Dear Anna--
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Stetsenko, Anna [mailto:AStetsenko@gc.cuny.edu]
> Sent: Wednesday, April 04, 2001 3:57 PM
> To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> Subject: RE: who said?
>
>
> Eugene Matusov wrote:
>
> >As to rejecting cultural-historical progressivism and
> >dialoging with it at
> >the same time, I think it is possible.
>
> The problem is not that it is impossible or possible (I think it
> is possible
> and I hinted at that in my response(and also have written about how to
> complement elements of various views within socio-cultural-hisotrical
> perspective, for example, in the mca paper). The problem is that you NEVER
> mentioned the rejection-together-with-dialogue option in your posting.
>Now
> that you have backed up from the rigid dichotomy and the outright
> 'rejection
> stance' that you had initially suggested
I want to add a clarification comment. I did not "have backed up from the
rigid dichotomy." As Mike said earlier, what I wrote earlier was in a
different context. I persoanlly do not believe in the idea that something
written can have self-sufficient intertextual articulatedness taking out of
context. Since you raised your very good concern about a complex
relationship between (and within) "Russian" and "American" Vygotskian
apporaches and thus bring a new context in our previous discussion, I tried
to elaborated my position.
> - the more balanced view is
> restored and my goal is achieved (by the way, rejection is still not the
> best word, why not use 'dialectic negation' instead, you should know the
> difference, I am sure).
I do not think that 'dialectic negation' is an appropriate term here because
in my view "American" focus on diversity and "Russian" focus on historical
progress are not in dialect but rather in dialogic relations. I'd be very
interested if you or somebody would try to reveal a dialectic relation in
that.
>
> >It would be helpful (at least for me) if you can present
> >Davydov's quotes where he appreciates diversity,
> >criticizes ethnocentrism in the notion of progress, and/or
> >considers truth
> as a social construction.
>
> I never said Davydov did enough of this - this is not news to anybody. And
> Mike did describe the reactions to his talks fairly. The more important
> question that I wanted people to consider is WHY he did not do this and,
> also, whether this relative lack of a 'diversity stance' (and also his
> claims about 'primitive thinking') could have a different meaning in the
> context of his approach than in, say, Spencer's evolutionary approach? I
> think they could and did! But this is a different story, however.
> And a much
> more inetersting question.
Very interesting question. I want to add that it can be very inresting to
consider different socio-historical-political project that scholars of
different perspective engaged that force them to assume these perspectives.
What do you think?
Eugene
>
> Anna
> PS. Ana Marjanovic's name is with one 'n'. Why so many people keep calling
> her with what is not her name? Ana, I hope you don't mind me pointing to
> this.
Interesting observation. Coming to US, I found that I lost any "speeling
intuition" that I used to have (any spelling is possible)... My recent trip
in South Africa where I tried to learn several African languages using
English-based alphabet writing system added to my spelling fuzziness.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Eugene Matusov [mailto:ematusov@UDel.Edu]
> Sent: Tuesday, April 03, 2001 7:19 PM
> To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> Subject: RE: who said?
>
>
> Dear Anna--
>
> You are right 110% that my description of characterization of Russian
> Vygotskian school is imprecise, stereotyping, overreaching and so
> on. In my
> defense, I would say that I warned people (in earlier postings) that I'm
> caricaturing and exaggerating to make the contrast more visible. You are
> right that there are plenty examples of Russian scholars working
> in dialogic
> tradition -- to list a few Bakhtin, Bibler, Arsen'ev. You also right that
> you can find the Hegel-Marx-Vygotsky tradition of historical progressivism
> in many non-Russian Vygotskian scholars. My apology for that.
>
> > And rejection is opposite to a dialogue, isn't it? --
> > this being my
> > main message, by the way. Or otherwise, I do not know what rejection is
> > about...
> As to rejecting cultural-historical progressivism and dialoging with it at
> the same time, I think it is possible. My favorite argument is that for
> dialoguing you do not need to agree with your partner of dialogue. For
> example, behaviorist critique contributed to development and strengthening
> cognitive perspective in 50s and 60s. They were in dialogic relation with
> each other.
