[Xmca-l] Re: identity expressed or formed by action?
Andy Blunden
ablunden@mira.net
Wed Feb 15 07:23:35 PST 2017
Thank you Martin, Michael and Michael. It seems I was not on
the wrong track. I will press the matter further.
Thanks again all,
Andy
------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden
http://home.mira.net/~andy
http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making
On 16/02/2017 2:18 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote:
> Andy, I don't think that there is a drive to identity. I
> think this view is typical of a constructivist mentalist
> approach. In my view, Marx was closer to the point, and
> therefore Vygotsky and Leont'ev who use the category of
> personality rather than identity. Marx/Engels say
> something pertinent in the German Ideology:
>
> |p. 5| This mode of production must not be considered
> simply as being the reproduction of the physical existence
> of the individuals. Rather it is a definite form of
> activity of these individuals, a definite form of
> expressing their life, a definite mode of life on their
> part. *As* individuals express their life, so they are.
> What they are, therefore, coincides with their production,
> both with what they produce and
> ― 32 ―
> *with how they produce*. *Hence what individuals are
> depends on the material conditions of their production*.
> (This is from vol. 5 of the International Publishers edition)
>
> Michael
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor
> Applied Cognitive Science
> MacLaurin Building A567
> University of Victoria
> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2
> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth
> <http://education2.uvic.ca/faculty/mroth/>
>
> New book: */The Mathematics of Mathematics
> <https://www.sensepublishers.com/catalogs/bookseries/new-directions-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the-mathematics-of-mathematics/>/*
>
> On Wed, Feb 15, 2017 at 6:52 AM, Andy Blunden
> <ablunden@mira.net <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:
>
> Thank you for the reference, Michael, but can't you
> tell me in a sentence or two whether there is any such
> thing as a drive to express one's self-identity in
> activity which is prior to the activity in which
> identity is formed?
>
> Andy
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> Andy Blunden
> http://home.mira.net/~andy <http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy>
> http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making
> <http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making>
>
> On 16/02/2017 1:46 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote:
>
> Andy,
> I have worked out some of the issues in an article
> available online
> Roth, W.-M. (2009). Identity and community:
> Differences at heart and
> futures-to-come. Éducation et Didactique, 3, 99-118. (
> http://educationdidactique.revues.org/582
> <http://educationdidactique.revues.org/582>)
>
> where "I present a way to realize the
> Hegel–Marx–Vygotsky–Leont’ev program
> of understanding the subject of activity and,
> correlatively, of
> understanding the (the culture of the) community
> with which individuals
> stand in an irreducible, because mutually
> constitutive relationship"
>
> Michael
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor
> Applied Cognitive Science
> MacLaurin Building A567
> University of Victoria
> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2
> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth
> <http://web.uvic.ca/%7Emroth>
> <http://education2.uvic.ca/faculty/mroth/
> <http://education2.uvic.ca/faculty/mroth/>>
>
> New book: *The Mathematics of Mathematics
> <https://www.sensepublishers.com/catalogs/bookseries/new-directions-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the-mathematics-of-mathematics/
> <https://www.sensepublishers.com/catalogs/bookseries/new-directions-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the-mathematics-of-mathematics/>>*
>
> On Wed, Feb 15, 2017 at 6:17 AM,
> <lpscholar2@gmail.com
> <mailto:lpscholar2@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Rob,
> So, in the way ‘she becomes a pollutant as
> waste’ can a person become ‘an
> expressive identity’ as a formation of a
> particular cultural imaginary?
>
> Not a ‘pollutant’ or ‘an expressive identity’
> to start with, but becoming
> a pollutant or an expressive identity.
>
> Sent from my Windows 10 phone
>
> From: R.J.S.Parsons
> Sent: February 15, 2017 3:26 AM
> To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
> <mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: identity expressed or
> formed by action?
>
> The idea of waste leads me to Mary Douglas's
> Purity and Danger. (One of
> the books that made me grow up.) She discusses
> what dirt is - matter out
> of place. Then she discusses all sorts of
> implications. She doesnt'
> discuss the issue of expression vs formation
> as such, but much of what
> she does discuss bears on it. Menstruation
> comes to mind. In some
> societies, women having their periods are
> perceived as dirty, and they
> are seen as untouchable by men. So the way a
> woman is treated forms in
> her the idea that she is a pollutant, or a
> carrier. She was not one to
> start with.
>
> Rob
>
> On 15/02/2017 10:21, Laure Kloetzer wrote:
>
> Dear Andy,
>
> Interestingly, I had a very similar
> discussion with some colleagues
> recently not on identity but on... waste.
> The perspective of one of our
> students was that investigating what waste
> is can be done via interviews,
> in order to understand how we decide what
> to through away. I was arguing
> that waste is not fully defined before
> action, but that waste is what we
> through away. The action of throwing away
> is formative of what count as
> "waste".
> I thought it might help to step back for
> one second from the tricky
> question of self-identity and considering
> more concrete, everyday
> activities before coming back to it...
> Best
> LK
>
>
> 2017-02-15 8:30 GMT+01:00 Andy Blunden
> <ablunden@mira.net
> <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>>:
>
> I would be interested in any helpful
> comments (other than suggestions
>
> for
>
> more books to read) from my xmca
> psychologist friends on this problem.
>
> In discussion with a friend, who is
> very au fait with contemporary
>
> social
>
> philosophy, but knows nothing of CHAT,
> suggested to me a number of ideas
> intended to be explanatory (rather
> than descriptive) of current social
>
> and
>
> political trends. He talks about the
> rise of "expressive authenticity"
> since the 1970s and "collective action
> as a means to express selfhood."
>
> In
>
> response, I questioned whether there
> is any such thing as a drive to
> *express* one's identity, and that
> rather, collective action (and there
>
> is
>
> fundamentally no other kind of action)
> in pursuit of needs of all kinds
> (spiritual, social and material) is
> *formative* of identity.
>
> A classic case for analysis is the
> well-known observation that nowadays
> people purchase (clothes, cars, food,
> ...) as a means of expressing
>
> their
>
> identity. I question this, because it
> presumes that there is the innate
> drive to express one's identity, which
> I see no evidence for. I think
> people adopt dress styles in much the
> same way that people carry flags
>
> - to
>
> promote a movement they think positive
> and to gain social acceptance in
>
> it.
>
> Identity-formation is a *result* not a
> cause of this.
>
> So, am I wrong? Is identity formation
> a result or a cause of activity?
>
> Andy
>
>
> --
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> Andy Blunden
> http://home.mira.net/~andy
> <http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy>
> http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making
> <http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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