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Re: [xmca] Collective Experience vs. Individual Experience? (Help, anyone?)



What I mean by "shared experience," as something between individual and collective experience, is perfectly captured by how Andy characterizes shared experience. I experience something & find out you and I have both had that experience in common, and it has the power Andy describes.

What I mean by collective experience is experience in which the experience of others participates in the experience of any one, in the course of the experiencing. Temporal aspects are certainly crucial for this.

A single mother who has lost her job in "the great recession" and who is worried sick -- literally, to the point of being unable to sleep, and maybe even vomiting from stress-induced gastro-whatever -- is experiencing something somatically in a way that is particular to her own individual body; but, at the same time, it is not just an individual experience, like my experience of the shaking that I realized only after a few seconds must be an earthquake. That mother's experience, through and through, is her involvement in an experience that is irreducibly collective.

Herder is relevant, but not the same -- he's more about culturally (nationally) accumulated shared experience.

I'm wondering if there's something in the literature of social phenomenology (Schutz, maybe?).

So, Larry, it's more or less up to people on the list what they will take up, and what they will pass by.

On Mon, 19 Sep 2011, mike cole wrote:

Tony- I am unclear about how your comments point to something between
individual and collective experience.

Yes, the term experience evokes misunderstandings, but have you tried
culture recently as a problem free alternative? :-)

Might temporal aspects of "an experience" play a role in the
individual:collective
distinction? Would that be an avenue to distinguishing an intermediate
process?

mike

On Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 6:14 PM, Tony Whitson <twhitson@udel.edu> wrote:

Thanks, Andy, that is helpful.

The Dewey is posted here:
https://tw-curricuwiki.**wikispaces.com/Dewey--culture%**2C+experience<https://tw-curricuwiki.wikispaces.com/Dewey--culture%2C+experience>


On Tue, 20 Sep 2011, Andy Blunden wrote:

 Herder, as I understand him, saw collective experience as an important
facet in the formation of the character of a people. I think part of the
problem is that "experience" has been such a contested term, Tony. Generally
it has been co-opted by Empiricism, which is by its nature individualist and
by definition the philosophy of experiene, but Dewey used the word in
formulating his view. But didn't he later say that he regretted using the
word "experience" because it led to misunderstandings? Personally, I think
/shared/ experience is the most powerful force in changing Zeitgeist and
individual mninds en masse. You have an experience, and then you find that
everyone else experienced the same thing and that event then becomes a
central focus of your collaboration with other people. What could be more
world-changing?

Andy

Tony Whitson wrote:

This query is prompted by a new book:

Peck, Don. Pinched: How the Great Recession Has Narrowed Our Futures and
What We Can Do About It. New York: Crown Pub., 2011.

http://www.amazon.com/Pinched-**Great-Recession-Narrowed-**
Futures/dp/0307886522<http://www.amazon.com/Pinched-Great-Recession-Narrowed-Futures/dp/0307886522>
/

in which the author looks more deeply into predictable ramifications of
the
current economic situation than I have seen in other recent work.


Based on historical, sociological, and other literatures and modes of
research, the author argues that what we're dealing with now is not just
a
wave in a recurring cycle. He predicts lasting changes that he expects to
deeply impact different generational cohorts for decades to come.


His argument is plausible, at least, to me. But it prompts me to wonder
about experience that is really collective experience, as opposed to
individual experience.


Exposing my ignorance, I realize that I can't think of literature on the
nature and structure of collective experience. It seems like there must
be a
lot; but I can't think of it. It also seems like xmca is a likely place
to
find people who would be interested, and would know about such literature
(although it's not on-topic in the current threads).


I'm thinking of my first earthquake experience last month as an example
of
an individual experience. It was totally unlike anything I'd ever
experienced before, and it took me a few seconds to even recognize that
an
earthquake is what was happening (we don't have those in Delaware). I was
at
my desk, at home, by myself when it happened.
Of course, the experience was mediated after the fact from my
sociocultural
awareness of earthquakes. Still, I think it was an individual experience
in
the moment, compared with the collective experience that Don Peck is
writing
about -- an experience of events and developments over time, in which the
experience of others participates, throughout, in the experience of any
one.


I am thinking that there might be something else that could be called
"shared experience," intermediate between individual and collective
experience.


Does this make any sense? Is this question of interest to anyone? Or am I
naïvely wondering about things that have been well developed in the

literature?


I would be interested if anyone has ideas or references to share on this.

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--
------------------------------**------------------------------**
------------
*Andy Blunden*
Joint Editor MCA: http://www.informaworld.com/**
smpp/title~db=all~content=**g932564744<http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title%7Edb=all%7Econtent=g932564744>
Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
Book: http://www.brill.nl/default.**aspx?partid=227&pid=34857<http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=227&pid=34857>

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Tony Whitson
UD School of Education
NEWARK  DE  19716

twhitson@udel.edu
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"those who fail to reread
 are obliged to read the same story everywhere"
                 -- Roland Barthes, S/Z (1970)
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Tony Whitson
UD School of Education
NEWARK  DE  19716

twhitson@udel.edu
_______________________________

"those who fail to reread
 are obliged to read the same story everywhere"
                  -- Roland Barthes, S/Z (1970)
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