RE: Prototypical defining middle class

From: Eugene Matusov (ematusov@udel.edu)
Date: Tue Jan 25 2000 - 22:19:26 PST


Hi Nate and everybody---

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Nate Schmolze [mailto:schmolze@students.wisc.edu]
> Sent: Monday, January 24, 2000 10:08 AM
> To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> Subject: RE: Prototypical defining middle class
>
>
>

> "Can you elaborate about Uzbekistan, please? I do not know the history of
> the
> region well, but it seems to me that in pre-Soviet Uzbekistan there was
> non-Russian and religion-based literature (Farsi and Arabic, probably). Of
> course, there was very rich oral literacy. I've heard that in different
> historic time there was different rate of literacy spread in
> Uzbekistan. I'm
> sure that the current Uzbeki nationalist renaissance is based on that
> literacy and not on Russian-Soviet literacy. But I can be wrong
> -- it is my
> guess. I'm glad to know more details about the mater."
>
>
> Yes, there was religion based literature, but my understanding
> from Luria's
> work was that "literacy" was selective and very few had access to it. My
> point was in forming a "pre-soviet" Uzbekistan identity it was a
> version of
> literacy that was very Russian and a result of Luria's work and
> the literacy
> campaigns.

Behind "Luria's literacy campaigns" in Uzbekistan and other places of the
Soviet Union in 30s was NKVD the predecessor of KGB. If you carefully read
Luria's transcripts, you can find between the lines of "illiterate" people's
statements about power that Luria did not want to see in their answers (or
did he?!).

>I agree with you that there was a rich oral tradition and that
> was sort of the point. Now, this was a conversation that ocurred
> orally from
> someone that was on leave and returning to do their dissertation in
> Uzbekistan. This was a few years ago and from my understanding within the
> political context of reasserting Uzbekistan as opposed to Russian
> culture in
> schools and other aspects of society. To be Uzbeki meant to be literate in
> the "western" definition of the term as in reading and writing.

I think Anderson's work on imaginary communities can help to understand the
essence of modern nationalism.

> "I'm not sure I follow the analogy with Vygotsky's "genetic law"
> -- can you
> elaborate, please?"
>
> On a more collective level what is explicit or contested at a particular
> time in history becomes "internalized" or naturalized in the present.
> Textbooks are an example of this, their creation from the publishers,
> legislature, and other stakeholders is a political and contested
> process yet
> by the time they reach the classroom they become naturalized as facts or
> what history is. I was thinking of the genetic law more as a
> collective than
> individual process in that things that are public or contested at one
> historical time become "internalized" at a later point in time. This
> internalization has both positive and negative consequences.

I have to admit that I'm lost again. If you think that taking native
American children at the beginning of the 20th century and coercively
putting them in boarding schools is naturalization or "internalization" --
Ok let's it be. But I can't see how Vygotsky is relevant here.

Russification, modernization, and colonization of Uzbekistan by Soviet Union
disrupted and destroyed local culture and practices. Yes, many Uzbeki people
became "modern" as a result of it. Some of them can't speak Farsi -- they
speak only Russian. I'm not sure what we can gain much here by calling
colonization by a fancy term "internalization"? Yes, colonization and
imposition of the dominant culture is always a social process and its
success can be tracked in individuals who are its victims (and in their
children). I'm not sure that this is what Vygotsky meant by "genetic law,"
although... Can you tell me how Vygotsky helps you to conceptualize the
processes we are talking about, please? Am I missing something?

What do you think?

Eugene

> Nate



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