[Xmca-l] Re: Leontyev's activities
Andy Blunden
ablunden@mira.net
Sat Aug 10 07:12:16 PDT 2013
Well Huw, I didn't mean to introduce a diversion by taking computers as
an example. I could have taken a stone tool just as well.
It seems, Huw, that in responding to my challenge you have made a start
at developing a theory of human needs. Viz., that there are certain
"vital" needs, and all other "needs" are merely means to meet these
vital needs. I don't imagine that I am going to be able to refute the
claims for a theory of human needs in a single message, it is after
simply the claim for the existence of human nature - a concept with a
very long history! (Aristotle built his theory of biology on the basis
of a theory of needs.) But "vital" human needs are very elastic and
other than in very general terms are quite indefinable. But as we change
our world, what you need to live in that world are very real and very
specific, and those needs arise directly out of participation in that
life-world. Which of the thousand different ways that there are to meet
the "vital" need of, say, nutrition, becomes a real need for a person,
is determined by the cultural context of a person's life and their activity.
So I prefer Activity Theory, in which needs are the product of activity,
while, as conceived in any given activity, they provide the motive for
that activity.
Andy
Huw Lloyd wrote:
> On 9 August 2013 14:57, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:
>
>
>> I don't have any doubt that needs are produced. 25 years ago no-one needed
>> a computer. Now it seems that everyone needs them. I don't see you r
>> objection to this, Huw?
>>
>>
>>
> Well, if you consider needs as primal (vital) such things as computers and
> the languages people speak are simply ways to meet such needs.
>
> From a Marxian social perspective computing is interesting in this respect
> in that the needs met by the first generation workers is qualitatively
> different to the management saturated situation we have now. i.e. on the
> cusp of technological practice workers are more free from the tyranny of
> alienation.
>
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