[Xmca-l] Re: Hope and Despair as a "blues Hope In Morten Nissen's Ethical Prototype

[Helena Worthen]

Larry, I noticed this too. 

Try substituting "hope" for "mission", "goal", "purpose" ,"object", etc in Activity theory, as in, the system is defined by its purpose. 

Try "The system is defined by its hope."  The meanings overlap enough to spring Activity theory free of its rather mechanical and technological aura. 

Andy uses "project" to give us another pespective on acitivity systems, so-called, and now Nissen proposes "hope." 

Good enough for me.

H

Helena Worthen
helenaworthen@gmail.com

On Feb 14, 2015, at 10:36 AM, Larry Purss wrote:

> For those engaged with Morten Nissen's collective project I would like to
> invite a close reading the concluding section [pages A36 to A39] in his
> article "Meeting Youth in Movement" [I have reattached for ease of access]
> 
> Morten frames his "approach" as an approach of "hope". He writes,
> 
> "what I am doing here, then, is articulating the hope, the possibility, the
> deeply historical emergent narrative, still very much unfinished - and
> perhaps temporarily halted - of a trans-pedagological tinkering of
> collectives, as part of an expanding and responsive welfare state. ....
> makes this a 'blues hope' in Cheryl Mattingly's sense of the term (2010)
> the kind of hope that remains close to its dialectical counterpart despair
> [LP and dread].  It shares with certain religious utopia a counterintuitive
> radicalism that calls forth doubt.  But contrary to religious versions of
> blues hope, this is written as inherently contestable, in the way that it
> still claims to present a real possibility, a concrete utopia in Bloch's
> sense."
> 
> I would add that some prototypical versions with an ethics based in a
> religious ground could also include a hope that is inherently contestable
> open possibility that "could be". The term "religious" has multiple
> meanings and sense and some protypes enact concrete utopia in Bloch's sense.
> 
> I also want to bring in Morten's understanding of "met-phor". On page A38
> that a version such as Morten's brings in a spatial or geographical
> instantiation. He says,
> 
> "Although 'movement' and 'neutral ground' like Vygotsky's 'zone of proximal
>> development' [and many other theoretical constructs], addresses space
>> metaphorically, it is at the same time quite *corporeal. [LP-
>> incorporated, embodied, incarnated]*. "
> 
> 
> The section following elaborates on Morten's notion of "spaces"  Morten
> makes a case that how our understanding can become prototypical [as
> concrete universals] is through the development of "models" [prototypes
> carry models and possibly metaphors or figural worlds]  Models AS methods.
> The concluding section of this article is titled "Theory: as Prototypical
> Narrative" Theory enacting hope and despair, hope and dread, and
> collectives [third spaces] being/becoming embodied places of meaning and
> relevance *AS ETHICAL AND POLITICAL places of empowerment*.
> Morten's concluding comment references Derrida as projecting hope endlessly
> postponed as the "places" of collective enactments, the places of "could
> be", and "yet to come" within a transformational participatory stance.
> 
> I continue to search for ways to expand the understanding of "metaphor"
> beyond "mere" meataphor to indicate that metaphor is deeply "real" enacting
> and embodying collectives.  In other words "real" metaphor contrasted with
> "ornamental" metaphor which embellishes the literal.
> 
> Larry
> <FEBRUARY 10 2015 NISSEN MORTEN Meeting Youth in Movement.pdf>