[Xmca-l] Re: The Learning Sciences in the era of U.S. Nationalism

[Shirin Vossoughi]

Helena
This was very interesting to hear about
one question:
this strikes me as a big assumption "Someone with only a degree in Ethnic
Studies will not know this stuff."
Would it be fruitful to look for someone with a strong background in Ethnic
studies AND labor organizing within such a position?
Sounds like a generative opening
Shirin

On Tue, Jan 24, 2017 at 2:58 PM, Helena Worthen <helenaworthen@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Just in time, I have been gifted with a way to "ascend (out of this
> discussion) to the concrete."
>
> Mike mentions "forms of action" and says some colleagues are saying "focus
> energy on academic work." Faculty committee work is part of academic work.
>
> I just got a phone call from a colleague who teaches at California State
> University and who is, with me and others, on an advisory committee
> convened to revive the moribund Labor Studies Program at Laney, a community
> college in Oakland, near where I live.
>
> Everyone is probably aware that Labor Studies programs are target practice
> for right-wingers. If you're not aware, you aren't surprised. So the
> program at Laney has been shrinking for years. The idea now is to revive it
> by joining it with the Community Studies Program, which is an umbrella
> Ethnic Studies program. This makes sense, right? Latino Studies, Black
> Studies, Gender Studies, Women's Studies, Asian Studies and Labor Studies
> intuitively seem to belong together. They address people who are likely to
> be working for a living.
>
> So our advisory committee will meet Thursday night and the big issue is
> this:  A core required course is going to be "Community and Labor
> Organizing." This course already exists in the Community Studies program.
> If it is submitted to the Academic Senate un-changed, it will speed through
> approval and be offered in Fall 2017. It will also count for transfer to
> the State University and UC systems.
>
> The catch is that as written, it has to be taught by someone with an
> advanced Ethnic Studies degree.
>
> The easy thing to do is to shrug and let it through without changing it.
> But an Ethnic Studies degree does not prepare someone to teach labor
> organizing.  First, there are a lot of technical issues that come up in
> labor organizing. The tricks and traps of labor legislation are just the
> beginning. Second, although you might think that labor unions and community
> based organizations (CBOs) are natural allies, they have a very hard time
> working with each other in practice because of the way authority runs
> through them. Someone with only a degree in Ethnic Studies will not know
> this stuff.
>
> But it's not just a matter of the content of the course. Letting the
> course go to approval as is would eliminate the possibility that any of the
> program faculty who come our of labor (who usually have degrees in
> Philosophy, History, Political Science) would be able to teach that class.
>
> So, is this worth the fight? It looks, on the surface, like a tempest in a
> teapot. But it's a concrete example of a moment when you can put the teeth
> of economic justice into the mouth of (block that metaphor).
>
> I will go to the meeting Thursday night arguing in favor re-writing the
> course description to allow faculty who do not have a degree in Ethnic
> Studies to teach this course. I will say that it's worth losing a semester
> because there is something bigger at stake here.  This is also academic
> work.
>
>
> Helena Worthen
> helenaworthen@gmail.com
> Vietnam blog: helenaworthen.wordpress.com
>
> On Jan 24, 2017, at 10:18 AM, mike cole wrote:
>
> > Hi Michael
> >
> > Nice thought from Bateson. And I see that Peg has just posted a link
> > to the book. Its certainly a keeper.
> >
> > But it does not speak to forms of action that people in our current
> > circumstances. Some of my colleagues argue that it is essential for
> > academics in these times to eschew politics in any visible form and
> > to focus energy on the academic work precisely in order combat over
> > simplification that threatens human life.
> >
> > The basic starting point of the LS/US Nationalism paper, as I see it, is
> > that claim that the threat of nationalist/populism is GLOBAL and that it
> > poses huge challenges to LS researchers. So we might not want to get too
> > caught up in examining Trump/US version of this problem without
> considering
> > the rest of the world and its history. The 20th Century provided at least
> > two clear examples of what happens when this configuration of
> > nationalism/populism arises in modern times - two wars to end all wars.
