Hi Greg and Bruce, Jane Addams I think is one of the most understudied important figures in American history. I recently read a very compelling article suggesting that the reason there was a split between social work and sociology is that the Pragmatists in the sociology department at the University of Chicago could not handle the idea of a woman having so much influence over the field (and make no mistake both Dewey and Mead - regular visitors to Hull House did acknowledge her influence and importance). I sometimes think that is was this type of posturing in the early days of U.S. academia that has led to the split between practice and research in the United States. Addams wanted research to emerge from the actual action (the true Pragmatist position) while the researchers wanted to be able to define the problem for the community. Hey the reason you suffer from poverty is because your kids don't decode symbols well enough in second grade. Yeah, that's the ticket!! But I would argue that Addams' argument against antagonisms is, at least from my reading of some of her work, a bit more sublte and less philosophical. I don't think she really cared an enormous amount about Hegel, although she could certainly hold her own with people like James and Dewey. I think, from her perspective the idea of not engaging in conflict was much more practice than philosophically oriented. There are two incidents that I have read in which Jane Addams condemned the idea of conflict as leading to progress to Dewey. The first was during the Pullman Strike in Chicago, and the second was during the argument over whether the United States should enter WW I, I believe the incident you are referring to was during the Pullman strike. Her basic agument was that in general all human beings want the same thing, they want to move towards a better society. What happens in conflict, as you suggested, is that individuals move away from each other rather than towards I guess what you would call a participatory democracy. What was happening during this time is that some of the Pullman strikers were engaging in violent activities because management was using scabs and refusing to deal (remember this was one of the first major strikes in the United States). At first Dewey saw the violence as the only way out. Addams convinced him that the conflict was only moving the different camps away from resolution, and what was the good of that. Her thoughts were that if you could get them both together in a room and talking without the posturing and the need to be right they would see the resolution. Now it would be a tremendous mistake to view this as compromise in some way. It is not about both sides getting a little bit of their predetermined positions. It is about both sides seeing that they are not indeed two side but instead recognizing that they are a single community that is focused on a problem. It is basically bringing the problem solving back to what Dewey would later lay out as a Pragmatic view of the scientific method in his Logic. There is a second side to the lack of conflict which comes up in the WW I debate. That is when you engage in any type of conflict you do so because you believe it will bring progress. But this suggests that you understand how to control nature which is folly. Conflict is a Pandora's box and you don't know how it is going to turn out, you don't have any control over it, and the results could very easily be very different from what you assumed. The more horrific the conflict that more the potential for horrific results which you could not have imagined. Okay I have gone on too long, but I was so glad to see Jane Addams mentioned (I mean she does have major flaws, she is human, such as her address to the Bull Moose convention. But that is for another time. Michael ________________________________ From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu on behalf of Bruce Robinson Sent: Wed 1/6/2010 7:02 AM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: Re: [xmca] Jane Addams, Dewey,and the (Hegelian) dialectic - upside down Greg, Leaving Hegel and Dewey aside for now, maybe we should return to the real world and ask whether "all antagonisms are unreal"? For me, most serious social antagonisms (not things such as bad interpersonal relations) have a basis in real material relations and are not reconcilable at the level of who has the best rhetorical or moral argument, though that may affect the eventual outcome. Putting it in terms of the evolutionist / creationist debate, what might a compromise look like? Would it be just a little bit creationist? Is a meaningful dialogue between superstition and science possible? I've just written a short review of 'Critique of Intelligent Design: Materialism versus Creationism from Antiquity to the Present' by John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark, and Richard York. They make the point that no compromise which advocates two non-overlapping spheres of science and religion (as advocated by Steven Jay Gould and moderate religious evolutionists) is acceptable to the creationists as they recognise that once science is allowed to define its own sway, god can only be reduced to an ever smaller role ending up with pantheistic or 'final cause' positions. As they also point out, the conflict between materialism and creationism is over 2,000 years old and is hardly a question of misunderstandings. Bruce R ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gregory Allan Thompson" <gathomps@uchicago.edu> To: <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu> Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 2010 6:12 AM Subject: [xmca] Jane Addams, Dewey, and the (Hegelian) dialectic - upside down >I continue