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Re: [xmca] understanding understanding



Sounds good, as long as we agree that "ec-stasis" is neither a disembodied
("out of body") NOR a mind-less ("out of mind"? "out of culture"?)
activity. I understand the need for a corrective to disembodied approaches,
but I'm also concerned about too simply taking up an embodied approach that
is MIND-less.

In the Buddhist idiom, even the ecstasis of samadhi is, in almost every
case, one that requires "practice" - a history that involves mind as much
as it does body even as it, in some cases, purports to being mindless, or
at least "selfless" (I don't know the Asian-language origins of the English
Buddhist word "mindfulness" - whether it has the same baggage as it does in
English). To make the CHAT point here, the practice of transcending the
self, of realizing "no-self" is one that is thickly mediated by culture
(even the historical Buddha drew on cultural practices in becoming awake).

I think where we may be disagreeing is in what you think I mean by "the
self." Perhaps I've not been clear enough that I am arguing for a
culturally historically, embodied self and not for an overtly
self-conscious self. The latter is certainly there, as you say, in more, as
you say, ego-mediated moments, e.g. of connoisseurship . But there is also
a way in which what immediate states of consciousness one can inhabit are
mediated by mind and personal history. I take your point about habitus to
be in line with this point about mediated immediacy. So perhaps we agree?

-greg

On Fri, Apr 6, 2012 at 9:30 PM, Jay Lemke <jaylemke@umich.edu> wrote:

>
> I still think the ecstatic tradition in esthetics really is about
> ec-stasis, getting out of the (usual) state of being/ego-consciousness.
>
> So I'd maybe agree that all experiencing is necessarily mediated by the
> _body_, and if cultural habitus really is thoroughly embodied, then by that
> too, even in ecstasis. But not by the ego, not by or with a consciousness
> of self-as-experiencer, though this is no doubt in many cases a matter of
> degree. I think there is a sort of continuum or cline from feeling
> overwhelmed by the power of a work of art or music, to feeling ego-less in
> moments of ecstasy in Nature, to full-blown za-zen or samadhi ecstasis of
> the spiritual enlightenment variety.
>
> Presumably some of the alternative states of consciousness permitted by
> chemical modifications in the brain also fall on this continuum, or mimic
> it.
>
> Ego-mediated esthetic experience is more akin, I think, to conoisseurship,
> and need not be decadent so long as the emphasis falls on the appreciation
> rather than on ego or identity reinforcement. Though I admit that the
> latter is always implicit and frequently in a not unproductive tension with
> appreciation.
>
> I don't have time to get more into the discussion of Dewey, but I'm sure
> he'll be back.
>
> JAY.
>
>
> Jay Lemke
> Senior Research Scientist
> Laboratory for Comparative Human Cognition
> Adjunct Full Professor, Department of Communication
> University of California - San Diego
> 9500 Gilman Drive
> La Jolla, California 92093-0506
>
> New Website: www.jaylemke.com
>
> Professor (Adjunct status 2011-2012)
> School of Education
> University of Michigan
> Ann Arbor, MI 48109
>
> Professor Emeritus
> City University of New York
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Apr 4, 2012, at 12:28 AM, Greg Thompson wrote:
>
> > Jay,
> >
> > With regard to your comment:
> >
> >> My idea of the esthetic experience is that it blows us past the ego,
> blows
> > "us" away, and catalyzes a mode of Being prior to the >ego-object divide.
> >> No?
> >
> > I say "No."
> >
> > I don't think that it is possible for that experience to be prior to the
> > Ego in any real sense. It is always "through" our ego/I/self that we
> > experience anything. My point is not that this experience is a reflective
> > "I'm the type of person who X's." Rather, the point is that the
> experience
> > is immediately experienced as soon as the object is seen/heard/felt. But
> it
> > is also mediated by our being a certain type of person. Perhaps you would
> > be more comfortable if I spoke of this mediation as a mediation by
> habitus?
> >
> > So, to be clear, my "no" is really a "yes" to what you are saying Jay (or
> > so I think).
> >
> > And just to be clear, I was arguing for a flattening of a high-art
> > experience and a craft-practice experience. The built-in mediation by Ego
> > is there just as much in the craft-art as it is in the high-art. But the
> > point is that the artwork's ability to capture members of its audience
> into
> > a way of seeing is mediated by the Ego. I am arguing here that the
> > experience of ironic distance of the bourgeois art connoisseur is
> precisely
> > the same experience as the purportedly more "immediate" experience of the
> > ecstatic. Both are mediatedly immediate.