> If
> > we are in fact returning to the 1930's in this regard, we are doing so in
> > an unparalleled set of circumstances for homo sapiens.
> >
> > So as professionals/citizens, are there forms of action, lines of
> research,
> > that might be proposed that would nurture the beautiful in circumstances
> > that do not involve high levels of radiation and mass destruction? Is
> > tending to our intellectual gardens the direction to go? Or are forms of
> > action of the sort proposed by the authors the right direction? And if
> the
> > latter, what do we know from past experience that might guide our
> thinking?
> > They set out to open the discussion in a major journal.
> >
> > Seems like the task here is to see what this group might possibly add to
> > their attempts to strategize the future based on our collective
> experience.
> >
> > Mike
> >
> > PS- Seems like Alfredo's perezhivanie project, as an exercise in
> > international collaboration to both test a basic theoretical claim of
> > Vygotsky's and to so collectively, might combine the academic and the
> > political just a little. And just a little might be a lot.
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Jan 24, 2017 at 9:40 AM, Glassman, Michael <glassman.13@osu.edu>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> So I am re-reading Bateson, somewhat in light of current happenings and
> I
> >> come across this paragraph near the beginning of Mind and Nature,
> >>
> >> "There seems to be something like a Gresham's law of cultural evolution
> >> according to which the oversimplified will always displace the
> >> sophisticated and the vulgar and hateful will always displace the
> >> beautiful.  And yet the beautiful persists."
> >>
> >> Wise words for his time and ours.  The information in nature will always
> >> bring us back around to the beautiful if we let it, but it always seems
> to
> >> slip through our fingers.  Maybe another take on the arc of justice.
> The
> >> trouble of course is every time we let the vulgar and hateful displace
> the
> >> stakes seem to become much higher.
> >>
> >> Michael
> >>
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@
> >> mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Alfredo Jornet Gil
> >> Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2017 1:59 AM
> >> To: ablunden@mira.net; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <
> >> xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> >> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: The Learning Sciences in the era of U.S.
> Nationalism
> >>
> >> Francine,
> >>
> >> I agree analysis is only one tool and I hope we can do much more here
> and
> >> elsewhere. But the overtone window seems to resonate well with our quest
> >> for understanding the possibilities/conditions for hearing Trump's voice
> >> sound like a pleasant flute or like toilette flush.
> >>
> >> I think the idea of Irony also adds to the question of perezhivanie and
> >> Trump in the sense that different perezhivanie will also imply different
> >> forms of generalisation/consciousness. Irony seems to always involve
> moving
> >> a step up in the types of generalisation or metaphor.
> >>
> >> A good example may be found in considering the "Love Trumps Hate"
> message
> >> that has been going around in the media. Although I am no linguist, I am
> >> gonna give it a try: If you were to hear the assertion literally, you
> may
> >> hear an imperative to do love Trump's hate in such a way as to enter
> into a
> >> double bind situation. To find yourself in this situation, you need to
> >> stick to the transitive form of the subject (you love) with respect to
> the
> >> object (Trump hate). You kind of have to have faith in this form,
> respect
> >> the integrity of the object and the integrity of the subject each in its
> >> own terms, and so you may come to feel confused, or perhaps end up
> hating
> >> just the same way Trump plays he hates.
> >>
> >> On the other hand, to be able to hear "love trumps hate" as a message of
> >> love, as an equivalent (as per Vygotsky's equivalence) for another
> message
> >> that we also have seen these days, "when they go low we go high," then
> you
> >> have to take the relation between subject and object in a higher level
> of
> >> metaphor: you now hear the sentence in a context that modifies both
> subject
> >> and object; hate and love cannot be exclusive opposites. The sentence
> then
> >> is heard as intransitive, love and hate no longer are independent. And
> most
> >> importantly, once you hear the sentence in its intransitive form, love
> and
> >> hate no longer are the same.
