[Xmca-l] Re: Form, Function, and Hope

[greg.a.thompson@gmail.com]

Larry,
Thanks for this intro to Bloch.
I'm looking forward to more on Simmels dialectic of interaction. Resonances with batesons feedback loops?
Greg

Sent from my iPhone

> On Feb 21, 2015, at 11:50 PM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Mike,
> further to your reflections on "wise thoughts" having been thought already
> thousands of times, but to make them our own, we must think them over again
> honestly, till they take root in our personal experience. I am reading more
> on Bloch's "theme" [his particular image of the category of hope].
> The Markavis article which was posted to XMCA  is exploring the question
> Bloch asks to open the second section of his major work "the PRINCIPLE of
> Hope". This is where he explores the "psychology" of hope.
> 
> The question Markavis highlights in Bloch's work is: *"Who drives on within
> us?"*  Following is Markavi's summary of Bloch's answer [ part two of his
> book elaborates this answer in depth]. Markavis on page 7 offers this
> fragment from Bloch"
> 
> That we are alive cannot be felt. The THAT which posits us as living does
> not itself emerge.  It lies deep down, where we begin to *be corporeal*.
> This push within us is what we mean when we say, man does not live in order
> to live, but 'because' he lives.  Nobody has sought out this state of
> urging, it has been with us ever since we existed and in THAT we exist. The
> nature of our *immediate being IS empty *and hence greedy, striving, and
> hence restless.... [that]  must go out of itself.  THEN it senses itself AS
> an urge. No living thing can ever escape from THAT  urging,... THIS thirst
> constantly announces itself but DOES NOT give its name."
> 
> A further reflection on this theme of hope as the "not yet" formed that I
> found while exploring Ernst Bloch's notion of hope was contained in Bloch's
> last book, called "Experimentum Mundi" This book begins:
> 
> "I am. But I do not have myself as yet. We still do not know in any way
> what we are and too much is full of something that is missing".
> This is another example of that "empty place" that needs to become
> corporeal. [the life force]
> 
> Peter Thompson, another author who explores Bloch's "Philosophy of
> Hope"  wrote an article titled: "The Privatization of Hope and the Crisis
> of Negation]
> 
> "For Bloch there could be no end to history because history itself is the
> process of the arrival at an autopoietically constructed truth of what it
> is to be human in the world.  Hope for Bloch, was the way in which our
> desire to fill in the *gaps* and to find something missing took shape."
> 
> Again the theme of "blues hope" as the "empty place"/ "gaps" AND the life
> force as answer.
> 
> Peter Thompson further adds:
> 
> "The Whole of 'The Principle of Hope'  is thus not just a listing of the
> ways in which we exercise hope but an analysis of the ways in which hope
> can be achieved in the real, material world so that our hunger can lead us
> back home via hope and belief.  In this sense he borrowed his *categories*
> not only from Marx but also from Aristotle, Hegel, Avicenna, Kant, Spinoza,
> Schelling, and indeed all those philosophers dealing with the complex and
> dialectical relationship between the human being and the material world.
> For him the human being and the material world were one and the same
> thing."
> 
> The question Bloch asked [and the question is vital today] is whether hope
> can still exist in anything other than an atomized, desocialized, and
> privatized form.  Bloch is questioning if  "late" capitalism has reduced
> human hope to the lowest common denominator in a neo-liberal atomized world
> where the "dream" of capitalism has lost its driving power and force?  Have
> the dreams of a better "world" become merely dreams of a better world for
> oneself alone or one's family? [against the world].
> 
> This returns us to Varolufakis who cautions that if Europeans loose "hope"
> in the European Union, the alternative will likely be fascist nationalist
> return to "blood"  and not a socialist uprising of equality and justice.
> Hope is cynical, if it merely waits for the collapse of capitalism,
> assuming a  better world to come as wishful thinking. For Bloch it is a
> much deeper question of the "not-yet" that is a "hunger" within the dialect
> of the present AND the "not-yet" formed.
> Bloch's hope is not a notion of "repression" concealing what has previously
> been conscious, but is a revealing or coming into form that has never
> previously existed.
> 
> Bloch and Georg Simmel were friends and Bloch's approach seems close to
> Simmel's theme of life [as vitality] expressed within a space of "as if" as
> a dialectical and reciprocal theme.
> 
> I have read that when Simmel's work came to North America it was cleansed
> of its dialectical character, and only recently has the centrality of the
> dialectical nature of Simmel's notion of "interaction" been
> revisited.  However that will be for another post on how Simmel's work
> opened up a space to understand what is "possible" or "potential" or "as
> if".
> Larry
> 
> 
> 
>> On Tue, Feb 17, 2015 at 12:15 PM, mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu> wrote:
>> 
>> ​Re prolepsis:
>> 
>> ​ Goethe (in one translation)
>> *All truly wise thoughts have been thoughts already thousands of times; but
>> to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, till they
>> take root in our personal experience*
>> 
>> mike
>> 
>> On Tue, Feb 17, 2015 at 9:36 AM, Helena Worthen <helenaworthen@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> 
>>> Thanks for this, Robert. Good collection of thoughts and references about
