[Xmca-l] Re: Why Computers Make So Little Difference

[mike cole]

This is a hopeful distinction:  "the power of objective systems
in contradistinction to bureaucratic power
​."
mike​


On Wed, Mar 11, 2015 at 6:00 PM, Huw Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Unfortunately that seems to tie in with my view that civilisation is the
> open regard for others and appreciation for the power of objective systems
> in contradistinction to bureaucratic power.  I shall reflect on that.
>
>
>
> On 12 March 2015 at 00:32, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:
>
> > So true, Huw!
> > I think it deserves some reflection among CHAT theorists who take an
> > interest in cultural development that when a non-literate community comes
> > into contact with "civilisation" they actually meet two different things
> > for the first time.
> > (1) They come into contact with *civilisation*, a.k.a. institutions which
> > have developed culture with the aid of the written word, and the
> > interaction between the written word and technique, and the immensely
> > productive spiral of development which has given us Mozart, Beethoven,
> > Darwin, Einstein, and Harpo Marx. That is dialectical logic.
> > (2) They come into contact with *bureaucracy*, which in its mission to
> > manage the collective lives of very large numbers of people, has utilised
> > the written word to break down the true concepts created by the culture
> > into neat little pigeon holes for filing away, and is dedicated to
> > inculcating the minds of our children into thinking in terms of taxonomy,
> > rather than true concepts.  That is formal logic.
> >
> > I think there is a lot of confusion between civilisation and bureaucracy,
> > and consequently between true concepts (which nonliterate people have,
> > albeit within a limited scope of experience) and pseudoconcepts (which
> are
> > the great love of bureaucracy, the commercial world and positivist
> science.)
> >
> > Andy
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > *Andy Blunden*
> > http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/
> >
> >
> > Huw Lloyd wrote:
> >
> >> ...
> >>
> >> The impression that I have of our collectively western society is that
> it
> >> is utterly swamped in formal logic and its mode of operation.  Our
> schools
> >> and universities are probably the worst of all in this regard, such that
> >> even raising the notion of schooling based upon creative understanding
> >> seems to bewilder people (and small wonder that innovators in logic were
> >> also technical innovators, because it is necessary to create and design
> in
> >> order to learn how to think).
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
>



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