kucinich had proposed once upon a time.

As ever... I remain hopeful,

kind regards,

Annalisa

________________________________
From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu>
Sent: Friday, June 19, 2020 10:40 AM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Emotion as "Sputnik"

  [EXTERNAL]

Its a Bakhtinian moment, Peg, when when repressed voices bring back a national memory
and the consciousness of a nation (consciousness as humans' relationship to nature and each other) has
undergone a qualitative shift. Will it be papered over by future forgetting? Too soon to tell.

If Juneteenth becomes a national holiday, it would be a very interesting shift in national memorializing and perhaps,
even, race relations.

For those like me who have inherited only a foggy notion of  Juneteenth , the attached link might be helpful.
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/*inbox/WhctKJVrDFZHHxRlWkntMlVkVGGMxhnSmgMtqSjmJRWnZRpQjsxLHhpHTlPVtsZRbGvGkBv__;Iw!!Mih3wA!XNTLGP4ko664qvzSyLs_cSQbCpJ6cjYSRXd-a8S1tTYir12Z7Kjok9JZT38ScSlFmwzl4Q$ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/*inbox/WhctKJVrDFZHHxRlWkntMlVkVGGMxhnSmgMtqSjmJRWnZRpQjsxLHhpHTlPVtsZRbGvGkBv__;Iw!!Mih3wA!URjX7UEtEjKC9GjF4K7CtoTq6JHOljqil1jLajq7UdsEwHQHmq3v1ap9-GQC2cDEuPmgLQ$>

mike

On Fri, Jun 19, 2020 at 9:07 AM Peg Griffin, Ph.D. <Peg.Griffin@att.net<mailto:Peg.Griffin@att.net>> wrote:

Phillip,

Your note on missing voices reminded me of Sandro Duranti once saying that he had gained ears.

And it seems a propos of a good Juneteenth Day.  So…

Long ago and far away (from me right now at least), before xmca,  even before xlchc maybe, in two funny temporary buildings in a little grove of a few trees with occasional ocean breezes and a picnic table and benches, there were a bunch of what some on the staff called “labbies,” with lots of differences in academic standing, community culture, family race, nationality, and short and long term motives.  We gathered and gave each other questions and occasional answers and lots of worrying and enjoying.

Along came Sandro as a post doc.  His family lived in LA and he stayed in San Diego for several days a week.  After a month or so, he told us about a party he went to over the weekend when he was back in LA.  As usual there were lots of local university faculty and students.  He said it felt different for him, though.  And he had finally pinned down what it was.

He was listening with extra ears – ears from black and brown people who constituted a large portion of the lab, its taken for granted history, its day to day goings on.  He heard things that needed to be countered, challenged, questioned, discussed – things that might have just passed by before but now seemed to be things that wouldn’t be said had he been a person of color from the Lab.  His extra ears gave him ideas, feelings, words and motives that he hadn’t experienced before.

Sandro is a gifted anthropologist, originally from Italy, with advanced degrees from the US.  And a dear sweet man.

Peg

From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>] On Behalf Of White, Phillip
Sent: Friday, June 19, 2020 10:18 AM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>>
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Emotion as "Sputnik"

David - very contextualising background information - which i appreciate.  do you think that there is a thread here in the activity of resolving disputes that 'might makes right' -

reflecting on my initial response to Veresov, could have been an emotional sputnik - so much tension in the air these days here in denver - but i don't want to make excuses -

i'm reminded on Nina Simone's song:

Alabama's gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Mississippi goddam

not just racism, but all isms have just gotten to me recently -  and i'm missing the voices of twenty years ago - to mention just a few: Suzanne De Castle - Mary Bryson - Kathryn Alexander - Eva Ekablad, to mention just a few - of course, we've still got Peg -

later -

phillip

--

Crush human humanity out of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it will twist itself into the same tortured forms. Sow the same seed of rapacious license and oppression over again, and it will surely yield the same fruit, according to its kind.  C.Dickens.

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