Dear Andy and everybody–
Andy, let me add my 0.2 cents to your discussion. It is a bit arrogant for
me to contribute since role-taking play is not my area, so sorry if my naïve
comments offend somebody who specializes in this area…
I think that in time of Vygotsky, Elkonin (senior), Mead, and Honneth,
role-taking plays were predominately children’s activities in Western
cultures and thus were seen as “developmental” (see Elkonin’s notion of
“leading activities” associated with ontogenesis). The closest adult
activity to role-taking plays that was legitimate and recognizable by the
(high?) society was literature writing (theater performance, unless fully
improvisational, was too scripted) which has never involved mass
participation of general adult public. Currently, with explosion of computer
and video games, the situation is rapidly changing. Role-taking plays become
legitimate (widespread) adult activities in Western societies (I do not know
history enough to claim that in past role-taking games had been also
legitimate adult activities recognized by the society but I suspect that
role-taking plays were always with adults in some forms of fantasies that
were not recognized by the society).
I think that the recent book by Jim Gee
Gee, J. P. (2003). What video games have to teach us about learning and
literacy (1st ed.). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
is the first sign that this change is recognized by the academia. I found
that Jim’s analysis of emerging three-fold identities in a player during
video games is somewhat similar to Bakhtin’s analysis of relationship
between author and his/her character (in Bakhtin’s earlier writing see his
book “Art and answerability”). I think that non-developmental perspectives
can provide us with more insights about the nature of role-taking plays.
What do you think?
Eugene
_____
From: Andy Blunden [mailto:ablunden@mira.net]
Sent: Wednesday, December 24, 2003 2:34 AM
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: Mead, Honneth and role-taking play
Can I pick the collective brain again for my work on Mead and Honneth, this
time about what I think is a wrong conception of role-taking play?
Vygotsky and Elkonin give us a wonderful description of the development of
play from baby-'playing'-baby up to setting the world record for the 100
metres. Mead/Honneth talks about a two-stage genesis of play from
role-taking to competitive games.Leaving aside the poverty of this two-stage
reduction of such a complex process, I challenge their description of
role-taking play. And I'm wondering if those of you with real concrete
knowledge of the subject can prove me right or wrong.
According to Honneth's appropriation of Mead, in role-taking play children
imitate the actions of their partner in play. For Mead this substantiates
his idea of the emergence of self-consciousness in terms of an
object-position 'me', in which the subject-to-be's perceptions of their own
vocalisations are associated with that of their 'partners' and they pretty
literally see a mirror image of themselves in the reaction of the others,
which actually, according to Mead/Honneth, constitute the objective
self-image called 'me'. For Honneth, this construction substantiates his
idea of a stage in the development of 'recognition' in which people learn
that they are people with just the same rights as everyone else.
(Competitive games are supposed to be the stage in which people learn about
their own uniqueness.)
I think this is all wrong. In role-taking play, even in its embryonic stage,
children do not imitate the role of their partner, which after all could be
not a person but an artefact! They play a complementary role. Their first
experiences are as part of sets in which every player plays a different,
complementary role. Personally, I think rights develop in the same way too
as a matter of fact. "Equality" only comes later. And furthermore, the 'me'
concept is slightly wrong too, as the subject-to-be associates its own
sensor-motor actions with the audio-visual perceptions of the reactions of
others, and conversely, but this is not an A=A relation, but rather a
complementary, equal-but-opposite relation.
What do people think?
Andy
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