Re: [xmca] Notions of suffering, enduring, undergoing

[Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>]

Robert,

Thanks for this article on Addams influence on Dewey. The discussion of
morality that is fundamentally a social phenomenon and not a personal
reflective process was helpful.  Addams respect for multiple perspectives
on morality that are each biased and reflective of particualr social
compositions. The encounter between these multiple perspectives as openning
a space for composing [verb] a new synthesis through the tensions involved
in each composition [gender, class, religion] being  partial and open to
learning from other compositions that in the encounter become more open
through re-composing of previously believed compositions.  Moral engagement
not as personal convictions but as multiple social ethics in an ongoing
conversation.

Larry





On Sat, Nov 5, 2011 at 9:52 AM, Robert Lake <boblake@georgiasouthern.edu>wrote:

> Michael,
> I have been pondering Jane Addams' influence on Dewey (Instead of the other
> way around as many think) for the last day or so and came across this
> recent conference paper  by an Addams scholar Seigfried.
>
> www.american-philosophy.org/.../S_seigfried_saap_2011_paper.doc
>
> Democracy as a Way of Life: *Addams's*
> Pragmatist<
> http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=addams%20influence%20on%20dewey&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CC8QFjAC&url=%2Furl%3Fsa%3Dt%26rct%3Dj%26q%3Daddams%2520influence%2520on%2520dewey%26source%3Dweb%26cd%3D3%26ved%3D0CC8QFjAC%26url%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.american-philosophy.org%252Fevents%252Fdocuments%252F2011_Program_files%252FS_seigfried_saap_2011_paper.doc%26ei%3DGWi1TtW_C6WC2wWrtuDMDQ%26usg%3DAFQjCNGtXSNt0ZqIRaX8UT_EGGgoq1qv5g&ei=GWi1TtW_C6WC2wWrtuDMDQ&usg=AFQjCNGtXSNt0ZqIRaX8UT_EGGgoq1qv5g&cad=rja
> >
> *
> *
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Nov 5, 2011 at 12:23 PM, Michael Glassman <MGlassman@ehe.osu.edu
> >wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> Hi Andy,
> >
> > While Menand is the entry point for many people on Pragmatism I think I
> > disagree with him on this point.  I don't think the Civil War was the
> major
> > influence on Pragmatism, at least as it progressed in the first half of
> the
> > 20th century.  I think it was much more the Settlement House movement and
> > immigration issues.  Remember Peirce was actually not that important to
> > many of the early Pragmatists, and most thought he would be forgotten.
> >
> > Michael
> >
> > ________________________________
> >
> > From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu on behalf of Andy Blunden
> > Sent: Sat 11/5/2011 11:38 AM
> > To: Tony Whitson
> > Cc: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> > Subject: Re: [xmca] Notions of suffering, enduring, undergoing
> >
> >
> >
> > Louis Menand tells the whole story at great length, Tony. It is all
> > before Dewey was writing, of course, but the first generation of
> > Pragmatists had family members who died in the war without ever
> > believing in the ideas they were supposed to be fighting for. The
> > personal connections are very strong. The County where Dewey came from
> > had the greatest number of "martyrs" of any County in the USA, as I
> > recall, for example.
> >
> > Andy
> >
> > Tony Whitson wrote:
> > > I may be worth noting that the American Civil War was 1861-1865.
> > > Holmes was born in 1841; Dewey was born in 1859.
> > >
> > > On Sun, 6 Nov 2011, Andy Blunden wrote:
> > >
> > >> That's an interesting observation, Robert. I have been trying to
> > >> summarise in what way Dewey did not quite get to where Vygotsky got
> > >> to. Up till today I had written that "Pragmatism could explain ideas
> > >> as means of adaptation to the world, but not why people were prepared
> > >> to die for them; it could explain how people pursued goals, but was
> > >> less effective in understanding how people formed their goals." But
> > >> then I read the excellent article "Experience is Pedagogical" where
> > >> he has an exposition on interest, which fits well with Leontyev's
> > >> ideas about how children develop an interest in something. He is very
> > >> strong on the question of the primacy of interest. And he certainly
> > >> agrees that everything depends on motivation, will and teleology.
> > >> Menand's wonderful book, "The Metaphysical Club" placed the emergence
> > >> of Pragmatism as a reaction to the disastrous Civil War, and what
> > >> they saw as reckless pursuit of Big Ideas. So this seemed to tally.
> > >> The Pragmatists could not understand why the Abolitionists and
> > >> Confederates were prepared to enter a national holocaust on a
> principle.
> > >> Dewey says that "the chief characteristic trait of the pragmatic
> > >> notion of reality is precisely that no theory of Reality in general,
> > >> /überhaupt/, is possible or needed." Holmes' theory of law rests on
> > >> the same conviction. I still feel that there is something missing in
> > >> when they rule out the role of abstractions in motivating human
> > >> beings. And that is what lies at the root of Tragedy, isn't it? I
> > >> suspect Dewey well knew tragedy, but dedicated his life trying to
> > >> eliminate it!
> > >>
> > >> Andy
> > >>
> > >> Robert Lake wrote:
> > >>> Andy,
> > >>> That is an astute observation about the notion of "happy".
> > >>> Maxine Greene owes much of her view of aesthetics to Dewey's "Art as
