[Xmca-l] Re: Leontyev's activities
Andy Blunden
ablunden@mira.net
Tue Aug 20 19:50:00 PDT 2013
That's exactly right, Peg, but it is not enough to state that activities
are subject-objects and dynamic, unless we can explain exactly how their
dynamism is formed. Exactly *what* are the dynamics of activities? I
agree that diversity is a part of it though.
Andy
Peg Griffin wrote:
> I see it as dynamic ( ready meaning ready to grow) because I see
> subjective-object and objective-subject rather than objective or
> subjective.
> As diverse "who" are the obejctive-subjects the odds of changes in
> the subjective-object motives go way up. We might all change enough
> to survive after all. Working on diversity wasn't an accidental part
> of LCHC's concern, nor was it for charity or to be nice.
> It's the dynamism and hope bought by diversity that might separate me
> (and probably Mike) from the Politburo :)
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
> *To:* "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> *Sent:* Tuesday, August 20, 2013 10:48 AM
> *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: Leontyev's activities
>
> I think your example and your way of explaining is perfect, Peg, for
> the purposes of psychology and education. The "socio-cultural
> motive/activity is ready." It is just this objectivist stance in
> relation to the societal activities which has always been my main
> problem with Leontyev. I know, of course, that you and Mike and the
> others involved in 5thD designed activities which were well aligned to
> widely held aims for the children's development, but where did they
> come from? Speaking generally, what is the dynamic of the activities
> we see around us? When surveying social and cultural life in general
> it is obviously not sufficient to say "Mike and Peg designed these
> activities" any more than it was sufficient to say that the Politburo
> decided the targets for social production.
>
> So it seems to me that Greg's main problem remains unsolved in your
> approach, Peg. What do we mean by the "motive" of the activity?
> *Whose* motive?
>
> Andy
>
> Peg Griffin wrote:
> > I like the idea of a "well-motivated argument" as used in classical
> and contemporary logic. So I say stick to motivated.
> > It works so nicely with the distinction between "merely understood"
> and "really effective" -- and the transition as merely understood
> motive becomes really effective. The subject may engage in the
> actions that are motivated by two different activity systems with two
> different motives -- but say the second is merely understood by the
> subject and the first is really effective for the subject. When the
> human conflict-ing (Luria) mash-up happens and the person lapses into
> a mosaically related but contradictory action -- poof -- the merely
> understood is now the motive!
> > So the child you and Leontyev describe doing homework is first
> really effectively motivated by play with adult rules of
> priority/timing etc. but when that child scrunches up his homework
> paper and throws it in the waste basket and starts all over -- poof--
> the really effective motive/activity falls apart and the merely
> understood socio-cultural motive/activity is ready and willing and
> takes up the slack. Having alluded to both Luria and Leontyev, I now
> bring in the Beatles -- it's a long and winding road. Not a one-time
> enlightenment! But praxis makes possible.
> >
> > When we at LCHC, ages ago, were running the after-school school we
> called "Field College" (pun and polysemy intended), a funding program
> officer (Marge Martus) commented that she hadn't seen a single child
> off task in two hours. And believe me they were not school or adult
> governed children! It was because Field College was strewn with
> motives that virtually begged for children to engage but also to
> transition from really effective to merely understood and hence to
> "grow" into a new activity. It would be, I told Marge, like being in
> a rainstorm and trying to avoid the raindrops if a child were
> off-all-the available operating tasks!
> > We had "center table" rituals and "fifth dimension" constitutions
> that exposed the merely understood motives. And we had participant
> structures, tasks, procedures, a lot of bells and whistles that fit in
> dual activity systems/motives, some combonation of which elicited the
> child's voluntary engagement in a really effective way.
> > Peg
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