>>> prolepsis.
>>> 
>>> H
>>> 
>>> Helena Worthen
>>> helenaworthen@gmail.com
>>> 
>>>> On Feb 17, 2015, at 8:38 AM, Robert Lake wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> Hi again Everyone!
>>>> I recognize that most of what I write here is redundant and part of the
>>>> given history of XCMA, but I think we need to continually renew our
>>>> metalanguage by spelling out key concepts  for newcomers and of course
>>> our
>>>> own students. Otherwise we could end up like the prisoners on Alcatraz
>>> that
>>>> had been so long together that they knew all  knew each other's jokes,
>> so
>>>> all they needed to say was "number 39 ha, ha ". "Well number 6 back to
>>> you".
>>>> 
>>>> In terms of the praxis of hope and being within the zpd, I love Michael
>>>> Cole's (1996) notion of prolepsis which is predicated on  LSV's concept
>>> of
>>>> budding .Prolepsis is the perception of an anticipated or future
>>> condition
>>>> of development before it actually exists as an internalized state of
>>> being.
>>>> "The zone of proximal development defines those functions that have not
>>> yet
>>>> matured but are in the process of maturation, functions that will
>> mature
>>>> tomorrow but are currently in an embryonic state. These functions could
>>> be
>>>> termed the “buds” or “flowers” of development rather than the “fruits”
>> of
>>>> development.” (Vygotsky, 1978, p.86)" *So hope of further
>>> **development** is
>>>> based on present "being".* For example  at some point in life ,
>> probably
>>>> all of us were  told that we had real potential as a scholar or
>> teacher .
>>>> Prolepsis is a rare and extremely valuable tool in education if
>> teachers
>>>> and mentors can use it realistically as a means to help students move
>>> into
>>>> spaces that are truly within their grasp through interaction with those
>>> who
>>>> see can look at the bud and see the fruit until prolepsis becomes
>>>> internalized by the student themselves. Boris Meshcheryakov (2007)
>> calls
>>>> this transition a process of moving from “heteroprolepsis” to
>>>> “autoprolepsis” (p.166).
>>>> 
>>>> An example of each would be when a parent hears their child humming on
>>> key
>>>> or reproducing entire tunes in various levels of complexity, they will
>> of
>>>> course, under normal conditions, encourage their offspring toward some
>>>> future musical activity by reporting their performance to them with
>>>> something like “when you were two, you could hum all the notes to that
>>> song
>>>> and I know you will do quite well with piano lessons”.Meshcheryakov
>> goes
>>> on
>>>> to relate an example of autoprolepsis in children’s role playing when
>> the
>>>> child imagines “him or herself in various adults’ roles (hunter,
>> mother,
>>>> teacher, etc.), imitating the elements of cultural forms of behavior”
>> (p.
>>>> 167). Many future and present teachers for example can recall a time
>> when
>>>> they used to pretend teach their siblings or maybe even their stuffed
>>>> animals. But this role-play does not cease as we grow out of childhood.
>>>> Student teaching, apprenticeships, GA's  could all be zpd spaces with
>> the
>>>> potential of  moving from heteroprolepsis to autoprolepsis.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Cole, M.,(1996). *Cultural psychology: A once and future* *discipline.*
>>>> Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Meshcheryakov, B. G. (2007). Terminology in L. S. Vygotsky’s writings.
>> In
>>>> Daniels, H., Cole, M., Wertsch, J. V. (Eds.)  *The Cambridge companion
>> to
>>>> Vygotsky*. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). *Mind in society*. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
>>> University
>>>> Press.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>>> On Tue, Feb 17, 2015 at 10:27 AM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> The theme [sense] of hope within an atmosphere [mood] of despair,
>> dread,
>>>>> and cynicism has been referred to as "blues hope".
>>>>> The question of "being" in the present moment and only from this
>> moment
>>> can
>>>>> we act is presented as a relation with blues hope.
>>>>> This "being" which sociocultural themes indicate "carries" form which
>>>>> develop in particular practices of creating "collectives".
>>>>> So where do we situate Bloch's notion of "hope" within these "forms"
>> as
>>>>> cultural-historical embedded practices.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Athanasios Marvakis answer [page 2] is:
>>>>> 
>>>>> "The 'utopian' is not located - as a speculation - in a transcendent
>> and
>>>>> separate realm else-where or else-when.  Utopianism AS future
>>> orientedness
>>>>> - is immanent in the present, and the issue IS [LP - being] to detect,
>>>>> recognize, and discern, rather than to criticise, the blurred and
>> fuzzy
>>>>> MANIFESTATIONS of hope - AS the emotional energizing ground [LP -
>> coming
>>>>> into form] of utopianism - that EXIST [LP - have their being] within
>>>>> everyday life."
>>>>> 
>>>>> I would say this is one "theme" or sense that can be "generated" to
>>>>> Annalisa's question on only being in the present moment "exists"
>>>>> 
>>>>> Larry
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> --
>>>> 
>>>> *Robert Lake  Ed.D.*Associate Professor
>>>> Social Foundations of Education
>>>> Dept. of Curriculum, Foundations, and Reading
>>>> Georgia Southern University
>>>> Secretary/Treasurer-AERA- Paulo Freire Special Interest Group
>>>> P. O. Box 8144
>>>> Phone: (912) 478-0355
>>>> Fax: (912) 478-5382
>>>> Statesboro, GA  30460
>> 
>> 
>> --
>> It is the dilemma of psychology to deal as a natural science with an object
>> that creates history. Ernst Boesch.
>>