At 14.11 -0500 99-09-11, nate wrote:
>I read an article on a major list serv
>service awhile back that made an argument similar to Barry Kort's, in
that,
>it argued for a strict stage like "development" of list serv's.
"Oik. I hope I haven't been painting myself into that corner by prying
apart
the three cascading activity systems that together produce the textweb of
joint Xlist activity."
The concern was similar to your comments in an earlier message about
patterns emerging.
"Still, it is a little too easy to be consoled here, by the persistence of
the pattern, the way it emerges in the system without any centralized
intent, the ways it can be construed as a natural effect of the logistics
of electronic conversation, no exclusion intended. It CAN be looked at that
way, but I still wonder what it would take to break the pattern."
Although, before your clarifications my initial understanding of the
cascading activity systems was along the lines of Barry Kort's model. But
that has been addressed in an earlier message, my larger point was a
concern of "development of activity systems" in the context of
(quanatative) the graphs. It just may be the universalistic implications
graphs and models have on me and a concern of those patterns becoming
naturalized as normal or universal. Don't get me wrong, I found the graphs
very informative, yet at the same time, I was aware that they made it all
seem more legitimate ("scientific", "universal") than just words. A
concern of the graphs representing patterns of activity systems or list
serv's in general vs a particular activity system/s and list serv. I
assumed, maybe wrongly, that there were certain generalizations involved in
the sense it had implications not only for x-family, but also other list
serv activity systems.
nate
Nate Schmolze
http://www.geocities.com/~nschmolze/
schmolze who-is-at students.wisc.edu
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"Pedogogics is never and was never politically indifferent,
since, willingly or unwillingly, through its own work on the psyche,
it has always adopted a particular social pattern, political line,
in accordance with the dominant social class that has guided its
interests".
L.S. Vygotsky
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