Nate, Bill,
I was writing this just when Bill's second message on the thread came
through. Paraphrase point: there is an important difference between the
unrelated group of individuals tested and a collectivity that has dimensions
of collaborativeness, when dealing with the latter I think one could talk of
an "internal dialectic", not so in the case of the individual/group
differences of tested individuals.
As you recognize, Bill, the normed is not collective; insofar as by the
latter one means a group that in some sense is conscious of its purpose as a
group. You can extend this definition of collectivity as far as you want
and probably get increasingly thin layers of the individual's sense of
membership in a collectivity, identification with a common purpose. If we
can talk of a collectivity of "the tested", then we equally talk of a
collectivity of defecators after a banquet. .
From a dialectical perspective I would probably want to consider grading and
test scoring in themselves since they constitute the ranges -- gifted,
challenged, normal, above average, etc. Testing abstacts from the
qualities of any individual in a way similar to how money abstracts from the
qualities of commodities. I think the problems of this are actually much
more complex than those of economics since there are multiple intelligences.
What get's tested for is determined by multiple factors too, but there can
be no doubt that the tests evaluate the skills deemed necessary for
reproducing the social division of labor and they thereby reproduce that
social division of labor at the same time. But they don't lead to the
change of that division of labor.
So *my* position on your question as to whether "defectology" could be
described dialectically as the difference between individual and normed, I'd
say you don't need to include the "dialectically" here since there is no
question of movement or transition. What is considered "gifted" or
"challenged" in a given society is a natural consequence of that society's
social division of labor. An individual with the mental qualities suitable
for being a traditional Tungus shaman (as described by Eliade) would be a
suitable candidate for special ed and meds in our society; on the other
hand, an individual with the physical qualities of Stephen Hawkings probably
wouldn't even survive in Tungus society but would certainly be in need of a
great deal of social support if he did. In other words, the
individual/normed collectivity you refer to exists as a "sublated" moment
whose meaning is determined as part of integration of formal education into
the society as a whole. Another way to see this, perhaps, is to consider
whether the repeated action of testing lead to any qualitative
transformation in itself (not simply a quantitative improvement of producing
the same type of result) or the system of which it is a part.
Paul H. Dillon
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