Dear everybody-
I strongly agree with Mike who wrote,
> I do not particularly like the term "bias" because of its negative
> overtones, but if we are talking in terms of, say, "bias filters" or just
> "filters" the notion that ideas change when they change
cultural-historical
> contexts ought to be taken for granted. For a long time, owing to obvious
> political factors of a bi-directional sort, examination of Vygotsky in
> context was not doable.
Any alive organism has biases: preferences, attractions, and dislikes. To
become without biases is to become dead. I think we need to move away from
negative overtones of the notion of "bias" toward examining biases in
context of practices. For example, it is true that US social sciences are
biased toward the issues of diversity that Vygotsky originally was not much
concerned (actually reverse might be true). However, I do not see anything
wrong in this bias. I do not see anything wrong that Vygotsky's contribution
is viewed through a prism of diversity issues even though Vygotsky himself
did not have this focus in mind. If scholars form other countries do not
have this bias, it is OK. I think we should avoid a fight for "pure" or
"correct" understand of Vygotsky. Understanding has always to be biased to
become relevant.
What do you think?
Eugene
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mike Cole [mailto:mcole@weber.ucsd.edu]
> Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2003 8:29 PM
> To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> Subject: reading critically
>
>
> While I have a momement, I will comment on Phil's reflections reading
Kozulin
> et al (which I have not yet seen, so cannot comment on directly).
>
> First, its great that (mostly) Russians have put together a book on this
> topic. I do not particularly like the term "bias" because of its negative
> overtones, but if we are talking in terms of, say, "bias filters" or just
> "filters" the notion that ideas change when they change
cultural-historical
> contexts ought to be taken for granted. For a long time, owing to obvious
> political factors of a bi-directional sort, examination of Vygotsky in
> context was not doable.
>
> Second, there is a pretty large literature out there now on the very
questions
> you ask, Phil. I note that none of my recent writings on the subject are
on
> my web page, which needs updating in any event. But you can start pretty
> far back.
>
> Alex Kozulin wrote a fine book called "Psychology in Utopia" which I
strongly
> recommend. It contains a lot of information relevant to your concerns.
Valsiner's
> Developmental Psychology in the USSR, also 15-20 years old is worth re-
> reading any time you have the time.
>
> Jim Wertsch has written about Vyogtsky in context in several of his
> publications.
>
> Concerns about the trivialization of the notion of a zoped have been
expressed
> from a number of sources including Bonnie Litowitz in the collection on
> activity theory (obtainable free in the lchc newsletter archives),
Valisner's
> attempts to deal with the metaphor of zones, Chaiklin's (post on xmca)
> fine critical discussion from last year, discussed here, Griffin and
Cole's
> critical discussion in Rogoff and Wertsch (1984) little edited book
> on the zone of proximal development (where Ann Brown and a student report
> on efforts to make the zoped measurable), critical writings in work by
> Harry Daniels.........
>
> The attempts to distance Vygotsky from marxism strike me as unfortunate,
but
> so do efforts to romanticize him and Soviet communism, which he supported
> for a good deal of his short life.
>
> I could not agree more that "we need to move beyond good linguistic
> translations" of LSV" to better cultural implications of his ideas. Do
> we have good translations? Of various kinds, yes. After more labor by more
> people than I care to try to remember.
>
> And as to discovering the cultural implications, isn't that one
formulation
> of the goals of xmca?
>
> How well is it being done? Well, I am not satisfied. But I have long been
> enjoying the collective labor such work entails.
>
> Great, important, questions to move us toward the new year.
> mike
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jan 01 2004 - 01:00:09 PST