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

[mike cole]

I also read only the preface as a kind of summary, and skimmed, Larry.
Perhaps Morten will know of a particular essay that can provide the sort of
"short form" that Annalisa was asking for. I do not know of such a summary
by Bloch.  600 pages is a lot, never mind 1000. Others have provided
synopses and the topic has apparently been rather widely debated.

I am dealing with a number of simultaneous deadlines, one of which is the
next issue of MCA so cannot be of much help here for now.
mike




On Mon, Feb 16, 2015 at 7:51 AM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:

> Mike,
> I have read the introduction of Bloch's book on hope.
> [PAGE xxviii] has a fascinating exploration as both the objective factor
> and the subjective factor developing each within the other to form a new
> possibility which is "not yet" formed.
>
> I find this way of understanding parelling Vygotsky's notion of the "unity"
> of word meaning as the germ cell.  Can a case be made that at the micro
> level of "words" devoid of meaning are empty shells [dead forms]  AND the
> micro level of "meaning" without thought cannot go "inner"
> That the same [possibly universal] human process applies to human
> being/becoming.
>
> Subjectivity without the objective factor is meaningless subjectivity but
> objectivity without the subjective factor is "dead" or lacks the "force"
> [power] of life-vitality and becomes "merely" objects.  Human being
> therefor is a "unity" [a new form] that may become more or less
> "crystallized" human being which participates within the "gaps" which
> "exist" between the crystallized "unity" of the "self" and the "not yet"
> possibility.
>
> Can "human being" as a "unity" [subjective and objective factors which BOTH
> develop begin from different "roots" become, through development a new
> synthesis that is an "expansion" beyond either mere preconscious
> subjectivity [or a term that may reflect an embryo that must incubate] and
> also an expansion beyond "mere" preconscious objectivity [the always
> already thrown crystallized facet of objective form.
> To separate this "unity" of human being is "as if" separating the "unity"
> of word meaning into "words" and "meanings" destroying the unity and
> leaving merely "generalization" that looses the specificity of "concrete
> universals" [prototypes] [situated events].
>
> Bloch is offering us a personal way  of making "sense" [Bahktin's themes],
> emerging within German Idealism [Kant, etc] AND German Romanticism.
>
> Just speculating, going out on limb, playing with figurative worlds.
> Bloch seems to invite a close reading of  his 3 volumes containing over
> 1000 pages. [17 volumes in total he wrote]
> I was fascinated to know who he was friends with [Simmel, Lukacs, Benjamin,
> Adorno] but incarnating "hope"  The word incarnating seems appropriate to
> the way Bloch approached the unity of the human being and human nature.
>
> His personal autobiography through Europe and America  also seems relevant
> Larry
>
> On Sat, Feb 14, 2015 at 10:58 AM, Helena Worthen <helenaworthen@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > 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>
> >
> >
> >
>



-- 
It is the dilemma of psychology to deal as a natural science with an object
that creates history. Ernst Boesch.