Re: [xmca] CHAT and the Question of "which way is up."

From: David Preiss (davidpreiss@uc.cl)
Date: Sun Oct 22 2006 - 17:33:28 PDT


Quite correct, Mike. Babble fish is still messy but it portrays the
meaning (without grammar) pretty well. How interesting! Meaning is
easier to translate than grammar! I will come back to english in my
next messages :)

On Oct 22, 2006, at 3:30 PM, Mike Cole wrote:

> David-- According to babblefish, you wrote the followoing:
> Mike and others, I am totally in agreement with you. In effect, for
> my the
> value of Vygotsky and the Theory of the Activity are its capacity to
> generate and to feed new ideas, in different contexts, and different
> cultural traditions. From the moment in that dialogue on Vygotsky
> dissolves
> on base of his wears with "official doctrine" (from where it wants
> that this
> comes), this lets have interest, at least for my. In Latin America
> Vygotsky
> it has been received from two sources: half-full by Europe and a other
> half-full one by the United States. By the same, I believe that we
> do not
> have llamarmos to illusions and to think that we have received an
> orthodox
> Vygotsky here. Our dialogues with Vygotsky are also dialogues with the
> American pragmatismo and certain forms to think as well to the
> culture about
> Europe, other people's to the North American tradition (I think
> about the
> German culturalismo, for example, or in French sociology). Our
> dialogue with
> Vygotsky is, then, as Bakhtin had dreamed it: plenary session of
> voices,
> other voices submerged in the one of Vygotsky, and manifold
> resonances.
>
> Even without checking the Spanish, most of this makes sense to me.
> The third
> sentence is hashed up, however, and its meaning, as I interpret it
> from my
> amateur knowledge of
> Spanish is that "The moment that discussion of LSV focuses on an
> official
> doctrine that makes claims about its one-and-always official
> source, I lose
> interest in it.
>
> mas o minus correcto?
> mike
>
>
> On 10/21/06, David Preiss <davidpreiss@uc.cl> wrote:
>>
>> Mike y otros,
>>
>> Estoy totalmente de acuerdo con ustedes.
>>
>> En efecto, para mi el valor de Vygotsky y la Teoría de la Actividad
>> es su capacidad para generar y alimentar nuevas ideas, en diferentes
>> contextos, y en diferentes tradiciones culturales. Desde el momento
>> en que el diálogo sobre Vygotsky se dirime sobre la base de su calce
>> con la "doctrina oficial" (desde donde quiera que esta provenga),
>> esta deja de tener interés, al menos para mi.
>>
>> En Latinoamérica Vygotsky ha sido recibido a partir de dos fuentes:
>> una mediada por Europa y otra mediada por Estados Unidos. Por lo
>> mismo, creo que no debemos llamarmos a ilusiones y pensar que hemos
>> recibido aquí un Vygotsky ortodoxo. Nuestros diálogos con Vygotsky
>> son también diálogos con el pragmatismo estadounidense y con ciertas
>> formas de pensar a la cultura en Europa, ajenas a su vez a la
>> tradición norteamericana (pienso en el culturalismo alemán, por
>> ejemplo, o en la sociología francesa).
>>
>> Nuestro diálogo con Vygotsky es, entonces, tal como Bakhtin lo
>> hubiera soñado: pleno de voces, otras voces sumergidas en la de
>> Vygotsky, y múltiples resonancias.
>>
>> David
>>
>>
>> On Oct 21, 2006, at 2:11 PM, Mike Cole wrote:
>>
>> > So many topics are sneaking into the discussion with no change in
>> > headers (I
>> > know, Reply is easier and
>> > definitely preferable to silence!) that I want to pick up on just
>> > one of the
>> > many issues raised in the past
>> > couple of days.
>> >
>> > When Ana writes "no absolute, universal, pre-existing, a-historical
>> > template
>> > against which to judge and define 'heights' was meant to be
>> > suggested" I
>> > think it is worthwhile pausing at least a little to consider the
>> > agency
>> > buried in "was meant to be suggested." This issue relates to the
>> > issue of
>> > one-right-way thinking about the legacy of Vygotsky and his
>> > colleagues and
>> > how to orient to it.
>> >
>> > So, first, about who might have suggested that while no "pre
>> existing,
>> > a-historical template" was a part of their understanding of
>> > genesis (phylo.cultural.onto.micro) there is little doubt in my
>> > mind that
>> > LSV and Luria and Leontiev all had a HISTORICAL developmental, from
>> > lower to
>> > higher, sequence of changes in mind when they talked about
>> > primitive/modern,
>> > etc. According to this way of thinking Theoretical thinking in
>> > scientific
>> > concepts is
>> > later than thinking in complexes ontogenetically and cultural
>> > historically,
>> > and phylogenetically and such later modes of thought are higher,
