Re: Leontiev

From: Peter Smagorinsky (smago@peachnet.campuscwix.net)
Date: Thu Sep 28 2000 - 02:29:18 PDT


Dot, many thanks for your commentary. Very provocative. One area where
I'd mildly disagree is the statement about personality not being dealt
with. Valsiner's The Guided Mind: A Sociogenetic Approach to Personality
takes on this project in compelling ways.
Peter
At 10:29 PM 9/27/00 -0700, you wrote:
>Dear Friends,
>Thank you for this discussion on A. N. Leontiev, it is really nice!!
>Nate, thanks for your comments. Yes, we (Vladimir Spiridonov and myself)
>organized a ZPD conference last year in four cities in Russia and we
>hope to have another smaller conference in Moscow (only) this summer
>from July 1-5th. It will be for graduate students and professors and
>will deal with research in various areas of the social sciences within
>the cultural-historical tradition. We are just in the planning stages of
>that conference, but I hope some of you will be interested in attending
>(and I hope very much that Marta, Szymon, Rafel from Poland will
>attend). There will be room for 10 professors and 25 graduate students.
>People will be selected from around the world (not from one or two
>institutions) in order to offer an international atmosphere. One goal is
>to link up international professors and graduate students with Russian
>graduate students in order to exchange ways of conducting research in
>general. We are also looking for all kinds of textbooks and other books
>from the West and Asia in psychology, linguistics, teaching
>methodologies, research methodologies to share with our Russian
>colleagues. If you have any books to share, please let me know. Also, if
>you have published books that might be of interest to Russians, and have
>an extra free copy, that would be wonderful. Thanks!
>
>Okay, A. A. Leontiev once stated that "Kozulin's Vygotsky looks like
>Kozulin, Yaroshevsky's Vygotsky looks like Yaroshevsky, and Puzyrey's
>Vygotsky looks like Puzyrey." Of course this is true of each of us, and
>the same is true in analyzing A. N. Leontiev's thoughts. I would like
>to get back to the aspect of "consciousness" and "Marxism" (will it
>happen?) and I hope you are patient with me. Nate used the words
>"critique" and "appropriation" and I would like to continue with the
>problem I introduced via some thoughts on "appropriation." May I begin
>with the ZPD? It is so interesting (and somewhat typical) that Vygotsky
>took the idea of ZPD from Dorothea McCarthy and Meumann, two foreigners.
>This concept has been appropriated around the world, and the irony is
>that it is seldom used in Russia (at least that was my experience while
>there). Last summer at the ZPD conference it was actually very funny!
>Not a single Russian professor spoke on the ZPD when giving their
>papers, although the topic of the conference was the ZPD. In fact, I had
>heard each and every talk various times before. What I heard Russians
>speaking about was the aspect of "periodization" (i.e., stages of child
>development related to ages representing a "crisis" or potential that
>could trigger real change). There is an irony there: The Russians I knew
>were interested in stages of development or critical periods of
>development, and in the West we are very interested in transcending the
>stages of development (e.g. Piaget) and entering a more open space of
>development, hence ZPD. I would like to say that I suggested the topic
>of the ZPD for the conference to attract people from the West and Asia,
>and the Russians were not enthusiastic about that suggestion at all. As
>strange as it sounds, this brings me back to the differences in
>cultural-historical theory, Russian activity theory, sociocultural
>theory, my real problem right now. I am wondering if the "tensions"
>within the different traditions can be resolved in order to really view
>all three theories within one line of thought? I think it can be done,
>but not the way it has been done in the past. I have discovered that
>most people truly do not know the history of the three lines of theory
>we so love (cultural-historical, activity theory, sociocultural theory),
>and I certainly don't understand it. For example, the Russians I know do
>not understand sociocultural theory at all, and within many Western
>organizations there is not much interest in really trying to understand
>the Russian perspective. My point is that it would be good to backtrack
>and reread Vygotsky from "his" point of view as much as possible, then
>go on to books like we are reviewing now from the Russian perspective of
>Activity Theory, and then look at the tradition of sociocultural theory.
>For example, I so wish Russians within the cultural-historical context
>could be given a chance to explain Vygotskian theory from their
>perspectives, and North/South Americans and Europeans could explain
>sociocultural theory from their perspectives. Let me return to the word
>"appropriation." Personally I identify with the Russian
>cultural-historical tradition, so I just don't use the word
>"appropriation" very much. I use the word "internalization." The term
>"appropriation" is a term that is totally connected with M. Bakhtin for
>me, and the term "mastery" is completely linked to A. N. Leontiev. I
>have no problem with the word "internalization" and it must be linked to
>an understanding of consciousness. My understanding of the term
