[Xmca-l] Re: "cultivating Minds

[HENRY SHONERD]

Larry,
I am mashing up serveral themes lately in the chat braid:
Style and authenticity: Are they compatible? I am thinking about the discussion of performance art. Annalisa posted a radio podcast about professional wrestling. Is it fake, and if so, so what? it’s just entertainment. And makes lots of money. Your three definitions of FREEDOM come to mind (boiled way down, leaving just the salt): 1) autonomy, 2) expression of AUTHENTIC self, 3) collaborative/creaiive hoping. So, I see PLAY saving the day in that third, hopeful space, that sweet spot. Where people play at being both stylish and authentic. That would never go out of style. That would be vital. And wouldn’t be dreadfully boring. 

I look back at the previous paragraph and thought I might try to unpack it, but that would be even more arrogant than having written it in the first place. So, let’s just leave it there. Play with it. Come on, peeps, come out and play!! Snow has melted here in the Break Bad City, all mud puddle luscious. We’re high desert, so this is a real treat. Sorry can’t send some of our mud to Mike in San Diego.  
Henry



> On Mar 3, 2015, at 7:45 AM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Henry,
> Let's follow further the opening comment of the song [this is an "approach
> that has gone out of favour in the scientific world]  Poetry as "metaphor"
> but not "mere" metaphor as the handmaiden of the "realistic" and the
> "conceptual"  Rather "metaphor AS realistic" and also the reciprocal "the
> realistic AS metaphorical"  Chemicals as personifications
> [anthro-morphisms] "attract" each other.
> 
> I am "implicating" metaphor and valences AND rational conceptions as equal
> "partners" in "approaching" the notion of life as "vitality" [another
> notion that has gone out of fashion  I am suggesting that this "theme" of
> "life" as vital/dead seems to "play" out and also
> "play" within  internal/external "dramas".
> Daniel Stern most recent book is on the notion of "vitality"  Also
> Heidegger's notion of "care and concern".
> 
> Just saying -
> 
> Larry
> 
> On Mon, Mar 2, 2015 at 9:43 PM, HENRY SHONERD <hshonerd@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Larry and Mike,
>> I think you guys are on to something. Thank goodness for valence, the salt
>> of the earth according to the McGarrigles:
>> 
>> KATE & ANNA MCGARRIGLE
>> "NaCl"
>> Just a little atom of Chlorine, valence minus one
>> Swimming through the sea, digging the scene, just having fun
>> She's not worried about the shape or size of her outside shell
>> It's fun to ionize
>> Just a little atom of Cl with an unfilled shell
>> But somewhere in that sea lurks handsome Sodium
>> With enough electrons on his outside shell plus that extra one
>> Somewhere in this deep blue sea there's a negative
>> For my extra energy
>> Yes, somewhere in this foam my positive will find a home
>> Then unsuspecting Chlorine felt a magnetic pull
>> She looked down and her outside shell was full
>> Sodium cried, "What a gas, be my bride
>> And I'll change your name from Chlorine to chloride!"
>> Now the sea evaporates to make the clouds for the rain and snow
>> Leaving her chemical compounds in the absence of H2O
>> But the crystals that wash upon the shore are happy ones
>> So, if you never thought before
>> Think of the love that you eat when you salt you meat!
>> 
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpTzawl3OmI <
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpTzawl3OmI>
>> 
>> Henry
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> On Mar 2, 2015, at 8:47 PM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Mike,
>>> I will follow further in Simmels and Urs Furher's footsteps as this
>>> theme also brings in Ernst Boesch's theory of "symbolic action" which was
>>> developed as a notion that all phenomena [including action] have both
>>> objective and symbolic "aspects". Boesch wrote:
>>> 
>>> "This 'pervasiveness' of symbolism may be easy to grasp for a
>> psychologist
>>> with psychoanalytic experience or with strong artistic tastes; in my
>> case,
>>> however, although I believe myself to have a bit of both, this insight
>> had
>>> much more 'rational' roots. ... I trace its inception back to the 1963
>>> article 'Raum und Zeit als Valenzsysteme', in which I formulated, for the
>>> first time, the close *interrelatedness of 'valence' *[LP- worth/value ]
>>> and 'structure': the conceptual structuring of space depends, I said,
>> upon
>>> the location of valences [worth/values] - it was the *'wish to return'
>> *which
>>> led to the specification and stability of *places.*"  [cited in "reasons
>>> For a Symbolic Concept of Action" in Culture and Psychology 1997
>>> Volume 3(3): pages 423-431]
>>> 
>>> I am suggesting that Simmel, Urs Furher, and Ernst Boesch were all
>>> following in the footsteps of the concept of "polyvalence" [multiple
>> worths
>>> and  values] as symbolic actions.
>>> 
>>> Larry
>>> 
>>> On Mon, Mar 2, 2015 at 3:23 PM, mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> Amazing "coincidence" Larry--- I just wrote to Urs who I have not
>>>> corresponded with for years as a result of going through his book on
>>>> cultivating minds. It has a chapter on behavior
>>>> settings as media for promoting children's development that has me
>>>> re-thinking a number of issues. Among other things, there is a very
>>>> interesting discussion of Roger Barker's research program. Very worth
>> while
>>>> 
>>>> I could not open that file you sent, but I found the link to the journal
>>>> article. Its here:
>>>> 
>>>> http://lchc.ucsd.edu/Histarch/ja93v15n1.PDF
>>>> 
>>>> There are a number of other interesting/relevant articles there. "The
>> sound
>>>> of the violin" is a favorite.
>>>> 
>>>> Thanks for reminding us of Simmel.
>>>> Today, March 1, was his birthday!
>>>> Coincidence?
>>>> mike
>>>> 
>>>> On Mon, Mar 2, 2015 at 3:01 PM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> Mike,
>>>>> I continued to explore Urs Furher's book that you mentioned on Simmel
>>>> that
>>>>> would be potentially beneficial to follow. In my explorations I came
>>>> across
>>>>> this article on the metaphor of "traces" or "footprints" in the XMCA
>>>>> archives. It was written in 1993 and is an interesting perspective on
>> the
>>>>> metaphor of cultivation AS FOOTPRINTS.  It is the third article in the
>>>>> newsletter.
>>>>> Urs is pointing to the reciprocal processes of "internalizing" and
>>>>> "externalizing" the inner "affective sense" of "place" through
>> attachment
>>>>> to "home" and "vehicle" as concrete ways to form one's identity through
>>>>> attachment/security needs and  autonomy needs.
>>>>> Larry
>>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> --
>>>> It is the dilemma of psychology to deal as a natural science with an
>> object
>>>> that creates history. Ernst Boesch.
>>>> 
>> 
>>