> >
> > But maybe that is nothing new.
> >
> > And for anyone interested in discussing, I just came across this paper
> > (free) on "Enchantment and Modernity" that nicely, to my mind, traces
> > "wonder" back and forth in history:
> > http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/111.3/saler.html
> > Although it deals with "enchantments" of a different sort (magical,
> ritual,
> > religious, supernatural, ecstatic, etc.), I think that it speaks to an
> > experience that is difficult to wrest from the grip of esthetic
> experience.
> >
> > -greg
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 6:22 PM, Jay Lemke <jaylemke@umich.edu> wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> I think it's come up here before, but I'd remind us about Dewey's Art
> and
> >> Experience, which was definitely making a move to try to redefine
> esthetic
> >> experience in a less elitist way, to ground it in a universal aspect of
> >> human experience, to merge the high-art experience and the
> craft-practice
> >> experience, and generally I'd say to "democratize" esthetics.
> >>
> >> In response to some of what Greg wrote here recently, it also struck me
> >> that perhaps there is something rather bourgeois about all this personal
> >> identity and "I'm the kind of person who does, feels X" reflexivity.
> >> Perhaps even a late modern cast to it. It seems to turn connoisseurship
> >> into something a bit more decadent, self-centered, pre-occupied with the
> >> ego, as opposed to the "ecstatic" tradition (as in ritual and festival,
> >> Bakhtin's carnivalesque, Victor Turner's liminality/communitas,
> >> Czikszentmihaly's flow), where the esthetic experience takes us "out of
> our
> >> Selves", into the music, the work, the unreflective experience. I think
> >> that tradition, however, is predicated more on active esthetic
> production
> >> as the norm, rather than the more consumerist approach we have devolved
> >> into under late capitalism.
> >>
> >> All this is probably further complicated by the different timescales of
> >> esthetic experience. When you perform a piece of music, or a dance, the
> >> timescale of action leaves no room for reflection. But when you compose
> a
> >> piece of music, or choreograph a dance, it does. It is certainly a
> cliche
> >> of modernism that the artist, in the downtime between bouts of
> production
> >> or inspiration, turns inwards and broods about the Self. Artist as
> >> narcissist. And now we have the art-consumer as narcissist. My idea of
> the
> >> esthetic experience is that it blows us past the ego, blows "us" away,
> and
> >> catalyzes a mode of Being prior to the ego-object divide.
> >>
> >> No?
> >>
> >> JAY.
> >>
> >>
> >> Jay Lemke
> >> Senior Research Scientist
> >> Laboratory for Comparative Human Cognition
> >> Adjunct Full Professor, Department of Communication
> >> University of California - San Diego
> >> 9500 Gilman Drive
> >> La Jolla, California 92093-0506
> >>
> >> New Website: www.jaylemke.com
> >>
> >> Professor (Adjunct status 2011-2012)
> >> School of Education
> >> University of Michigan
> >> Ann Arbor, MI 48109
> >>
> >> Professor Emeritus
> >> City University of New York
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On Mar 31, 2012, at 8:42 PM, Martin Packer wrote:
> >>
> >>> Greg,
> >>>
> >>> I think it is Larry you should be thanking for posting the article on
> >> Gadamer. But since you link back to questions I was asking about
> >> self-as-subject and self-as-object, I'll send a quick response to your
> >> message.
> >>>
> >>> As I recall, Bourdieu in Distinction was taking a shot at a bourgeois
> >> aesthetics of detached, disinterested appreciation - which he diagnosed
> in
> >> Kant's treatment of beauty, for example. So an ethics of immersion and
> >> participation strikes me as a move forward, though I grant you there's
> >> still a pretty big difference between being engrossed  in a painting in
> a
> >> gallery and being engrossed in a sing-song while quaffing ale and
> munching
> >> mutton.
> >>>
> >>> In both cases, though, there's a kind of appreciation in which rather
> >> than there being a clear and distinct object of perception there is
> instead
> >> a sense of moving through the object - if that is still the right word
> - of
> >> a flow and movement as though through a landscape, across a terrain.
> >> Various literary critics have said the same about the reading of a book.
> >>>
> >>> As you say, in general the self does not stand out in such an
> >> experience. Would you say that self-as-object starts to appear largely
> in
> >> occasions like that of your imaginary military man at the rally of the
> >> Mothers? That seems to be in line with Vygotsky's account of
> self-awareness
> >> manifesting as oppositionality in early childhood. But that's not so
> much
> >> recognition as struggle. Which reading of Hegel would you wish to make?
