Phillip Capper wrote:
>Nate,
>
>My apologies. I misunderstood your point. Interestingly, though, when I
>reflect on Maori in America, I still do not think that there will be
>significant crossover. And I think identification crossover is very complex.
>How might we understand the Boston Irish, for example?
>
Interestingly, I recently listened to an author on C-SPAN in which she
shared as part of her research a scrapbook that an Irish immigrant women
kept at the turn of the century. From her story, this women wrote often,
and clippings she kept related to her identity as Irish. About half way
through there was a transition / transformation in identity in which
clippings (newspaper) and other material related to her identity as
"american". The researcher saw this transition as positive in nature,
but then there were two World Wars in the middle of this time frame
too. I recently did some research on the US pledge and its humorous
history relates very much to this identity transformation.
Interestingly, only two counties (ignore this Ascroft) US and the
*Philippines force their *students to recite a pledge.
>
>As for the web, I don't think that I am optimistic at all. I am quite
>pessimistic about its social impact. I am not sceptical about the
>intellgience and police agencies seeking to control the net, but I am
>sceptical about their ultimate capacity to succeed.
>
>But overall I stick to my view that the formal education system is
>progressively losing its role as socially cohesive remediating force by its
>failure to adapt its practices. Whether or not that is a good thing is still
>an open question, but so far we do not seem to have had enduring societies
>without such a function.
>
>i think that our differences restated in your last paragraph may be due to
>how we intepret the current situation. I think that you see the things you
>describe as a stregthening trend, whereas I see them as analogous to the
>descriptions in the last third of Gibbon's 'Decline and Fall of the Roman
>Empire' - that is, as unsustainable death throes. If my view is right, then
>the present circumstances are temporary phenomena. How long is temporary?
>Unfortunately I can't guess - maybe long enough to prove you 'right' in a
>medium term time horizon.
>
>
>Regards
>
>Phillip Capper,
>Centre for Research on Work, Education and Business Ltd. (WEB Research),
>Level 13
>114 The Terrace
>(PO Box 2855)
>WELLINGTON
>New Zealand
>
>Ph: +64 4 499 8140
>Fx: +64 4 499 8395
>Mb: +64 021 519 741
>
>http://www.webresearch.co.nz
>
>
>
>
There is no hope of finding the sources of free action in the lofty realms of the mind or in the depths of the brain. The idealist approach of the phenomenologists is as hopeless as the positive approach of the naturalists. To discover the sources of free action it is necessary to go outside the limits of the organism, not into the intimate sphere of the mind, but into the objective forms of social life; it is necessary to seek the sources of human consciousness and freedom in the social history of humanity. To find the soul it is necessary to lose it.
A.R. Luria
vygotsky@charter.net
http://webpages.charter.net/schmolze1/vygotsky/index.html
http://marxists.org/subject/psychology/index.htm
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