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Re: [xmca] Any work on the development of egoism in the child(ren)



Mike, David:
Sorry for not being clear. I did not mean egocentrism of the child nor
his/her egocentric speech.
What I meant was the defective characteristic that some human beings gain in
the process of being adults: Egoism. And I meant the process of how the
chilld, on his/her lifetime, becomes an egoistic adult, I mean the thinking,
speech, language of the human society which carries egoism into the child
and in this sense the process how the child internalizes egoism from his/her
social relations etc.
Ulvi



2010/11/13 David Kellogg <vaughndogblack@yahoo.com>

> Ulvi:
>
> I think Vygotsky doesn't accept Piaget's idea that children are egocentric
> in their thinking, and if you read how he uses "egocentric speech" you will
> see that he guts it of all of its "egocentric" comment; he simply means
> speech that is meant for the child's own ears rather than those of someone
> else. So Vygotsky essentially rejects the whole idea of child egotism and
> even child egocentrism.
>
> Even Piaget eventually decided that the word "ego" was misplaced. In his
> later work he describes the child's thinking as "non-decentrated" or
> "centrated". What he means is that the child lives in a kind of
> pre-Copernican universe (although of course our idea that there is only one
> universe may also be a vestige of centration!).
>
> Vygotsky uses the term "egocentric speech" the way that a thieving magpie
> uses a stolen spoon to build a nest. It doesn't really fit his construction
> very well, because Vygotsky thinks that the child really HAS no ego until
> quite late.
>
> Functionally, the child begins to act like an ego from the moment (the
> Crisis at Age Three, according to Vygotsky's Collected Works Volume Five)
> that the child seizes that great and powerful word "No!" from his
> environment. But as Vygotsky points out, the child often uses this word even
> when the child wants to say yes.
>
> I remember promising my little neice-lette at five that I would take her to
> Seoul-Land if she finished copying seven Chinese characters. She dawdled a
> long time, but finally did it. So I asked her if she still wanted to go, and
> she said "No!" although she visibly did want to go, and she cried when we
> didn't.
>
> So we can say that at this stage the child has an ego "for others" but not
> for herself; it is a purely reactive, interactional, functional ego and not
> a conscious, volitional, controllable one. (We certainly CANNOT say that the
> child has difficulty in detaching her own point of view from that of others;
> she is very conscious that "No!" suggests a fundamental difference in stance
> from those in her circumstance.)
>
> We can't really say that she has an ego for herself, because she is not
> able to control her will and her ego. She is able to differentiate an "I"
> from what Vygotsky calls "Ur-wir" (The proto-We, or as I like to think of
> it, the "Royal We").
>
> But she does this only in action and reaction, and not in thought and
> reflection. It's easier done than said, one of those things that is all very
> well in practice, but it doesn't quite work out in theory.
>
> When does "I" become "ego", that is, when do children seize conscious
> awareness of the separateness of "I" from "we"?  It seems to me this must
> happen about the time that children develop invisible friends, hero-worship,
> and become highly interested in role-playing games. Which strikes me as
> non-coincidental.
>
> David Kellogg
> Seoul National University of Education
>
>
> --- On Fri, 11/12/10, ulvi icil <ulvi.icil@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> From: ulvi icil <ulvi.icil@gmail.com>
> Subject: [xmca] Any work on the development of egoism in the child(ren)
> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Date: Friday, November 12, 2010, 3:03 AM
>
>
> Dear all,
>
> Did anybody meet any work on the development of egoism in the child(ren)? (
> Surely, from the Vygotskian perspective)
> Thanks
> Ulvi
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