> >>
> >> Similarly, to hear everything Trump said and take it literally takes a
> >> very different act of faith that it takes hearing it literally as an
> irony.
> >> Alfredo
> >>
> >>
> >> ________________________________________
> >> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> >> on behalf of Larry Smolucha <lsmolucha@hotmail.com>
> >> Sent: 24 January 2017 02:35
> >> To: ablunden@mira.net; eXtended Mind, Culture,  Activity
> >> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: The Learning Sciences in the era of U.S.
> Nationalism
> >>
> >> Message from Francine:
> >>
> >>
> >> Helena Worthen was right - I am serious about finding (and creating) new
> >> tools for understanding  the Trump movement. Analysis is only one tool
> and
> >> there is no insight when it is overused. Figurative, analogical,
> >> metaphorical thinking gives us other tools. Recognizing IRONY means
> getting
> >> the punch line in a joke (as Freud
> >>
> >> explained in Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious).
> >>
> >>
> >> Is there a termteson in literature for the reversal that commonly occurs
> >> in fairy tales?
> >>
> >> All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost .
> . .
> >>
> >>
> >> 1) The ironic reversals that are taking place as people change their
> >> alignment with
> >>
> >> political parties remind me of a geophysics phenomena - the reversal of
> >> the earth's magnetic field that can happen over hundreds of thousands of
> >> years. Both are disorienting. I will give this more thought, but for the
> >> moment consider this much. When magnetic fields shift it is not all at
> >> once, magnetic currents in the molten layers beneath the earth's solid
> >> crust change polarities, sometimes causing a total
> >>
> >> reversal. Our political parties are commonly referred to as polar
> >> opposites but those
> >>
> >> polarities are not fixed they are fluid. The blue collar working class
> can
> >> shift from the Democratic Party to the Republican. The Black vote can
> shift
> >> to the Republicans, the Democrats don't own it. In the 1950's Russian
> >> sympathies were a hallmark of the left, now the left denounces Trumps
> >> outreach to the Russians. [A caveat here - this is two dimensional
> thinking
> >> because there are only two poles on one geometric plane.]
> >>
> >>
> >> 2) There is another concept, the Overton Window that is a scale of how
> >> radical of a discourse the public will tolerate (also called the window
> of
> >> discourse). The Window
> >>
> >> opens and closes along a range of discourse from the acceptable to the
> >> unthinkable. What discourse resonates with the general public (strikes a
> >> chord)? What will they regard as taboo (or not politically correct)?
> Issues
> >> like that.
> >>
> >>
> >> Here are a couple links worth looking at:
> >>
> >>
> >> Donald Trump & The Overton Window --Resetting America's Political <
> >> http://www.nationalreview.com/article/428200/donald-
> >> trump-overton-window-american-political-debate>
> >> www.nationalreview.com/.../donald-trump-overton-window-american-p<
> >> http://www.nationalreview.com/.../donald-trump-overton-
> window-american-p
> >>> ..
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Trump's Win Smashed the 'Overton Window' | LifeZette<http://www.
> >> lifezette.com/polizette/trumps-win-smashed-overton-window/>
> >> www.lifezette.com/polizette/trumps-win-smashed-overton-window/
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Can any of this be used with the concept of perezhivanie?
> >>
> >> ________________________________
> >> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> >> on behalf of Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
> >> Sent: Sunday, January 22, 2017 9:37 PM
> >> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> >> Subject: [Xmca-l] The Learning Sciences in the era of U.S. Nationalism
> >>
> >> "Irony" - good word to introduce here Francine.