to be fascinated by the possibilities of Jane > Addams' description of the unreality of antagonisms. > > To recap her point (apologies for the duplication): > Addams saw all antagonisms as unreal. Dewey found this > difficult to understand since he had understood the Hegelian > dialectic as a series of antagonisms that are resolved through > reconciliation. But following a long conversation with Addams, > Dewey wrote: "I can see that I have always been interpreting > the [Hegelian] dialectic wrong end up, the unity as the > reconciliation of the opposites, instead of the opposites as > the unity in its growth, and thus translated the physical > tension into a moral thing" and then he notes "I don't know as > I give the reality of this at all-- it seems so natural and > commonplace now, but I never had anything take hold of me so." > > Following Addams' position that all antagonisms are unreal, it > seems that the hindrance to progress in a conflictual issue is > the domination of one side over the other (whether by war or > by court or something else). In this antagonistic pitting of > one against the other, both positions become entrenched and > there is no possibility of the opposites growing into the > unity - of "aufgehoben" to use Hegel's term. As Jay notes, the > evolutionists accept evolutionary theory as dogma while the > anti-evolutionists, well, it seems to go without saying what > their dogma is. What I take to be the Addams-ian argument is > that if both of these two positions were set free of their > dogmas and allowed to engage in civil conversation, then a > true aufgehoben could be possible, a sublation of both > positions that would simultaneously negate and bring forward > something of each. > > Take, for example, the evolutionist/creationist tension, > although educational policies have changed dramatically since > the 1926 Scopes trial, the central opposition still exists. > This courtroom battle was one that, as with all battles, did > not resolve the contradiction. Rather, it was a victory by > fiat of the courts. As a result, there was no sublation of the > opposing sides, and instead the two sides remain. Half of the > problem here can be located on the side of the winners who > took (and continue to take) this as evidence of "progress" and > "truth" in contradiction to those "backwards" and "ignorant" > people on the other side, and half of the problem certainly > rests on the other side. This contradiction becomes realized > in interpersonal terms - personal attacks, both implicit and > explicit, of one side to the other - the result of which is > the recalcitration and polarization of each side. In fact, > these interpersonal processes lead to hyper-polarization of > positions because each time there is an attack from one side > to the other, the side receiving the blow circles the wagons, > battens down the hatches (sorry for the mixed metaphor - both > seemed appropriate), and engages in intensive discursive work > to justify and further elaborate their position and their > life-world to their own group and eventually to others. [at > the heart of the problem I've outlined is a failure of > *recognition* of those on the opposing side, and the result is > continued struggle, and even the expansion of struggle] > > At these times, one can see the power of the group working on > individuals when the group comes together in some form (as I > mentioned these are increasingly mass mediated - esp. of the > Foxnews variety but also of the "prayercast" variety). These > moments of group feeling (collective effervescence) are > powerful instantiators of identity and thus serve as > motivation for further action in that these collective moments > serve to "charge up" the signs and symbols of one's own party > with sacred energies of "truth", "justice", and "the good", > and simultaneously cast the opposition as "false", "unjust", > and "evil", and those on the other side are either laughed at > (as with Foxnews or MSNBC) or pitied (as with the prayercast). > > The Addams-ian solution to this problem would be to begin a > civil conversation about these issues. The real difficulty is > to determine the conditions of what such a conversation would > look like and how it could be civilized (I'm not convinced > that Habermas has quite got this figured out, but it seems > like a start; and equally Honneth's emphasis on recognition is > also of critical importance). This may seem a bit > Pollyanna-ish, but I think that even if you can convince one > side of the conversation to commit to the ideal, then you can > make a true civil conversation happen. If Gandhi could do it > with such a violent and domineering interlocutor as the > British, then couldn't we imagine such non-violent action at > the level of discourse when engaging with the considerably > less violent (but possibly no less domineering) interlocutor > of The Evangelical? And can we imagine doing it not just as a > rhetorical strategy to win in the end but because we actually > respect those persons and the life worlds and life projects > that they are engaged in? > > What do you think, does this continue to sound too optimistic? > > -greg > --------------------------------------- > Greg Thompson > Ph.D. Candidate > The Department of Comparative Human Development > The University of Chicago > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > _______________________________________________ > xmca mailing list > xmca@weber.ucsd.edu > http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca > _______________________________________________ xmca mailing list xmca@weber.ucsd.edu http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
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