>> > better,
>> > more "context independent," and to adopt the
>> > view expressed by Michael and Ana is, from this perspective, not
>> > only not
>> > true to Vygotsky but the delusions of well meaning bourgeois
>> > liberals whose
>> > bleeding
>> > hearts are obscuring their vision.
>> >
>> > (For clear statement of this perspective see Karpov's book on neo-
>> > vygotskian
>> > psychology or Mescheryakov & Zinchenko's characterization of the
>> > deviations
>> > from Vygotskian
>> > thinking of which I am manifestly guilty in *Cultural psychology*
>> > as reason
>> > to characterize my view as "anti-historical cultural psychology.")
>> >
>> > My own view which is, a trust, readily available to anyone who is
>> > not bored
>> > by repitition of it, is that for almost 20 years we have been
>> > witnessing
>> > historical changes
>> > of many kinds, one consequence is, for this group, the meeting,
>> > converging,
>> > transforming, distorting, changing, improving, debasing, etc of the
>> > ideas of
>> > Soviet (largely Russian)
>> > psychologists with a very heterogeneous group of non-Soviet, non-
>> > Russian
>> > psychologists, anthropologists, sociologists, educationalists, work
>> > researchers...... all of whom are
>> > attracted by what appear to be important strengths in the core
>> > ideas to be
>> > re-constructed from the writings of LSV et al from the mid 1920's
>> > up to the
>> > mid 1970's with several
>> > very significant periods of disruption and radical zigs and zags.
>> >
>> > We all do this differently, drawing upon what we can from those
>> > cultural
>> > traditions of which we are a part. So for me it includes Dewey
>> and the
>> > little of American pragmaticism I know,
>> > a melange of Anglo-American anthropological work, Bartlett, a
>> > background in
>> > human development, encounters with different OTHERS in various
>> > parts of the
>> > world. For Michael it
>> > includes a range of European thought much of which I have not even
>> > heard of,
>> > never mind read and thought about, for Ana there is a strong
>> > starting point
>> > as a young participant
>> > in the late days of the Moscow school's approach and her many
>> years of
>> > experience in Western Europe and the United States, bb brings his
>> > strong
>> > background in physics and
>> > tireless efforts to enable the education of teachers around the
>> > country
>> > combined with a voracious reading appetite. Etc.
>> >
>> > All of this to reproduce what LSV wrote in 1924-34? Or Leontiev,
>> > or.....?
>> > Did they know how to incorporate Bakhtin? And if they did, could
>> > they would
>> > they?
>> >
>> > Short bottom line: Establishing the one right way to develop the
>> > unfilled
>> > program of lsv and his colleagues is not an attractive task.
>> > Seeking to
>> > explore ways to enrich, correct, make
>> > relevant to our times, and in general, make those ideas equipment
>> > for our
>> > living and the prospects for living of our progeny IS an attractive
>> > task.
>> > What a great tool kit we have been
>> > bequeathed! And with all the modern tools at our disposal and their
>> > shoulder's to stand on, can we see past our noses? At least as far
>> > as the
>> > computer screen?
>> >
>> > It snowed again in Colorado just after I left and the sun glistens
>> > in my
>> > back yard.
>> > Neighbors slaughter each other in Baghdad.
>> > I vamos escriber en dos lingues acqui en XMCA
>> >
>> > All true. Guess it really is the best of all possible worlds.
>> > mike
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > xmca mailing list
>> > xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>> > http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>> >
>>
>> David Preiss, Ph.D.
>> Profesor Auxiliar / Assistant Professor
>>
>> Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile
>> Escuela de Psicología
>> Av Vicuña Mackenna 4860
>> Macul, Santiago
>> Chile
>>
>> Fono: 3544605
>> Fax: 3544844
>> e-mail: davidpreiss@uc.cl
>> web personal: http://web.mac.com/ddpreiss/
>> web institucional: http://www.uc.cl/psicologia
>>
>>
>>
> _______________________________________________
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> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>

David Preiss, Ph.D.
Profesor Auxiliar / Assistant Professor

Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile
Escuela de Psicología
Av Vicuña Mackenna 4860
Macul, Santiago
Chile

Fono: 3544605
Fax: 3544844
e-mail: davidpreiss@uc.cl
web personal: http://web.mac.com/ddpreiss/
web institucional: http://www.uc.cl/psicologia

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