>
> Specifically you can find a lot of dialoguing about directionality of
> development (the key concept in the Hegel-Marx-Vygotsky tradition) with
> cultural-historical progressivism approaches while rejecting its
> ethnocentrism in work of Jaan Valsiner, Jay Lemke, and my own work (sorry
> for missing many others).
>
> > As to Davydov: I happened to see him giving talks in Germany, for
> > example. I
> > was struck by how difficult it was for people there to make sense of his
> > words... I do blame the effects of being taken out of context (in many
> > senses of this expression, e.g., of him talking in an alien context with
> > often bad translation, of others not knowing his philosophy and
> > psychological framework etc) for this.
> I knew Vasilii Vasil'evich Davydov personally during the end of
> 70s -- early
> 80s and in my recollection of Davydov's presentations, debates, speeches,
> and lectures (in MSU), I think that Mike's depiction of his position is
> correct (at least for these years and my exposure of Davydov). It would be
> helpful (at least for me) if you can present Davydov's quotes where he
> appreciates diversity, criticizes ethnocentrism in the notion of progress,
> and/or considers truth as a social construction.
>
> I want to emphasize that Davydov was an extremely interesting and
> important
> scholar and must-know for sociocultural/CHAT family of approaches
> (our many
> discussion of Davydov's ideas on XMCA is evidence for that). I also agree
> with Anna that sometimes if it is difficult for people in US to understand
> and fully appreciate Davydov because of a lack of shared conceptual (and
> probably cultural and historical) context and background.
>
> What do you think?
>
> Eugene
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Stetsenko, Anna [mailto:AStetsenko@gc.cuny.edu]
> > Sent: Tuesday, April 03, 2001 4:18 PM
> > To: 'xmca@weber.ucsd.edu'
> > Subject: RE: who said?
> >
> >
> > Mike, one thing for sure - you never said or implied this. "OVER".
> >
> > I think I reacted to this posting by Eugene Matusov:
> > "US Vygotskian school (or better to say a family of approaches)
> > rejects the
> > Hegel-Marx-Vygotsky idea of one historical development of society
> > and focus,
> > instead, on relations among cultures." Given that "the
> Hegel-Marx-Vygotsky
> > idea of one historical development" was meant to be the
> centerpiece of the
> > Russian school (in the same message), this did sound as a
> > REJECTION, didn't
> > it? And rejection can't be done without this 'over' and this
> > 'abandonment',
> > can it? And rejection is opposite to a dialogue, isn't it? --
> > this being my
> > main message, by the way. Or otherwise, I do not know what rejection is
> > about...
> >
> > As to Davydov: I happened to see him giving talks in Germany, for
> > example. I
> > was struck by how difficult it was for people there to make sense of his
> > words... I do blame the effects of being taken out of context (in many
> > senses of this expression, e.g., of him talking in an alien context with
> > often bad translation, of others not knowing his philosophy and
> > psychological framework etc) for this. As to 'a la Spencer', I think, in
> > essence, nothing can be farther away from Spencer's
> evolutionary thinking
> > than Davydov's cultural-historical view of learning as the pathway of
> > development and of mind as formed by cultural tools.
> > Anna
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Mike Cole [mailto:mcole@weber.ucsd.edu]
> > Sent: Monday, April 02, 2001 6:44 PM
> > To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> > Subject: who said?
> >
> >
> >
> > Anna--
> >
> > Where did this appear in the discussion?
> > By the way, setting a clear preference of
> > the latter OVER the former, and claiming that the
> cultural-historical view
> > should be COMPLETELY abandoned in favor of the sociocultural view isn't
> > perhaps a best way to pursue diversity and dialogue?
> >
> >
> > About Davydov. He was speaking to an ethnically diverse group of people
> > at LCHC the first time I heard him speak this way. The second time was
> > at a developmental conference in Moscow where he took a strong hegelian
> > stance that primitive peoples indeed think primitively, a la Spencer/
> >
> >
> > Contextaualizing Vasilii Vasilievitch's view is a big help, thanks.
> > mike
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue May 01 2001 - 01:01:46 PDT