> > >>> experience"
> > >>> yet her main critique of Dewey was that "he had no sense of the
> > >>> tragic".
> > >>> Unlike Vygotsky whose personal perezhivanie  was marked by the
> > >>> tragic and perhaps
> > >>> as Kozulin speculates, was one reason he was fascinated with Hamlet.
> > >>> Robert Lake
> > >>>
> > >>> On Sat, Nov 5, 2011 at 9:25 AM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net
> > >>> <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:
> > >>>
> > >>>     In this same essay, Dewey is insistent that an experience is not
> > >>>     composed of components which are respectively practical,
> emotional
> > >>>     and intellectual, but these adjectives (he says) only arise in
> > >>>     subsequent discourse about experience, when we interpret
> > >>>     experience. An experience is essentially an irreducibly all of
> > >>>     these things, and in his view any attempt to seaprate out an
> > >>>     emotional component will destory the unity of the experience.
> > >>>
> > >>>     And I liked it when Vygotsky said, in Educational Psychology:
> > >>>     "People with great passions, people who accomplish great deeds,
> > >>>     people who possess strong feelings, even people with great minds
> > >>>     and a strong personality, rarely come out of good little boys and
> > >>>     girls."
> > >>>
> > >>>     I think the same goes for "happy little boys and girls."
> > >>>
> > >>>     Andy
> > >>>     Rod Parker-Rees wrote:
> > >>>
> > >>>         Hi Larry,
> > >>>
> > >>>         I certainly didn't want to suggest that children are (or even
> > >>>         should be) care-free, only to note that not ALL of their
> > >>>         experiences (or ours) are  best described as suffering. Your
> > >>>         post clearly helps to explain why we tend to focus more on
> > >>>         distressing experiences, since it is these, more than more
> > >>>         positive ones, which call others into sympathetic action so
> > >>>         they are more note-worthy. An unusually happy child is not
> > >>>         likely to have a teaching assistant allocated to provide
> > >>>         special support, nor to be seen by an educational
> psychologist
> > >>>         but this does not mean that we should understand experience
> as
> > >>>         suffering.
> > >>>
> > >>>         There is another can of worms around the relationships
> between
> > >>>         emotions and the development of individualised identity but
> > >>>         that may be for another thread!
> > >>>
> > >>>         All the best,
> > >>>
> > >>>         Rod
> > >>>
> > >>>         -----Original Message-----
> > >>>         From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
> > >>>         <mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu>
> > >>>         [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
> > >>>         <mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu>] On Behalf Of Larry
> Purss
> > >>>         Sent: 05 November 2011 12:46
> > >>>         To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> > >>>         Subject: [xmca] Notions of suffering, enduring, undergoing
> > >>>
> > >>>         Hi Rod and Andy
> > >>>
> > >>>         Andy
> > >>>         Thank you for the article on Dewey.  I thougt that article
> > >>>         should remain the focus of that thread, but the question of
> > >>>         the centrality of suffering to experience is also worth
> > >>> exploring.
> > >>>
> > >>>         Rod, you wrote
> > >>>
> > >>>          I am intrigued by the focus here, as in many of the postings
> > >>>         on perezhivanie, on experience as 'suffering'. The etymology
> > >>>         of 'suffer' (from 'sub' - under and 'ferre' - to bear) makes
> > >>>         it a close cousin of 'undergo'
> > >>>         and it is, I think, interesting that both terms have been
> used
> > >>>         in ways which have moved their meaning towards the dark side.
> > >>>
> > >>>         Rod, you caution us not to impose our care-worn adult
> > >>>         sufferings onto the experience of children who are more "care
> > >>>         free".
> > >>>
> > >>>         In my work in schools I am called to respond to children who
> > >>>         are experiencing what I will call "foul frustration" as an
> > >>>         experience of what is not working.  This experience is often
> > >>>         expressed as anger that is a passionate response to what is
> > >>>         not working.  Infants also seem to express e-motions that may
> > >>>         be understood as frustration for what is not working.
> > >>>
> > >>>         A developmental psychologist in Vancouver [Gordon Neufeld]
> > >>>         sees development as biological and innate. Though his origin
> > >>>         narrative I don't agree with, he does have an interesting
> > >>>         perspective on how to respond to a childs foul frustration
> for
> > >>>         what is not working.
> > >>>
> > >>>         He believes that a person must come to a place of "rest"
> > >>>         before going in a new direction.  What is sometimes needed to
> > >>>         move frustration from anger to experiencing saddness are for
> > >>>         what is not working are "tears of futility".
> > >>>         He suggests that these tears of futility are expressed within
> > >>>         particular types of relational configurations that are safe,
> > >>>         secure, and "attached".
> > >>>
> > >>>         When the tears of futility are met and "held" by the other
