[Xmca-l] Re: vygotsky's theory and symbolic interactionism

[Greg Thompson]

Mike,
I wonder how to be critical without being "crazy"?

It seems like "lunatics"* are the best at providing alternative imaginaries.

But it is also true that those who are most "critical" are often considered
to be "lunatics".

So does it matter?

-greg
*Please note the scare quotes around the words crazy and lunatic - they are
intended to scare! i.e. they are NOT my categories or my definitions of
them, rather I use the scare quotes to indicate that they are as perceived
by society - "crazy" or "lunatic" as perceived by society.


On Wed, Apr 2, 2014 at 9:27 AM, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:

> Seems like you nailed it, Robert, (and Benjamin read it there?).
>
> The lesson I take away from this is that we are all "so-called thinkers" by
> virtue  of the fact that our consciousness is mediated through culture. The
> imagined present never precisely matches the encountered future.
>
> In so far as there is an antidote to this characteristic of humans, so far
> as I can figure out, it is develop cultural practices that might be called
> "critical" in that they diverge from the common imaginary worlds. Having
> criticized, the preferred next step would be to test out your imagined
> world in practice in order to discover its flaws.
>
> What do others conclude?
> mike
>
>
> On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 7:56 PM, Robert Lake <boblake@georgiasouthern.edu
> >wrote:
>
> > See highlighted phrase below :-).
> >
> > Marx-Engels Correspondence 1893
> > Engels to Franz Mehring Abstract
> > ------------------------------
> >
> > Source: *Marx and Engels Correspondence*;
> > Publisher: International Publishers (1968);
> > First Published: *Gestamtausgabe*;
> >  Translated: Donna Torr;
> > Transcribed: Sally
> > Ryan<http://www.marxists.org/admin/volunteers/biographies/sryan.htm>in
> > 2000;
> > HTML Markup: Sally Ryan.
> > ------------------------------
> > London, July 14, 1893
> >
> > Today is my first opportunity to thank you for the *Lessing Legend* you
> > were kind enough to send me. I did not want to reply with a bare formal
> > acknowledgment of receipt of the book but intended at the same time to
> tell
> > you something about it, about its contents. Hence the delay.
> >
> > I shall begin at the end -- the appendix on historical materialism, in
> which
> > you have described the main things excellently and for any unprejudiced
> > person convincingly. If I find anything to object to it is that you
> > attribute more credit to me than I deserve, even if I count in everything
> > which I might possibly have found out for myself - in time - but which
> Marx
> > with his more rapid *coup d'oeil* (grasp) and wider vision discovered
> much
> > more quickly. When one has the good fortune to work for forty years with
> a
> > man like Marx, one does not usually get the recognition one thinks one
> > deserves during his lifetime. Then if the greater man dies, the lesser
> > easily gets overrated, and this seems to me to be just my case at
> present;
> > history will set all this right in the end and by that time one will be
> > safely round the corner and know nothing more about anything.
> >
> > Otherwise there is only one other point lacking, which, however, Marx
> and I
> > always failed to stress enough in our writings and in regard to which we
> > are all equally guilty. That is to say, we all laid, and *were bound to
> > lay*,
> > the main emphasis, in the first place, on the *derivation* of political,
> > juridical and other ideological notions, and of actions arising through
> the
> > medium of these notions, from basic economic facts. But in so doing we
> > neglected the formal side -- the ways and means by which these notions,
> > etc., come about -- for the sake of the content. This has given our
> > adversaries a welcome opportunity for misunderstandings, of which Paul
> > Barth is a striking example.
> >
> > Ideology is a process accomplished by the so-called thinker consciously,
> > indeed, but with a false consciousness.
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Apr 1, 2014 at 9:24 PM, Martin John Packer
> > <mpacker@uniandes.edu.co>wrote:
> >
> > > Wikipedia attributes the phase to Engels.
> > >
> > > Martin
> > >
> > > On Apr 1, 2014, at 8:13 PM, Douglas Williams <djwdoc@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > > Hi--
> > > >
> > > > The term false consciousness is from Walter Benjamin in a 1930 review
> > of
> > > Siegfried Kracauer's Die Angestellten, drawing from Marx. The idea in
> > Marx
> > > is described in terms of alienation and estrangement from real objects
> > and
> > > activity.
> > > >
> > > >
> > https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/labour.htm
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > ________________________________
> > > > From: Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
> > > > To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> > > > Sent: Tuesday, April 1, 2014 5:14 PM
> > > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: vygotsky's theory and symbolic interactionism
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Tom, so far as I know, the term "false consciousness" was invented by
> > > > feminists in the 1970s and was never used by Marx, and I don't think
> > the
> > > > concept is consistent with his ideas, as expressed in the Theses on
> > > > Feuerbach which you quoted, for example.
> > > > Andy
> > > >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > > > *Andy Blunden*
> > > > http://home.mira.net/~andy/
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Tom Richardson wrote:
> > > >> ... In the first place, it should be noted that Marx, like Spinoza
> and
> > > later
> > > >> Freud, believed that most of what men consciously think is "false"
> > > >> consciousness, is ideology and rationalization; that the true
> > > mainsprings
> > > >> of man's actions are unconscious to him.
> > > >>
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
>



-- 
Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology
883 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602
http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson