I have now re-read Mike's discussion at the end of _Cultural Psychology_ on
the loss of the 'second psychology' and proposals to restore it and fuse it
with (a thereby transformed) 'first psychology'.
Very roughly, the first is the affect-ignoring, context-eliminating,
disembodied, individualistic 'scientific-experimental' psych that came to
dominate; and the second is a more humanistic and culturally-historically
aware psychology that does not reject the complexity of human motivation
and activity, or its groundedness in meaning and feeling together.
Mike notes that one reason why psychology degenerated (my term)
intellectually was that the division of labor among the human sciences
(e.g. psych vs. anthropology) favored a certain specialization and made
inattention to other critical aspects of our humanity seem excusable (leave
that to John!).
He also notes that Luria proposed a 'romantic psychology' that, rather like
Bakhtin's proposal, depended on really getting to know the people you
studied (engaging with them long enough and intensely enough, in a way that
Bakhtin says you only do if you really care about or love them ... a
'feeling for the organism' perhaps?).
Mike himself proposes a re-fusion of the humanistic-cultural-historical
approach with the scientific approach, thoroughly mixing them in our
actions (and worrying less about synthesizing them theoretically) and
projects, so that the measure of validity of our insights (humane and
scientific, if there is still any difference between these) is that we
manage to do some good and that we've understood what we're doing well
enough that the good we do lives on after us (sustainability).
But I think Mike would agree that while we can tinker our way to success
(cf. bricolage), and (as I would say) that in the last analysis theory is
always a step behind best practice, nevertheless we really would benefit
from a more effective theoretical synthesis, even if it means (as I am sure
now that it does) the creation of an entirely new kind of discourse, not
just hybridizing the older scientific and humane discourses, but changing
the most basic norms about what such a discourse should 'sound like'. (What
in the theoreticist paradigm would be called the meta-theory, or the
paradigm.) Mike and I agree about a lot of the requisites for such a
discourse (e.g. integrating, or at least mixing thoughtfully across
multiple scales and units of analysis) too.
I'd like to suggest some discourse I've been reading lately that is also
trying to speak differently in this way: the writing of Michel Serres. I
have just read his _Genesis_ and am working on two other more recently
translated works. I read a good bit of his earlier work some years ago and
was wonderfully taken with his insights and his larger project. Now I want
to see how far he's come, and how much I can steal! Others interested in
these issues might want to have a look, too. I recommend beginning with his
_Hermes_ and _The Parasite_, but just grab anything of his that comes to
hand. So far as the nature of the new discourse paradigm is concerned, that
comes through everywhere in his writing. Those who find it hard to
understand what he is trying to do, might look at his _Conversations_ with
Bruno Latour. Latour clearly thinks there's something important going on
here, too.
JAY.
---------------------------
JAY L. LEMKE
PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION
CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
JLLBC@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
<http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/education/jlemke/index.htm>
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