Jay Lemke wrote:
>
> Catching up a bit on xmca messages after a week's vacation from email
> (though not from work ...) I was quite fascinated with the last twist on
> the 'know it by changing it' theme ....
>
> On the one hand, yes, there is something quite wonderful and revolutionary
> about the dialectical, or just dynamical notion that to study something you
> have to do more than just observe it, you have to ...
>
> and here the nuance seems to matter a lot, so consider some alternative
> formulations:
>
> ... manipulate it = the classical experimental method
>
> ... interact with it = the new ontology-epistemology of post-quantum science
>
> ... co-participate with it in larger scale activities = the social science
> version of 'interact with it'
>
> ... work to change it for the better = the modernist progressivist ideal
>
> but as Diane notes, this last one, which is shared by Marx and Levin, Dewey
> and Vygotsky, does still have a lot in common with the first one, which is
> subject to the critique that it represents the Faustian extreme in
> modernism ... i.e. a sort of patriarchal, control-oriented,
> invade-dominate-manipulate view that is dangerous enough when directed
> toward inanimate matter (historically it was largely driven by weapons
> development of one sort or another), contrary to a lot of moral principles
> when directed toward "humans like me" (but not when it's toward "humans not
> like me and so in need of improvement"), yet strangely morally imperative
> in modernism when directed with good intentions toward social systems
> (pro-social engineering), and most recently determined to be dangerous
> again when directed toward complex ecosystems that we (a) don't understand
> well enough to safely manipulate, and/or (b) have no right to manipulate in
> our narrow species interest (with -a- and -b- interdependent in rather
> interesting ways).
>
> So there is perhaps good reason to pause and reflect on the fine
> distinction between the Faustian side of progressivism, with its
> invader-dominator mentality, vs. the inevitability of interactionism (or
> relationalism in the social sphere) with its moral potential for taking
> responsibility for the problems of systems we participate in and cannot
> help but change or not change depending on our choices.
>
> On the epistemological side, we can safely say, I think, that we learn
> about our relationships to people and things through our co-participation
> with them in activity. But is it also necessary, or even necessarily
> desirable that we take an initiating or active-agentive role in this
> participation in order to learn? that we push and probe? at this point I
> think I detect a definite cultural bias, and within it perhaps a gender
> bias, that goes beyond an inevitable fact about learning (i.e.
> co-participation).
>
> On the moral side, accepting responsibility for our participation also
> seems safe, but I have always thought that the moral condition for more
> active agency (i.e. pursuing an agenda) is at least vulnerability to the
> consequences of our actions. When we seek to act so that "it" or "the
> other" is changed, but we are not, we are both deluded (because we cannot
> act on something/one but only act within some system/relation that joins us
> together), and also morally ill-intending because we seek to escape
> vulnerability and therefore to come to a position of being able to control
> without limit, without risk or hindrance by consequences ... i.e. to
> achieve an absolute position of power which corrupts absolutely.
>
> Perhaps in some such terms as these we can re-examine not only the various
> versions (in context) of what Marx, Levin, Dewey, Vygotsky, or Mao said and
> did, but what we ourselves do ... as educators, as researchers, as social
> activists, as parents, etc ....
>
> JAY.
>
> ---------------------------
> JAY L. LEMKE
> PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION
> CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
> JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
> <http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/education/jlemke/index.htm>
> ---------------------------