> >>>
> >>> Martin
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On Mar 31, 2012, at 1:21 AM, Greg Thompson wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> Martin,
> >>>> Thanks for pointing out this very nice (and relatively short!) piece.
> >>>>
> >>>> I wholly agree with Gadamer's position (as described by Grondin) and
> >> find
> >>>> it a very appealing approach with one major caveat. First the
> appealing
> >>>> parts, and second the caveat.
> >>>>
> >>>> Gadamer's notion of the ability of art to "pull in" its audience
> >>>> articulates very nicely with a Latourian notion of actants (see bottom
> >> of
> >>>> p. 44 for lovely language about being "engrossed" and "pulled in" -
> >> "where
> >>>> our whole being is at stake").
> >>>>
> >>>> And yes indeed, as Gadamer notes, the true experience of the play is
> >> "being
> >>>> drawn into" the opposite of which is "not taking part" (cf. Durkheim's
> >>>> "anomie", but also consider Dewey's notions of the ideal balance
> between
> >>>> "goofing off" and "drudgery" that is further developed by Rathunde and
> >>>> Cziksentmihalyi in the notion of "serious play").
> >>>>
> >>>> Also, a lovely idea about the "temporality" of the experience of art:
> >> "The
> >>>> play of art will never be conceptually grasped; we may only
> participate
> >> in
> >>>> it to the extent that we allow ourselves to be moved by its magic."
> >>>>
> >>>> Gadamer nicely points to the way in which a persons self is taken up
> >> into
> >>>> the act of experiencing the art. This is an important move. As is the
> >> move
> >>>> away from epistemology and the desire for control via knowing -
> without
> >>>> much appreciation of the activity of knowing.
> >>>>
> >>>> Generally, I am in complete agreement with Gadamer's take, and I'm
> >>>> particularly fond of the blending together of play in art, festival,
> and
> >>>> ritual. I would add that I think Goffman's notion of interaction
> ritual
> >>>> (drawing on Durkheim's social ontology of subjectivity) accomplishes
> >>>> perhaps all of the work that Gadamer (via Grondin) is doing in this
> >> piece.
> >>>>
> >>>> But I can't help but be concerned about this deeply bourgeois notion
> of
> >>>> "the aesthetic" (rightly picked apart by Bourdieu and others). I'd
> >> rather
> >>>> bring it back down to earth, and return to what we might call the art
> of
> >>>> everyday life, a somewhat "crasser" notion of what is at work in play
> >> (and
> >>>> art). (I think that Grondin addresses this concern, to some degree,
> >> toward
> >>>> the end of his essay, but "art" seems to remain as something that
> >> everyone
> >>>> "gets" in one way or another).
> >>>>
> >>>> Social psychologist Jon Haidt has done some interesting work on what
> >>>> happens in the brain when one's hero (e.g., political hero, whether
> >> Barack
> >>>> Obama or George W. Bush) has been accused of doing something wrong,
> and
> >>>> then one finds one's hero vindicated. What he finds is that the
> >> "pleasure"
> >>>> areas of the brain "light up" (i.e. are active) when the vindication
> >>>> occurs. This is surely a banal insight - I discovered long ago the
> >> notion
> >>>> of a "feel good" thought - you know the thought that you are thinking
> >> and
> >>>> then manage to forget the content but remember the "feel" of it? And
> >> poets
> >>>> have been speaking of this for hundreds if not thousands of years.
> >>>>
> >>>> And this is a point that Levi-Strauss made long ago in his suggestion
> >> that
> >>>> we seek out structure, we desire it aesthetically. We seek patterns in
> >> the
> >>>> world and when we find them, we feel good. An aesthetic impulse. This
> >> is,
> >>>> perhaps, most effectively argued in The Sorcerer and His Magic where
> he
> >>>> presents three cases in which the truth of the events becomes
> secondary
> >> to
> >>>> the meaningful structures by which they are interpreted. Better to
> >> justify
> >>>> the system of meaning and deny what "really" happened rather than
> accept
> >>>> what "really" happened and deny the reality of the structures of
> meaning
> >>>> that provide one with a life-world. This simple contradiction between
> >>>> structure and event is at the core of what L-S was up to in his very
> >> long
> >>>> life. The contradiction happens whenever, as it inevitably will, the
> >> events
> >>>> of the world exceed the explanatory power of the structures of meaning
> >> by
> >>>> which we understand those events.