> > >>>         this releases the frustration for what is not working and the
> > >>>         child can lean into the other person and come to rest.  Often
> > >>>         the child at this point is exhausted.  However, after coming
> > >>>         to rest the child is now moved to exploration of the world
> and
> > >>>         is care free and open to new experiences.
> > >>>
> > >>>         This idea of expressing "tears of futility" for what is not
> > >>>         working [foul frustration] within intersubjective forms of
> > >>>         caring and "holding" gives me a way to respond to expressions
> > >>>         of "anger".  Suffering or enduring or undergoing can
> sometimes
> > >>>         be an experienceof stuckness in patterns that are not
> working.
> > >>>
> > >>>         In summary
> > >>>
> > >>>         The ideal is for children to be care free but frustration is
> > >>>         an inevitable aspect of becoming and e*motion.  If not met
> and
> > >>>         "held" by others this frustration can lead to a stuckness
> that
> > >>>         must be endured, and undergone.
> > >>>         It is others who are central in channeling the path of
> > >>>         frustration for what is not working.  Now I want to emphasize
> > >>>         it is not "merely" intersubjective as the artifactual
> "worlds"
> > >>>          mediating experience are the conditions which lead to
> > >>>         frustration or being care free. Focusing on changing the
> > >>>         conditions that lead to the frustration is also a central
> > >>>         project but frustration is inevitable and unavoidable. When
> > >>>         undergoing foul frustration how one is met within this
> > >>>         experience is vital for how the child goes on.
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>>         Larry
> > >>>         Larry
> > >>>         __________________________________________
> > >>>         _____
> > >>>         xmca mailing list
> > >>>         xmca@weber.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> > >>>         http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> > >>>         __________________________________________
> > >>>         _____
> > >>>         xmca mailing list
> > >>>         xmca@weber.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> > >>>         http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>>     --
> > >>>
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > >>>
> > >>>     *Andy Blunden*
> > >>>     Joint Editor MCA: http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/hmca20/18/1
> > >>>     Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
> > >>> <http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy/ <http://home.mira.net/~andy/> <
> 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>
> > >>>
> > >>>     __________________________________________
> > >>>     _____
> > >>>     xmca mailing list
> > >>>     xmca@weber.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> > >>>     http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>> --
> > >>> *Robert Lake  Ed.D.
> > >>> *Assistant Professor
> > >>> Social Foundations of Education
> > >>> Dept. of Curriculum, Foundations, and Reading
> > >>> Georgia Southern University
> > >>> P. O. Box 8144
> > >>> Phone: (912) 478-5125
> > >>> Fax: (912) 478-5382
> > >>> Statesboro, GA  30460
> > >>>
> > >>>  /Democracy must be born anew in every generation, and education is
> > >>> its midwife./
> > >>> /-/John Dewey.
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>
> > >> --
> > >>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > >> *Andy Blunden*
> > >> Joint Editor MCA: http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/hmca20/18/1
> > >> Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
> > >> Book: http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=227&pid=34857
> > >>
> > >> __________________________________________
> > >> _____
> > >> xmca mailing list
> > >> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> > >> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> > >>
> > >
> > > 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)
> >
> > --
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > *Andy Blunden*
> > Joint Editor MCA: http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/hmca20/18/1
> > Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
> > Book: http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=227&pid=34857
> >
> > __________________________________________
> > _____
> > xmca mailing list
> > xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> > http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >
> >
> >
> > __________________________________________
> > _____
> > xmca mailing list
> > xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> > http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> *Robert Lake  Ed.D.
> *Assistant Professor
> Social Foundations of Education
> Dept. of Curriculum, Foundations, and Reading
> Georgia Southern University
> P. O. Box 8144
> Phone: (912) 478-5125
> Fax: (912) 478-5382
> Statesboro, GA  30460
>
>  *Democracy must be born anew in every generation, and education is its
> midwife.*
> *-*John Dewey.
>  __________________________________________
> _____
> xmca mailing list
> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>
__________________________________________
_____
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca