[Xmca-l] Re: poverty/class
mike cole
lchcmike@gmail.com
Sat Mar 22 16:49:02 PDT 2014
Could there be a common pattern here?
Nice quote from Halliday and thanks for the references, David.
mike
On Sat, Mar 22, 2014 at 2:52 PM, David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com> wrote:
> As you probably know, Korea is currently run by the neomilitaristic
> scion of the previous dictator, who took power in a transparently
> rigged election. No, I don't mean that Korea--I mean this one.
>
> Park Geunhye, the daughter of our former dictator Park Cheonghi, came
> to power about a year ago, first by stealing the opposition's clothes
> (to be fair, they made it very easy for her by having such a very
> unambitious programme to begin with). The National Intelligence
> Service then flooded the country with highly creative Tweets alleging
> that her opponents were soft on communism, one of those new
> mobilizations of social media that you may not have heard so much
> about.
>
> Anyway, to make a short story long, having stolen the opposition's
> clothes, she is now obliged to renege on her promises in the interests
> of those who financed her campaign. Now, part of this involves
> reneging on a massive programme of social welfare that Koreans
> desperately wanted (they deposed the mayor of Seoul in the interests
> of keeping a free lunch programme, for example). But surely, one must
> put something in the place of a promise of pensions, job creation
> schemes, minimum wage, etc, mustn't one?
>
> No, not really--all you have to do is babble and blather about a new
> "creativity-driven economy". The "creativity driven economy" is a
> pleasant way of referring to a highly unpleasant fact of life. In
> South Korea, where we nominally respect the elderly (and we certainly
> pay them more than the young) it soon becomes cheaper to employ four
> or five young people rather than one older one. This means,
> necessarily, booting out older workers around age fifty and hiring
> younger ones to replace them. The older workers (and, for that atter,
> younger ones who cannot find unemployment) are then given a little
> handout and encouraged to "create" their own jobs.
>
> Of course, for this to work (as a scam, I mean, it's obviously a
> non-starter as a social welfare scheme), one really has to try to
> inculcate the kind of "every man for himself" mentality that people
> have in other countries, and that is really a bit of a poser in a
> country which, although highly stratified socially, is still very
> collectivistic culturally. That is where education comes in.
>
> Consider the folllowing quotation from Halliday (2004, the Language of
> Early Childhood, p. 251):
>
> "Much of the discussion of chlidren's language development in the last
> quarter of a century (Halliday is writing in 1991--DK), especially in
> educational contexts, has been permeated by a particular ideological
> construction of childhood. This view combines individualism,
> romanticism, and what Martin calls 'childism', the Disneyfied vision
> of a child that is constructed in the media and in certain kinds of
> kiddielit. Each child is presented as a freestanding, autonomous
> being; and learning consists in releasing and brining into flower the
> latent awareness that is already there in the bud. This is the view
> that was embodied in the 'creativity' and 'personal growth' models of
> education by James Britton, John Dixon, and David Holbrook in Great
> Britain; and more recently, from another standpoint, in the United
> States in Donald Graves' conception of chldren's writing as process
> and of their texts as property to be individually owned. It has been
> supported theoretically first by Chomskyaninnatism and latterly by
> cognitive science models which interpret learning as the acquisition
> of ready0made information by some kind of independent process device."
> (I omit Halliday's references).
>
> My wife and I recently attended the Dialogic Pedagogy conference on
> Bakhtin in New Zealand where these "childist" ideas were very much in
> evidence, and where they were explicitly opposed to Vygotskyan ones!
> At first I found this opposition rather bizarre, not least because I
> had recently reviewed an excellent piece of work by our own
> Wolff-Michael Roth for the Dialogic Pedagogy Journal. Roth's piece,
> which you can read in the DPJ archive, had argued for the
> compatibility of Bakhtin and Vygotsky (on theoretical grounds it is
> true). There was also a very fine presentation by Michael Gardiner on
> Bakhtin, the autonomists, and the 99/1% discourse surrounding the
> Occupy movement.
>
> Now I am starting to understand a little better. There is, actually, a
> model of creativity out there which is individualistic,
> entrepreneurial, anti-socialist, and even anti-social. The problem is,
> it's also anti-creativity.
>
> David Kellogg
> Hankuk University of Foreign Studies.
>
> On 23 March 2014 04:26, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Andy,
> > Your comment:
> >
> > "Avram, I am not convinced that creating niche economies can in any way
> > ameliorate the domination of big capital. We have to find a way to
> > penetrate and subvert the sources of capitalist exploitation, rather than
> > offering "alternatives,"
> >
> > suggests there may be ways to potentially penetrate and subvert "at the
> > source" rather than act to *create* alternatives.
> >
> > I have wondered if my utopian sympathies which show my curiosity with
> > exploring *alternatives* can be viewed as *living experiments* or *living
> > laboratories* where alternative life styles and attitudes are generated
> and
> > lived.
> > It must be my personal experiences with *alternate communities* which
> have
> > attempted to actualize their ideal alternatives. I must admit, most of
> > these experiments are failures. However Cultural Historical Theory
> > developed in an *alternate setting* and Dewey and Mead in Chicago
> gathered
> > together a committed group with shared ideals.
> >
> > In order to penetrate capitalism *at its source* may require
> demonstrating
> > other ways of life as experiments which express other *values*. Some of
> > these alternative approaches will include *alternative community*.