> >>
> >> ------------------------------------------------------------
> >> Andy Blunden
> >> http://home.mira.net/~andy
> >> Andy Blunden's Home Page<http://home.mira.net/~andy> home.mira.net Andy
> >> Blunden's Home Page with links to pages I maintain and mail-to buttons
> >>
> >>
> >> http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making
> >> [http://www.brill.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/
> >> public/ftp/images/products/295x295/92947.jpg?itok=j5KXqZw3]<
> >> http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making>
> >>
> >> The Origins of Collective Decision Making | Brill<http://www.brill.com/
> >> products/book/origins-collective-decision-making>
> >> www.brill.com
> >> The Origins of Collective Decision Making, identifies three paradigms of
> >> collective decision making - Counsel, Majority and Consensus, and
> discovers
> >> their origins ...
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On 23/01/2017 2:32 PM, Larry Smolucha wrote:
> >>> Message from Francine Smolucha:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> The key to an analysis of the Trump movement is understanding the
> >>>
> >>> fundamental IRONIES that have rocked American politics.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> The workers revolution has resulted in the
> >>>
> >>> workers/unions deserting the Left, the socialists, the Democratic
> Party.
> >>>
> >>> Trump is a Capitalist regardless of whether he actually has a
> Republican
> >> ideology.
> >>>
> >>> The workers' movement has been hijacked by a capitalist.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> The other great IRONY is that Trump wants to make Russia a U.S. ally
> >> (again).
> >>>
> >>> The Left, the socialists, the Democratic Party are the ones demonizing
> >>> Russia -
> >>>
> >>> what a reversal!
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Since CHAT derives from Russian psychology (Leontiev and Vygotsky) and
> >> the backlash against Trump is also a backlash against all things
> Russian -
> >> this puts CHAT in a particularly awkward position. How can a cultural
> >> historical psychology that originated in Russia become the leader in the
> >> anti-Trump discourse? or lead an anti-Trump educational movement? You
> are
> >> even extolling a Russian concept PEREZHIVANIE.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> I think the XMCA needs to examine its own perezhivanie at this time.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> ________________________________
> >>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
> >>> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of mike cole
> >>> <mcole@ucsd.edu>
> >>> Sent: Sunday, January 22, 2017 3:01 PM
> >>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> >>> Cc: Mariane Hedegaard; Reijo Miettinen; Seth Chaiklin
> >>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: The Learning Sciences in the era of U.S.
> >>> Nationalism
> >>>
> >>> Helena et al --
> >>>
> >>> An important emphasis in the article for me was on the fact that
> >>> although the article focused on the American nationalist movement that
> >>> has just pulled of an alt-right coup, similar movements are poised to
> >>> take hold in a lot of places in Europe to join the many already
> >>> entrenched unsavory governments in other parts of the world.
> >>>
> >>> The CRADLE center in Helsinki is under very concerted attack and the
> >>> right wing government appears, from this distance, to be making great
> >>> progress on destroying its legacy. The same process has been in
> >>> Denmark for some time, also with apparent success.
> >>>
> >>> What do our international colleagues who have already felt the hot
> >>> breath of right wing nationalism have to offer in terms of strategies
> >>> of resistence?
> >>>
> >>> Back to "what is to be done," that sombre question from an earlier
> >>> era. The answer last time did not produce what it promised.
> >>>
> >>> mike
> >>>
> >>> mike
> >>>
> >>> On Sun, Jan 22, 2017 at 12:22 PM, Helena Worthen
> >>> <helenaworthen@gmail.com>
> >>> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> Thank you, Alfredo - I gave it a read.
> >>>>
> >>>> Sure, of course they're right. But I am very disappointed.
> >>>>
> >>>> I was hoping that the following was only item #1 in a long list of
> >>>> "what the 2016 election made apparent":
> >>>>
> >>>> The 2016 election has made apparent the need for scholarship that
> >>>> explicitly defends and furthers the rights and well-being of people
> >>>> of color, immigrants, Muslims, women, people who are differently
> >>>> abled, LGBTQ communities, and the earth. These are stances that have
> >>>> been limited, at least explicitly, in the Learning Sciences.
