xmca@weber.ucsd.edu writes:
Judy scrobe:
>Woops. I left out one comment, a response to something diane said, which I
>think is an interesting challenge -- that AT leads logically to "radical
>behaviourism" -- change the activity, force people to change the ways they
>think.
>
>Of course what disrupts that logic is that AT [in my own, Yrjo-influenced
>understanding of it] presupposes community, different perspectives,
>contradictions between goals and motives, constant negotiation of the
>object, the nature of the activity, what it's for; looking 'up' and 'down'
>levels of analysis -- across strata...
yes - the multiple forms of contradiction inherent in any system
(activity) - as well how the systems always attempts to move back to
stasis - regardless of the information that moves through it -
which makes me wonder about how Leont'ev accounts for power relations /
which are certainly culturally embedded / play a part in both the
construction of personality and motivation.
he seems to reject culture as a part of an activity theory explanation of
personality or motivation - "Culture, although it does exist in its
personifications, is a subject for history and sociology, and not for
psychology." when i read that i though, "hmmm, where does this leave
Mike?"
i'm also struck by the fact that Leont'ev appears to accept without
comment or question the concepts of _personality_ and _motivation_.
perhaps he has spoken of them earlier and i'm ignorant of it. still, they
seem to be what Bateson would describe as "explanatory principles" -
especially the idea of motivation.
>
and again - i return back to diane's comments of late that perhaps
she's in the wrong class - because sometimes i too think that i have
wandered here into Paternalism 101. but i think that that is about how
issues of power relations are part of activity - and certainly about how
personality is constructed - but perhaps within the old soviet union to
talk about power relations would get one too close to the dead elephant in
the living room - or perhaps the locking up of dissidents in mental
institutions - . perhaps this is why culture and psychology are not to be
discussed as existing within the same activity. ..... or about the
practice of discourse and power and naming and not-naming and presuming to
correct others. (even this entire posting of mine is an expression of
power - it can't be escaped.)
phillip
* * * * * * * *
* *
The English noun "identity" comes, ultimately, from the
Latin adverb "identidem", which means "repeatedly."
The Latin has exactly the same rhythm as the English,
buh-BUM-buh-BUM - a simple iamb, repeated; and
"identidem" is, in fact, nothing more than a
reduplication of the word "idem", "the same":
"idem(et)idem". "Same(and) same". The same,
repeated. It is a word that does exactly what
it means.
from "The Elusive Embrace" by Daniel
Mendelsohn.
phillip white
third grade teacher
doctoral student http://ceo.cudenver.edu/~hacms_lab/index.htm
scrambling a dissertation
denver, colorado
phillip_white@ceo.cudenver.edu
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