> >
> > The current discussion on the drift of *university departments*
> > suggests alternative forms of gathering may need to come into existence
> to
> > express alternative *values* However I also accept this *hope* may be
> naïve
> > and not grounded in recognition of the depth of capitalist ideology which
> > co-ops ALL utopian ideals. Therefore the requirement to subvert the
> > *source*?
> >
> > To once again return to Alex Kozulin's book which is expressing a theme.
> > He is exploring the *double-faceted* nature of consciousness and
> suggests
> > the
> >
> > "interpretive or metacognitive function [aspect?] of consciousness may
> have
> > an AUTONOMY from REGULATIVE AND CONTROLLING functions.
> >
> > I wonder if this *autonomy* can extend to *alternative communities*
> forming
> > to express alternative *values*?
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Fri, Mar 21, 2014 at 7:50 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:
> >
> >> One of the themes of the correlation you mention, Mike, is the focus on
> >> "the creative industries." There are theories about the way cities can
> >> escape from their rust-bucket depression by promoting "the creative
> >> industries." These include software development (e.g. computer games),
> >> advertising, packaging and fashion. That's probably fine for urban
> renewal,
> >> except for the artists who get booted out of their old warehouses which
> get
> >> done up for the expected "creative industries," but where it's has a big
> >> negative impact in the academy is in the "critical sciences." People
> >> involved in social and political criticism are suddenly faced with
> >> imperatives to serve the "creative industries." So feminist,
> philosophical
> >> and political critiques, which were surviving by a thread, now have to
> >> educate software makers who are building computer games or artists who
> are
> >> designing advertisements all in the name of needing to support the
> >> "creative industries."
> >>
> >> Avram, I am not convinced that creating niche economies can in any way
> >> ameliorate the domination of big capital. We have to find a way to
> >> penetrate and subvert the sources of capitalist exploitation, rather
> than
> >> offering "alternatives," I think. Capitalism can do perfectly well
> without
> >> a certain percentage of the world's population who find an
> "alternative".
> >>
> >>
> >> Andy
> >>
> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >> *Andy Blunden*
> >> http://home.mira.net/~andy/
> >>
> >>
> >> mike cole wrote:
> >>
> >>>
> >>> So my noticing of the fascination and promotion of "culture and
> >>> creativity" discourse, design schools, and neoliberalism may be more
> than a
> >>> symptom of failing eyesight?
> >>> Mike
> >>>
> >>> On Friday, March 21, 2014, Avram Rips <arips@optonline.net <mailto:
> >>> arips@optonline.net>> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> The problem is the connection between people alienated from their
> >>> labor, or no labor and building a new democratic structure- that
> >>> can happen in a small scale , and spread out to new modes of
> >>> production away from the destruction of capital-such as chiapas
> >>> and taking over factories in Argentina.
> >>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Andy Blunden" <
> ablunden@mira.net>
> >>> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> >>> Sent: Friday, March 21, 2014 8:35 AM
> >>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: poverty/class
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Yes, it seems to me that the burgeoning inequality created by
> >>> neoliberalism is a situation crying out for imaginative social
> >>> entrepreneurship, i.e., social movement building. It is good
> >>> to hear that the 1/99 protests have generated talk about
> >>> inequality, but that in itself does not create a solution,
> >>> does it?
> >>> Andy
> >>> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >>> ------------
> >>> *Andy Blunden*
> >>> http://home.mira.net/~andy/ <http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy/>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Avram Rips wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Innovation and entrepreneurship in some ways means
> >>> capital crowding out social space and solidarity. This is
> >>> evident in cities-whole neighborhoods taken over by
> >>> wealthy crafts people, and little focus on co-operative
> >>> movements for working class people-where a new focus on
> >>> participatory democracy can be developed ,and working
> >>> class culture in the Gramscian sense. take care! Avram
> >>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "mike cole"
> >>> <lchcmike@gmail.com>
> >>> To: "Andy Blunden" <ablunden@mira.net>
> >>> Cc: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity"
> >>> <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> >>> Sent: Friday, March 21, 2014 12:31 AM
> >>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: poverty/class
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Andy--- My intent in the garbled sentence you query
> >>> was to suggest that the
> >>> discourse in the US around vicious inequalities has
> >>> increased markedly in
> >>> the past year in tandem with a kind of frenzy in those
> >>> parts of academia I
> >>> come in contact with about "design, culture, and
> >>> creativity" all of which
> >>> are linked to innovation and entrepreneurship. I very
> >>> interested in the
> >>> nature of imagination and creativity but I they often
> >>> appear to be new code
> >>> words for social and individual salvation in a lean,
> >>> mean, neo-liberal
> >>> world.
> >>>
> >>> Maybe just another of my confusions.
> >>> mike
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On Wed, Mar 19, 2014 at 6:14 PM, Andy Blunden
> >>> <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Mike, could you clarify a little your comment
> >>> below ...
> >>> ------------------------------
> >>> ------------------------------------------
> >>>
> >>> *Andy Blunden*
> >>> http://home.mira.net/~andy/
> >>> <http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy/>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> mike cole wrote:
> >>>
> >>> ... My fear that is appearance is
> >>> non-accidentally rated to explosion of
> >>> concern about poverty/class (the 1%/99% idea
> >>> has become ubiquitous in
> >>> American
> >>> discourse).
> >>>
> >>> mike
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
>
>
More information about the xmca-l
mailing list