Wertsch's Motorcycle...

Bill Barowy (wbarowy who-is-at lesley.edu)
Mon, 14 Sep 1998 17:42:41 -0400

... or Mind as Zen.

Unit of Analysis. Unit of Analysis? Unit of Analysis! Jim Wertsch's
concluding remarks about the inherent limitations of taking the individual
as the unit of analysis can be deeply disturbing when examining the merits
of an individual-based, decentralized computer modeling environment,
especially when it forms the core of some new research. Therefore, my
previous writing about chapter one worried me. Would the results of
attempting to model communication with such a tool be accepted by a
community that takes action as it's unit of analysis or would the results
be dismissed? Perhaps considered incommensurable?

"Working on a motorcycle, working well, caring, is to become a part of the
process, to achieve an inner piece of mind." -- Robert Pirsig

I had a motorcycle once, and began to frame 'mind' in its terms. What does
a person see in a motorcyle? For some, it is freedom, to be able to go
somewhere, not enclosed in a cage, covering new territory. For others, it
is social belonging, grouping with others, roaring down the road, together,
as one. For some it is esthestic, a gleaming, streamlined work of art. Or
a symbol of machismo, rebellion. Jimmy Dean or Easy Rider. None of these
views obviate the others. Hmmm...

Then there are those who work on motrorcycles. "We are at the
classic-romantic barrier now, where on one side we see the motorcycle as it
appears immediately...and this is an important way of seeing it...and where
on the other side we can begin to see it ... in terms of underlying
form...and this is an important way of seeing things too." With
motorcycles today, there are specialists for the electrical system, the
engine, the cooling system. Each has something to work on. Each has a
different underlying form to see in the artifact. Each has something to
contribute.

There are many perspectives. Somehow "motorcycle" is all of them.

The team of designers need to take all of this in stride. Creating a new
motorcycle itegrates each perspective, all put together with all the pieces
fitting into place. And it has to appeal to the rider, getting them where
they want to go, in the way they want to do it. Each of the team of
designers does not need to fully understand the workings of the others'
particular specialties, but they do need to understand how their own works
together with the others', and fits into the complete assembly of the
machine, achieving the integration so that the rider can get on, start the
bike, and go, without thinking about all the underlying functionality.
Unless they are like Robert Pirsig.

But each specialty does not really call their focus a 'unit of analysis'.
This is what was troubling me. Possibly the word "unit" per se is too
separative, too much like putting up barriers between disciplines. The
motorcycle designers' focus is usually something more integrative, but
distinctly named. "Electrical system". "Mechanical system". "Cooling
system". Sometimes the word "subsystem" is used to re-mind those that the
thing they are focussing on is just a piece of the whole. Although "unit"
sometimes carries the import of something that is a constituent of a
whole, it more often has meaning as a single quantity regarded, itself, as
a whole, and this can be problematic.

When von Glasersfeld writes "Social constructionists [Ken Gergen & Co.]
agree with the radicals that reality cannot be known, but they speak of
social reality as though it were something outside the heads of people..."
he *knowingly* misinterprets the perspective, what the social perspective
has to offer. Of course he knows. Students of Piaget realize the act of
assimilating "social reality" into a radical constructist perspective will
not occur without distortion. Yet radical constructivism per se has much
to offer, especially as an individualistic perspective, precisely because
the issue it raises "How does one come to know the world?" begs the
question of culture, while simultaneously developing an argument that
precludes the specters of direct transmission -- empiricism and
behaviorism. Unfortunately many misinterpret "radical" to mean 'individual
in isolation from a social and physical environment' when, drawing upon
Bateson and Maturana, that is exactly what Ernst does not mean.

"The goal, then, is to arrive at an account -- a kind of "translation at
the crossroads"-- that would make it possible to link, but not reduce, one
perspective to another." For me, this is the essence of the first chapter.
This is Jim's call to action, where we especially must endeavor. Somehow
the computer modeling makes sense.

"It is going to get better now. You can sort of tell with these things. "
R.P.

:-)

Bill Barowy, Associate Professor
Technology in Education
Lesley College, 29 Everett Street, Cambridge, MA 02138-2790
Phone: 617-349-8168 / Fax: 617-349-8169
http://www.lesley.edu/faculty/wbarowy/Barowy.html
_______________________
"One of life's quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself
and watch yourself softly become the author of something beautiful."
[Norman Maclean in "A river runs through it."]