I have been reading both Leontiev and XMCA in pieces as time allows. This
morning I have been able to get time to read through the threaded
discussion (bless that aspect of the web!) and part of ANL's ch5.
I will not touch on Ch5 here. Personality is a very difficult topic for
me, even more difficult in some ways than consciousness (my behaviorist
past? A warped personality? :-) ). Yet is it one that I have written
about in our intro developmental text. So I may find something useful
to add.
I will touch on some issues raised in the discussion. The long summaries
and provision of historical background have been very helpful and I
might be able to contribute a little here.
First, on the social-->individual thread. Last heard from I was asking
where Dewey's reflex arc paper was in the discussion in connection with
the assertion of the primacy of the social and ANL starting his
"psychic cycle" with the external acting on the internal. Andy and
Peter(?) provided further, to my mind very helpful, comments. I was
especially glad when the word "cultural" got into the bio-social formulation
because I think that overcoming the seeming contradiction between
starting the cycle from the outside and presupposing an actively appropriating
organism can best be desolved by inclusion of the cultural. As Andy(?)
pointed out, the individual is an individual only by virtue of being a
member of a social group and in this sense, not only a social-individual
dichotomy but a social-biological dichotmy is pure confusion. All humans,
the human "socium" is a biological formation!
As I tried to argue (I don't think we ever got this far in the discussion
of cultural psychology "the book") the artifact-saturated world we refer
to as culture is constituted of material that is NOT exclusively biological
and does not change at the same rate or according to the same principles
as homo sapiens. Darwinian evolution (random production of variation,
and natural selection) are complemented by NON-RANDOM production of variation
and natural selection (to put it in short hand). The result is a hybrid
of the sort we know as humanity.
The helpless newborn has no source of knowledge of the cultural resources
that will be needed to become a (re)productive adult other than those
who create an environment which enables that child's development in/through
culture. IN THIS SENSE, the "social" is "primary." Social others are the
necessary carriers of the cultural world which is the route to re-covering
the past and creating the future.
The first movement of the human embryo is the beginning of the beating of
the (very) primitive muscles that will become the human part. In that
beginning we see "in the beggining is the deed." But hearing infants are born
already having learned to recognize, and prefer, the sound envelope, the
tune, of their native language. In that beginning we see "in the
beginning is the word."
On context.
As a post doc in Moscow in 1962 and a frequent visitor in subsequent
years I was witness to both the unity forged by Leontiev and Luria and
the frictions between them. I conducted a gathering of all the
Vygotsky students I could find, in 1966, and tape recorded their
conversation (Davydov took a copy home with him after a visit, but
where the original is I have no idea). At the Lurias' flat. Everyone
came but Leontiev: Levina, Morozova, Elkonin, Zaporozhets, Bozhovich,
and Luria himself. The "old ladies" sang songs they had made up
when Leontiev's thesis was printed with a disclaimer from the
publishers as a frontpiece for its dubious political correctness.
They talked about the time spent in Kharkov (see 1981 issues of
Soviet Psychology for relevant articles). It was not just Leontiev
who went.
Later, I spent a pleasant evening with Alexei Nikolaitch and his
charming grandson, aka Dima Leontiev whose work can also be found
in Soviet Psychology.
So there was tension alright. But it was tension born of living
through terrifying times when people, in terror and weakness,
might confuse what they believe is scientifically correct for
the possibility of breathing, or saving a spouse or a child, or....
There may well have been principled scientific disagreements, but
my overall impression was/is that there was, during the late
'20's and early '30's a genuine division of labor and co-laboration
of people who were tremendously excited about the new psychology
and the new society they were struggling to build.
In the 1930's the external pressures motivated the move to Kharkov
and Leningrad (for some). LSV commuted by train among all three
locations I believe.
the Kharkov work is important and worth reading. The work of P.I.
Zinchenko and his criticisms of LSV are, to my mind, particularly
notworthy, but so were the interesting "anti-Piagetian" experiments.
During the war many of these people worked together in rehabilitiation,
not just Luria.
In the late 1950's, when they could regain their seats of original
academic power they did so. I do not understand the origins of
the hard feelings (as opposed to academic arguments) between
Rubenshteinians and Vygotskians, but dollars to donuts it was
about power and political betrayal. But despite published
disagreements with some aspects of LSV
s approach (co-authored with Luria) there was always a clear
co-identification with Vygotsky.
Skipping a couple of decades.
At the 1986 Activity theory congress in Berlin I believe mine
was the only paper that took vygotsky as its starting point (Yrjo
will correct me if I am wrong I am sure!). It was all Leontiev
except for the Russians (who were all Rubenshteinians-- they now
had power, including the all important power to travel and bar
others from travelling). But there was no repudiation of
Vygotsky! In fact, it was in conversations started at that time
with Yrjo, Arne, and others that the idea of referring to the
general theoretical position as CHAT (rather than any of its
many alternatives, including V-L-L which would be pretty hard
to export from Moscow) began.
Bottom line. There is a natural unity of semiotic mediation and
human activity that make it seem, to this admittedly naive
and partially educated observer, to make the idea of chat very
compfortable. I do not feel the need to "reconcile" CH and AT
because, despite internal contradictions and tensions (we are
talking about life here, right?) they provide a rich medium
for developing the idea that culture is central to the constitution
of human nature.
Sorry that got so long. Now I will go back to preparing for the
many classes I teach next week!
mike
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