[Xmca-l] Re: Trump's speech and Perezhivanie

Mon Jan 23 17:16:00 PST 2017

David, did you include the “coarse analysis”? I’d be interested.

H

Helena Worthen
helenaworthen@gmail.com
Berkeley, CA 94707
Blog about US and Viet Nam: helenaworthen.wordpress.com

> On Jan 22, 2017, at 9:52 PM, David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Vygotsky argued for a "semantic" rather than a "cognitive" view of human
> consciousness. What's the difference?
> 
> Halliday says that it is largely a matter of in which direction you
> proceed. The semantic view takes language and works "inwards", from the
> syntagm of speech to the paradigm of thinking. Things said acquire meaning
> when we compare them, not with objects, or even objects of thought, but
> with other things not said. This was Vygotsky in Chapter Seven of Thinking
> and Speech. The consciousness model starts with knowledge and works
> "outwards", from the ostensible structure of thought to the structure of
> speaking. This means that perizhivanie isn't a form of knowledge but a form
> of meaning. It's the definition Halliday offers for "experience": "the
> reality that we construe for ourselves by means of language".
> 
> So for example one way to construe Trump's inaugural (see attached) is to
> compare what he said with what he could have said and did not say. I think
> that the most revealing part of the speech is actually the most frequent
> Theme of all: "we".
> 
> Here's a rather coarse analysis of "Theme", "Subject" and "Actor" in the
> speech to bear this out!
> 
> David Kellogg
> Macquarie University
> 
> 
> On Mon, Jan 23, 2017 at 6:47 AM, Helena Worthen <helenaworthen@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
>> One more thought, before plowing ahead into this thickening conversation:
>> 
>> The Destiny of a Man can be seen as an attempt (1959) to tell "The
>> Russian/Soviet Story" in a way that brought as many as possible of the
>> clashing contradictions into one narrative that makes it possible for the
>> people who might watch it go forward. We can look around at examples of
>> comparable attempts to tell “The American story.”  The nature of the story
>> will correspond to the time in history when it “worked” as the right story
>> for the time. The Destiny of a Man “worked” in 1959, when the generation
>> that had suffered in the Great Patriotic War was still healing but a
>> turning point (Kruschev’s speech) had been reached. It interpreted the
>> perezvanhie of the war for the generation that had survived it. It
>> distorted some things (what often happened to ex-prisoners of war, for
>> example) and confirmed others (the gas chambers). It wasn’t history; it was
>> art.
>> 
>> I notice that Vygotsky says that perezvanhie is a unit that joins the
>> internal emotional experience and the external situation. I am tempted to
>> play with the Engestrom “unit of analysis” here but all refrain.
>> 
>> So what works of art can we point out that would serve comparable
>> purposes, related to their moment in time?
>> 
>> How about Uncle Tom’s Cabin? The images of African Americans are
>> cartoonish to modern eyes, but the book itself made the Black experience
>> accessible to the readers of 1852. It widened the circle of perezvhanie -
>> the environment - for white readers who were no doubt troubled but
>> uncertain (social situation of development?) as they sensed the tremors
>> that would flare up into the Civil War 10 years later.
>> 
>> Note that the work of art that achieves this purpose (creates the right
>> story for the time) is created in the moment when uncertainty, fear, etc
>> are dominant — when it is needed, in other words - not when 100 years have
>> gone by (or 60, as in the case of The Destiny of a Man) and we know, or
>> think we know, what happened next. When its time is past, it becomes a
>> “classic.”  Example: Steinbeck: The Grapes of Wrath.
>> 
>> So what can we point to that achieves this purpose for us today?
>> 
>> 
>> Helena Worthen
>> helenaworthen@gmail.com
>> Berkeley, CA 94707
>> Blog about US and Viet Nam: helenaworthen.wordpress.com
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> On Jan 21, 2017, at 11:40 PM, Alfredo Jornet Gil <a.j.gil@iped.uio.no>
>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Thank you all for following up on the Trump's speech suggestion.
>>> Helena, the way you have re-phrased my proposal is exactly they way I
>> had hoped it to be heard. I think Andy, Helena, Sue, Greg and Larry have
>> offered empirical materials for and analyses of the type we would be
>> producing if we were to follow the proposal. Thanks Greg for the reference,
>> which seems right to the point, and Sue for the glimpse to people's best
>> protest signs (they are good empirical materials for sure). Thanks Andy,
>> too, offering your body and soul to scientific progress and undergoing the
>> inaugural speech again. The way you describe it is very close to how I
>> thought and felt yesterday.
>>> My family and friends today joined the march here in Victoria, and, like
>> Helena mentions, we all commented on how well it felt. There was a very
>> cheerful, friendly atmosphere, and lots of affection. I too felt better
>> today.
>>> 
>>> In case we wanted to go forward with this project, I have created a
>> google doc in which I am collecting the resources, empirical cases, and
>> analyses that we have begun producing. I have also added additional links
>> (like one to the "Bikers for Trump" site, and the full transcript of the
>> inaugural speech plus a link from the Washington Post.
>>> 
>>> The document should be accessible to everyone who follow this link:
>>> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Nmn77hKa8XhDJ043ZfVuTUtT7NxDA
>> ibuzdv0KJDGqCo/edit?usp=sharing
>>> I guess the easiest way is that I curate it, populating it with content
>> shared in xmca, but everyone is able and welcome to edit.
>>> Alfredo
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> ________________________________________
>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>> on behalf of Helena Worthen <helenaworthen@gmail.com>
>>> Sent: 22 January 2017 06:54
>>> To: ablunden@mira.net; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trump's speech and Perezhivanie
>>> 
>>> OK, got it.
>>> 
>>> H
>>> 
>>> Helena Worthen
>>> helenaworthen@gmail.com
>>> Berkeley, CA 94707
>>> Blog about US and Viet Nam: helenaworthen.wordpress.com
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>>> On Jan 21, 2017, at 9:29 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> No, Helena, the *environment* is the same, but each are in a different
>> *social situation of development*, thus the different perezhivanie.
>>>> 
>>>> Andy
>>>> 
>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> Andy Blunden
>>>> http://home.mira.net/~andy
>>>> http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making
>>>> On 22/01/2017 3:48 PM, Helena Worthen wrote:
>>>>> ... The social situation — like the alcoholic mother in the case with
>> the three children each with a different perezvhanie - is the same for both
>> people who are listening to the speech, but the people (like the children)
>> respond differently.
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>> 
>>> 
>> 
>> 
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