> >>>>
> >>>> But the call for inclusion was not just #1, it seems to be the whole
> >>>> thing.  In other words, it's all about identity -plus the earth, of
> >> course.
> >>>> While inclusion is necessary, it's not even a start. Yes, research,
> >>>> teaching, publishing, promotion, conferences - everything associated
> >>>> with teaching and learning has to include everyone as equals (see
> >>>> Andy's book) in one way or another - but then what? What are they (we)
> >> supposed to do?
> >>>> Where does the pretty language touch the ground?
> >>>>
> >>>> I was listening to a broadcast of the Women's March in DC on Saturday
> >>>> morning, and Kamala Harris, who was the California State Attorney
> >>>> General and is now a junior Senator from CA, was addressing the
> >>>> rally. She said, "People always ask me to talk about women's issues.
> >>>> I say, 'Oh, I'm SO glad you're interested in economics!! Let's talk
> >>>> about economics."  And she ran through a whole set of parallel
> >>>> back-and-forths, always pulling identity questions back to wages,
> jobs,
> >> earning, supporting your family, etc etc.
> >>>>
> >>>> Much as we need to wipe away any barriers to the Learning Sciences
> >>>> (and the professions and institutions dedicated to them) due to
> >>>> identity, until the Learning Sciences start taking a look at the
> >>>> place where most people spend most of their lives - not school, I
> >>>> mean - but work, they will be engaging in a soft conversation at the
> >>>> edge of the real issue. It's a pleasant conversation but it doesn't
> >>>> put a hand on the levers that translate skill and knowledge into rent
> >> and groceries.
> >>>>
> >>>> H
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> Helena Worthen
> >>>> helenaworthen@gmail.com
> >>>> Berkeley, CA 94707
> >>>> Blog about US and Viet Nam: helenaworthen.wordpress.com
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>> On Jan 22, 2017, at 11:38 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil
> >>>>> <a.j.gil@iped.uio.no>
> >>>> wrote:
> >>>>> Here it is,
> >>>>>
> >>>>> http://cognitionandinstruction.com/engagements-the-learning-
> >>>> sciences-in-a-new-era-of-u-s-nationalism/
> >>>>> 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 20:24
> >>>>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> >>>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: The Learning Sciences in the era of U.S.
> >>>> Nationalism
> >>>>> Someone please re-send the link to this article?  I think I'm going
> >>>>> to
> >>>> want to read it and respond to Mike's question.
> >>>>> Thanks - H
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Helena Worthen
> >>>>> helenaworthen@gmail.com
> >>>>> Berkeley, CA 94707
> >>>>> Blog about US and Viet Nam: helenaworthen.wordpress.com
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> On Jan 22, 2017, at 12:25 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil
> >>>>>> <a.j.gil@iped.uio.no>
> >>>> wrote:
> >>>>>> Mike,
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> thanks a lot for sharing this article. You and Michael, who have
> >>>>>> and
> >>>> know more history, have spoken in terms of reminiscences. I have
> >>>> lived and know less, and the article feels like fresh air. During my
> >>>> PhD, I begun to increasingly feel that I had to due something to act
> >>>> and respond to the increasing ecological and humanitarian globe
> >>>> crises. But how could I do anything if I had children and a PhD to
> >>>> finalise?? What could I do that would also be doing my job as
> >>>> researcher in a department of education? It was very difficult to
> >>>> find anything, partly because almost every academic quest would focus
> >>>> on learning, but so little on social development. How many scientific
> >>>> articles are dedicated to socio-political questions in the most cited
> >> educational journals? I felt very powerless.