> >>>>
> >>>> What I think L-S was missing was a notion of recognition. That is to
> >> say,
> >>>> that it is not aesthetic impulse alone but rather that it is an
> impulse
> >> to
> >>>> be consummated in a way that 1) asserts the agency of the self (and a
> >>>> particular kind, an agency in social worlds) and 2) asserts the value
> of
> >>>> the self. So when "the facts" cause us to challenge the system of
> >> meaning
> >>>> that gives our self meaning and through which we attain powerful forms
> >> of
> >>>> social agency, it is better to deny the facts rather than become
> >>>> meaningless, or worse without a system withing which to know how to
> >> act. In
> >>>> either case, un-ruled, anomic. When we hear the exculpatory evidence
> of
> >>>> Barack O'Bama or George Bush, it is not just that a view of the world
> >> has
> >>>> been confirmed. Rather, it is that *we* ourselves (as "Democrats" or
> >>>> "Republicans") have been confirmed! The aesthetic impulse by itself
> >> would
> >>>> do little if it weren't for a self that breathes life into it and
> which
> >> it
> >>>> breathes life into.
> >>>>
> >>>> This is where I think Gadamer falls short as well. Gadamer is right to
> >>>> point out that there is an experience of the event that is prior to
> >>>> objectifications of the event and of the self (a kind of "absorption"
> >>>> (samadhi?) into the interaction/activity/play/festival/ritual). This
> >>>> phenomenological moment of pre-objectified (apparent) immediacy is
> right
> >>>> on. It is true that one can be pulled into such moments and this
> >> "pulling
> >>>> in" is a critical feature of human life (Goffman speaks of
> >> "engrossables"
> >>>> and of "involvement" in interaction). But there is also an object that
> >>>> matters in the event. We could speak of numerous play/festival/ritual
> >>>> events that wouldn't have these engrossing effects on participants
> >>>> precisely because of the nature of the object qua "self" that is
> >> entering
> >>>> into the event (aka the "subject").
> >>>>
> >>>> I once saw a lovely talk by an anthropologist who was speaking of the
> >>>> collective effervescence in a rally for the Mothers of the Plaza de
> >> Mayo in
> >>>> Argentina and is in protest of the military men who are considered to
> be
> >>>> responsible for the disappearance of their children. Every year there
> >> is a
> >>>> major gathering that takes on a festival like quality. At the lead-up
> to
> >>>> the main event, the whole crowd jumps up and down shouting (in
> Spanish)
> >> "if
> >>>> you're not jumping, you're a military man [i.e. the bad guys]." The
> >>>> anthropologist and the audience of anthropologists (at the University
> of
> >>>> Chicago) all insisted that this collective effervescence was all
> >>>> encompassing and that everyone present was pulled into the moment of
> >>>> jumping up and down (and the anthropologist presenting had some
> >> wonderful
> >>>> video of the event in which it did indeed seem that everyone was
> >> jumping up
> >>>> and down). But I couldn't help but ask "what if you are a military
> man?
> >>>> Would you be jumping just the same? or would you be cursing these
> >> "heathen"
> >>>> who are (perhaps to your mind) acting like animals?"
> >>>>
> >>>> Sure, the self-as-object may not be objectified in this moment, for
> >> there
> >>>> is an immediacy to the experience - we (apparently) perceive the world
> >> "as
> >>>> it is," not "as it is *to us*." So, in responding to Gadamer, there is
> >> no
> >>>> need to go back to an overly objectified notion of the self as
> subject.
> >> But
> >>>> at the same time, that the self-as-subject is consequential in the
> >> ordering
> >>>> of experience, and in making the experience of absorption
> "immediately"
> >>>> available in the first place, this is something that should not be
> left
> >> out
> >>>> lest we imagine that the bourgeois experience of walking into an art
> >>>> gallery and being "taken in" by the art is an experience that is
> somehow
> >>>> universal.
> >>>>
> >>>> All I'm saying here is that it would seem to me that the
> >> subject-as-object
> >>>> matters, more than a little, in the moment of absorption.
> >>>>
> >>>> Maybe Gadamer has built this somewhere into his structures of meaning
> >> and
> >>>> perhaps I missed it (maybe it was even in the aforementioned text).
> >> Happy
> >>>> to have someone set the record straight.
> >>>>
> >>>> Best,
> >>>> -greg
> >>>>
> >>>> On Thu, Mar 29, 2012 at 10:43 PM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>
> >> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> Martin,
> >>>>> thanks for this link to the International Journal for Dialogical
> >> Sciences.
