[Xmca-l] Re: Laws of evolution and laws of history

[Larry Purss]

Miguel,
Thank you for this question and re-turning us to "ethical" concerns.  You
have reflected on the larger spatial scales.  My reflections explore the
other micro scale and notions of thirdness within pedagogy. This listserve
has recently discussed notions of "rhythmicity" in our enactments with
others.  I want to bring in the psychodynamic notion of rhythmicity within
thirdness by sharing Jessica Benjamin's way of moving beyond the
complimentary notion of "secondness" as the dynamic of "doer and done to"

Jessica is reflecting on a level of thirdness that is prior to using
language which she says is missing the aspect explored by "baby watchers".
She says the focus on language misses the first or founding moment, when
she writes:

  "This [the first aspect of recognition] is the part that baby watchers
have made an indelible part of our thinking. In my view of thirdness,
recognition is not first constituted by verbal speech; rather it begins
with the early nonverbal experience of sharing a pattern, a dance, with
another person" [Beyond Doer and Done to: An Intersubjective View of
Thirdness]

This aspect of primal thirdness for Jessica is a nascent energetic third -
as distinct from the symbolic third in the mother's mind - present in the
earliest exchange of "gestures" between mother and child.  Gestures are the
early primary exchange which inform "baby watchers" notion of moral or
ethical thirdness which implies the principle of "affective experience" or
"felt experience" that IS PALPABLE.  This term "palpable" expresses a
particular level of felt gestures which are  nonverbal but are mediated and
are beyond complimentary doer and done to and preconceived propagating.
Jessica argues that for the imaginal symbolic verbal third to actually
"work" [the ZPD] as a true third -rather than complimentary doer and done
to demands - requires the capacity for accomadation to a mutually created
set of expectations [projects]. For Jessica the primal or founding form
this accomodation takes or assumes is the creation of alignment with [and
repair of ruptures to] the palpable patterns, the participation
in connections based on affect resonance.

This palpable felt experience Sanders called "rhythmicity" which Sanders
considers one of two fundamental principles of all human interaction.  The
other principle being "specificity".

Jessica argues that palpable rhythmic experience helps constitute the
capacity for symbolic imaginal thirdness.  Rhythmicity may be seen [and
heard and felt] as a model principle UNDERLYING the creation of shared
patterns that move beyond complimentary dyads of doer and done to type
struggles for recognition.

Miguel, to explore our ethical understandings of pedagogy that are moving
beyond epistemology, do the "baby watchers" and their notions of
primal nonverbal thirdness have something to offer in our explorations of
Kris' notion of third space as a hybrid intersubjective space that is not
doer and done to complimentarity.
Growth and development seem to oscillate between already known
pre-conceptions of what should be taught [the doer and the done to] and the
more ethical or moral thirdness that emerges symbolically and imaginally
from within a palpable felt experience of nonverbal thirdness that
transcends doer and done to.
This is an intersubjective understanding and is only an "aspect" of the
cultural historical understanding, but it does focus our attention on the
ethical or moral dimension of enactments [performative activities]  This
model is an extension of Winnicott's notion of "potential or transitional
space" and Daniel Stern's baby watching.

Larry

On Sat, Jan 17, 2015 at 8:30 AM, Zavala, Miguel <
mizavala@exchange.fullerton.edu> wrote:

> The distinction between propaganda and education is an analytic one that
> is useful for me as a teacher. But I also think that it's a distinction
> resolved not so much at the level of philosophy (theories, such as those
> being proposed here) but ethically.
>
> Anyone who has taught and been reflexive of her/his pedagogy will sense
> this distinction between the two, 'propaganda' and 'education'.  There is
> perhaps a particular instrumentalism (as an 'ethic', such as that
> promulgated in 'revolutionary' struggles and in neoliberalism) that sees
> people as objects not as Freire would term 'historical subjects' in
> propaganda.
>
> I fully recognize the solipsism in all distinctions, such that some may
> argue that even in Freirean, participatory pedagogy the issue remains
> unresolved.  That there is a dimension of propaganda in education (and
> education in propaganda).  But what some have pointed out (as I read their
> posts) is that we also should look at these processes in larger
> spatial-scales.  What are the collectives that give birth or make possible
> education and propaganda projects?  Do these strive for rehumanization?
> How does the struggle for rehumanization remain a struggle at theoretical
> and practical and historical and spatial levels?
>
> How do folks draw this distinction in their own pedagogical praxis? How is
> the ethical conceptualized, lived, and embodied in your pedagogy?  I
> suggest looking at it less from a theory of communication and more from an
> ethical one (ethics as primary, epistemology as secondary) that we might
> begin to re-conceptualize the very distinction between 'propaganda' and
> 'education'.
>
> Miguel Zavala
>
>
> On 1/17/15 5:37 AM, "Andy Blunden" <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:
>
> >And I found the Engels he was quoting, in the Russian translation:
> >
> >    /Вечные законы природы /также превращаются все более и более в
> >    исторические законы.
> >
> >The English translation says:
> >
> >    The eternal laws of nature also become transformed more and more
> >    into historical ones.
> >
> >but then it goes on to say:
> >
> >    That water is fluid from 0°-100° C. is an eternal law of nature, but
> >    for it to be valid, there must be (1) water, (2) the given
> >    temperature, (3) normal pressure.
> >
> >So this does NOT mean what it appeared to mean. Engels simply means
> >"nothing remains constant" It is not saying anything about "laws of
> >history"!!
> >
> >Andy
> >------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >*Andy Blunden*
> >http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
> >
> >
> >mike cole wrote:
> >> Thanks David -- That is certainly where I must have encountered the
> >>phrase
> >> often enough for it to stick in my mind. And thanks to Jessica and Andy
> >>we
> >> see versions of the idea in many places.
> >>
> >> Double the pleasure.
> >> mike
> >>
> >> On Tue, Jan 13, 2015 at 11:36 PM, David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com>
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>> Mike--
> >>>
> >>> See Vol. Four of the Collected Works in English: the quote you refer
> >>>to is
> >>> the epigraph to HDHMF. It's from Dialectics of Nature, and Vygotsky
> >>>keeps
> >>> coming back to it again and again, throughout the whole text of HDHMF,
> >>> which is one reason why I am assuming (against what Anton Yasnitsky has
> >>> written) that HDHMF is a whole book, one of the very few that Vygotsky
> >>> completedly completed (and also his longest work).
> >>>
> >>
> >
>
>
>