Judy,
the example of the worker, who has only one thing to sell in the market
economy, his/her labor power, in exchange for wages, is the oldest example
of how theory gets folded back into practice. It is the practical
experience from which the idea of "praxis" (i.e., the unity of theory and
practice) emerged to begin with. It is the history of the labor struggles
from the early 19th century onward, guided in large part by socialist theory
(marxism) until the period in which "trade unions" were used to undermine
the identity of the subject: the worker as someone with only labor power to
sell. The history of working peoples' struggles 1840-1940, working class
unions, and their relationship to the theory (marxism) out of which
activity theory developed might clarify this somewhat. I always liked Edmund
Wilson's "To The Finland Station" concerning how the theory of history
became the basis for practice. All of this integrating theory into practice
was never intended to produce publications for anyone's CV mind you.
Paul H. Dillon
----- Original Message -----
From: Judy Diamondstone
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Sent: Friday, February 02, 2001 3:45 PM
Subject: Re: Different motives
I am also curious, Helena and others, how you map out these activity
systems -- GIVEN: the laborer is working for wages; the farmer is farming.
Does the activity system of the laborer treat "working for wages" as an
instrument for, perhaps, "taking care of family" or "purchasing a newer
car" -? OR do you define the laborer's motive as "working for wages" -- but
you can't, if the subject doesn't view it as such.... Once you take account
of the subject's "horizon of possibility" you put at risk your (i.e., the
analyst's) object, of folding AT back onto the description that would be the
intervention. Sorry, I haven't done the analysis myself, so if anyone else
can take this to the concrete, I'd appreciate it.
Judy
A lobbyist is hired by a corporation to influence legislation. The lobby
ist and a legislator talk and come to an agreement. When they speak to the
public, they say the same words, stand side by side. But they are engaged in
different activity systems: the lobbyist is working to get paid by the
corporation, the legislator is getting paid to represent the best interests
of the people who voted for him or her.
So in one single enterprise -- be it a family farm, a private business,
government -- we can see how activity systems can look congruent but be in
fact different because they are driven by different motives.
Helena
Ricardo Ottoni Vaz Japiassu wrote:
<?smaller>Since I read your questions I've been looking for answers to
them, thinking - when there's time to do it - erraticaly... (I'm not sure if
there is such a word in english. If not, please, understand it as a
neologism trying to figure out a non-formal or rigorous way of thinking) I
try, below, answer to them - but, please, have in mind I do not have any
pretention of being the owner of "the truth"... Just convert in words some
embrionical ideas affected by the current discussion you fired in XMCA.
-----Mensagem original-----
De: Charles Nelson
<<mailto:c.nelson@mail.utexas.edu>c.nelson@mail.utexas.edu>
Para: <mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
<<mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Data: Terça-feira, 30 de Janeiro de 2001 17:55
Assunto: Different motives
Questions:
Does motive always determine the activity?
I do not think it can, always, determine an activity. Maybe, in
turn, engaging in any activity could be possible only through some motive...
Or, does different people having different motives change the
activity system for each individual even if they physically are doing the
same thing?
Yes, I think the personal meaning of a specific activity can be
different to those people engaged in it.
Because people can have more than one motive while engaging in work
(e.g., survival, pleasure, social influence, etc.), can one person with
multiple motives doing the same thing be engaged in more than one activity?
Maybe these multiple motives you refer to, could be summarized or
reduced to one: the main one. Despite people engaged in an activity could,
personaly, have different motives to be doing it, they would be involved in
a very specific socio-cultural object-oriented one. But their actions within
it, in turn, yes, could have very different goals.
Given the difficulty of determining motive(s), how do we identify
the "real" activity?
If the "real" activity of a couple is, for example, "to have a
dinner" in a very "in" restaurant, the motive of each partner to be engaged
in it could be very different one another: Maybe for one of them the motive
could be "eat and bannish hungry", to the other, "watch" and "be watched" in
company. Even so, the "real" activity still be "having dinner". Don't you
think so?
Charles Nelson<?/smaller>
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