> >>>>> In the same spirit of exploring the notion of *understanding
> >> understanding*
> >>>>> I'm sending a link to a scholar [Jean Grondin] who has engaged deeply
> >> with
> >>>>> Gadamer's writings.  It is only an 8 page document but introduces
> >> Gadamer's
> >>>>> ideas in a seriously playful *way*
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>
> http://mapageweb.umontreal.ca/grondinj/pdf/play_festival_ritual_gadam.pdf
> >>>>>
> >>>>> The article is a fascinating interpretation of the centrality of
> play,
> >>>>> festival, and ritual in our ways of becoming human.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Larry
> >>>>>
> >>>>> PS Greg,
> >>>>> The article also engages with the modern sense of self as preoccupied
> >> with
> >>>>> self-control
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On Sun, Mar 25, 2012 at 10:35 AM, Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu>
> >> wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> Hi Larry,
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Seems that this may be a helpful resource: The International Journal
> >> for
> >>>>>> Dialogical Science.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> <http://ijds.lemoyne.edu/>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Martin
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> On Mar 25, 2012, at 9:55 AM, Larry Purss wrote:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Martin,
> >>>>>>> thank you for your last clarification on Reddy's notions of the
> >>>>> relation
> >>>>>> of
> >>>>>>> 2nd person and 3rd person "ways of knowing".  Further on this topic
> >> of
> >>>>>>> "ways of knowing" I want to share a provocative quote from Joel
> >>>>>> Weinsheimer
> >>>>>>> in his book *Philosophical Hermeneutics and Literary Theory*.  He
> is
> >>>>>>> exploring Gadamer's notion that theory and validity do NOT
> *contain*
> >>>>>>> understanding. This quote also may contribute to the discussion of
> >>>>>>> technology.  Martin, I also remember you recommending that we read
> >>>>>> Hayden
> >>>>>>> White's insights. In the spirit of understanding understanding,
> >> Joel
> >>>>> is
> >>>>>>> attempting to highlight Gadamer's distinction between *theory* &
> >>>>>>> *philosophy*
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Greg,
> >>>>>>> I'm also sharing this quote because of the theme you were exploring
> >>>>> about
> >>>>>>> *the will to power* and the notion of *owning* that seems to be an
> >>>>>>> archetypal theme.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Gadamer's hermeneutic philosophy concludes that what is universal
> to
> >>>>>>> interpretation, if there is anythng universal at all, is not a
> canon
> >> of
> >>>>>>> interpretive REGULATIONS.....
> >>>>>>> It is, after all, primarily in industry, or more generally in
> >>>>> technology,
> >>>>>>> that theories find practical applications.  Even if students of
> >>>>>> literature
> >>>>>>> are repulsed by the notion of an interpretation industry, many
> still
> >>>>>>> cherish the notion that the IDEAL interpretation is that which is
> the
> >>>>>>> product of and is legitimated by applied theory and this suggests
> >> that
> >>>>>>> interpretation ideally consists of CONTROLLED production, of
> >>>>> subjectively
> >>>>>>> REGULATED creation.  Insofar as the ery purpose of literary or any
> >>>>> other
> >>>>>>> theory is to GOVERN practice, Gadamer is quite right to state, '
> >> Modern
> >>>>>>> theory is a tool of construction by means of which we gather
> >>>>> experiences
> >>>>>> in
> >>>>>>> a unified way and make it possible to dominate them'.  Offering
> >>>>> dominion
> >>>>>>> over literary experience, interpretation CONTROLLED by applied
> theory
> >>>>> is
> >>>>>> a
> >>>>>>> function of the WILL TO POWER". [page 30]
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Larry
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> "
> >>>>>>> __________________________________________
> >>>>>>> _____
> >>>>>>> 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
> >>>>>>
> >>>>> __________________________________________
> >>>>> _____
> >>>>> xmca mailing list
> >>>>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> >>>>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >>>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> --
> >>>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
> >>>> Sanford I. Berman Post-Doctoral Scholar
> >>>> Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition
> >>>> Department of Communication
> >>>> University of California, San Diego
> >>>> http://ucsd.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
> >>>> __________________________________________
> >>>> _____
> >>>> 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
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >> __________________________________________
> >> _____
> >> xmca mailing list
> >> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> >> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
> > Sanford I. Berman Post-Doctoral Scholar
> > Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition
> > Department of Communication
> > University of California, San Diego
> > http://ucsd.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
> > __________________________________________
> > _____
> > xmca mailing list
> > xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> > http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >
> >
>
> __________________________________________
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>



-- 
Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
Sanford I. Berman Post-Doctoral Scholar
Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition
Department of Communication
University of California, San Diego
http://ucsd.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
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