>"internalization" is not dualistic, and it is different from
>definintions in activity theory (e.g. definition given in Yrjo's on
>Perspectives on A. T.). This is because I view the words "mastery" and
>"appropriation" as representing the "conscious" aspect only, while
>"internalization" includes "unconscious" elements (Vygotsky viewed the
>unconscious as the "seat of creativity"). Well, this is just a very
>superficial explanation. This problem is similar to the ZPD (but not
>exactly the same), and this thought is only for me personally, as I
>doubt if it corresponds to the Russian reality in any way.....in the
>West we often view the ZPD as one zone, basically individual in nature.
>Within my understanding of the little I experienced in Russia (and in
>East Germany during the socialist government), the ZPD (meaning my
>visualization of the ZPD in Russia, not any construct Russians
>themselves perceive) was surely not viewed as representing one level of
>reality, but representing many zones with mutiple layers, and it was not
>located within the classroom only....it extended to life after school,
>families, society, back to the classroom.....this is good and bad as we
>all know within a "closed" society. At least this is how I interprete
>Vygotsky's intention of the ZPD. The intention of the ZPD (although
>that is just a metaphor) for me was expansive, while in the West it is
>very restrictive. Also, the term" internalization" is still very
>expansive for me, while mastery and appropriation are restrictive.
>Internalization includes the elements of the subconscious (not as a
>Freudian problem, but as the possibility of real change). It is clear
>that all of us must recite lines we do not agree with (such as prayers
>in school); however, personal freedom from a Spinozian point of view
>reflects my "internal" relationship to my human will, and not words
>parroted that are either appropriated or master (something much more
>external for me). Now, that understanding only makes sense to me within
>a Marxist framework of "unified dialectics." Therefore, there is a
>"tension" within cultural-historical theory relating to internalization;
>however, within sociocultural theory this tension is dissolved with a
>dualistic return to mastery/appropriation (where these terms are not yet
>defined, or I have not found the NEW definitions of them anywhere). We
>can only understand these problems by understanding the history of the
>origins of cultural-historical theory and sociocultural theory. Another
>example is Marxism. Sociocultural theory does not deal with Marxism, or
>am I wrong? Vygotsky represented a more traditional philosophical
>approach to Marxism, while Leontiev was faced with the realities of
>Stalinism. How do we reconcile the philosophy of Marx within the system
>created in Russia that failed? Where is the new Marxism or new thoughts
>on analyzing where Marxism failed in practice? how can this failure
>change Marxist theory today? In Moscow, for example, I did not meet a
>single person writing or thinking about Marxism (nor have I met any
>Russians living abroad doing the same). In fact, even with the limited
>translations of books in Russian, I kept hearing over and over how
>impressed students were with Husserl's phenomenology. So many really
>love him. Why? Husserl represents the exact opposite of any type of
>materialism. However, when I would tried to discuss Husserl and
>Heiddeger as representing the core of French poststructuralism, the
>Russian students knew nothing about that. Once again, an example of
>"mixed appropriation" of concepts not properly understood from a
>historical/contextual perspective, and not really "internalized." The
>other example is the contradistinction between "dialectics" and
>"dialogical thinking." It is so interesting for me that within
>sociocultural theory dialectics have been replaced by dialogical
>thinking.....perhaps you disagree. However, Bakhtin (the author of the
>dialogical) was an avowed anti-Marxist, a Christian. Yet, he is the
>major voice of the sociocultural approach to language, do you disagree?
>My feeling is that we need to totally differentiate the three lines of
>theory, study them in light of their history, and then move on. This was
>the reason I was hoping that people would write to A. A. Leontiev to get
>his opinion on his fathers book. So, I would like to say one thing about
>Russian activity theory from the point of view of Dmitry Leontiev, or
>from the Russian perspective: it is divided into three phases for him:
>1930s-1950s--activity theory; 1960s-1980s--theory of consciousness;
>1980s--until now--theory of PERSONALITY. The focus is not on atomistic
>parts of personality as it is viewed in the West (e.g. introvert,
>anxiety, risk taking, motivation, etc.), but the WHOLE personality of
>the individual. I never see this written about in the West. So, my great
>wish would be to retrace the thoughts of the three lines of theory we
>follow, and view them historically (and one of my favorite writers,
>Ethel Tobach, actually compares the word "activity" with "change").
>Well, as you noticed, I never really got back to "Marxism" and
>"consciousness." But hope to. Thanks for any help along these lines. I
>am trying to learn and grow and appreciate any thoughts.
>
>Sorry this was so long!
>Best wishes,
>Dot



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