> >>>>>> To be able to address these questions within my expertise, is a
> >>>> challenge partly because contrary to Dewey's hope, educational
> >>>> research has only marginally focused on these questions, and yet they
> >>>> may be exactly the question that matter to education. What are we
> >>>> educating for? Indeed, what is education for? I think we face a
> >>>> serious problem when someone (like myself), being an educational
> >>>> researchers/scholar, still has to scratch her head wondering <<how
> >>>> can I make my profession matter to social change and development?>>
> >> Vygotsky would be shocked!
> >>>>>> Alfredo
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
> >>>>>> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> >>>> on behalf of mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu>
> >>>>>> Sent: 19 January 2017 04:51
> >>>>>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> >>>>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: The Learning Sciences in the era of U.S.
> >>>> Nationalism
> >>>>>> Yes Michael,
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> It feels like the world of the later 1930's about the time I was
> >>>>>> born as that period came down to me through the prism of a family
> >>>>>> of "premature anti fascists."
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> For a great re-creation of those times see the highly ambivalent
> >>>>>> film by Frank Capra, "meet John Doe." It has American big capital
> >>>>>> interconnected with fascism combined with populist collectivism in
> >>>>>> a manner that
> >>>> points at
> >>>>>> the media (as then experienced) as the bad guys in disguise. Happy
> >>>> Ending,
> >>>>>> Beethoven Ode to Joy and all.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> It's come round again, nastier this time.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Mike
> >>>>>> On Wed, Jan 18, 2017 at 6:20 PM Glassman, Michael
> >>>>>> <glassman.13@osu.edu>
> >>>>>> wrote:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Mike
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> It was so interesting to read this note after reading the
> >>>>>>> Cognition and Instruction essay.  All the way through it I kept
> >>>>>>> thinking we have been here before.  It reminded me of the
> >>>>>>> scholars, especially those who had escaped from Germany, trying to
> >>>>>>> make sense of what had happened to
> >>>> their
> >>>>>>> society during World War II.  The foremost in my mind was Lewin.
> >>>> Except I
> >>>>>>> wonder if he would say the process of transformative action starts
> >>>>>>> not
> >>>> with
> >>>>>>> emergence of quasi-needs, but our willingness and abilities to
> >>>>>>> step
> >>>> back
> >>>>>>> from our quasi-needs and the ways that they drive us, often to
> >>>>>>> dysfunctional behaviors that it ultimately destructive to both our
> >>>> society
> >>>>>>> and to us as individuals.  How hard this is to do, we have to keep
> >>>> going
> >>>>>>> back again and again.  The quasi-needs, tribalism, acceptance,
> >>>> standing are
> >>>>>>> always there.  It is how they shape us that is critical.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Michael
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> -----Original Message-----
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:
> >>>>>>> xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Sent: Wednesday, January 18, 2017 8:31 PM
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] The Learning Sciences in the era of U.S.
> >>>>>>> Nationalism
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> In following  the perezhivanie thread I encountered the note I
> >>>> re-membered.
> >>>>>>> And interestingly mis-remembered. A translation into my focus on
> >>>>>>> mediational means. He places the starting point of the process of
> >>>>>>> transformative action at the emergence of quasi-needs (from Kurt
> >>>> Lewin).
> >>>>>>> That seems correct to me. The new mediational means emerge under
> >>>>>>> environmental presses. Ever functionalist ego need a goal(!). (The
> >>>> problem
> >>>>>>> with functionalism) In David's words,
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> Perhaps the place we should look for "exaptations" that can save
> >>>>>>> both
> >>>> our
> >>>>>>> personalities and our environment is not in our evolved needs, but
> >>>>>>> in
> >>>> yet
> >>>>>>> to be designed quasi-needs. Artificial organs, after all, always
> >>>> suggest
> >>>>>>> new and ever more artificial functions, like chess and language.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> This point seems worth keeping in mind as we look at where this
> >>>>>>> group
> >>>> of
> >>>>>>> critical scholars who work within the Learning Sciences
> >>>>>>> disciplinary framework would like to lead us.
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> mike
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >>
>
>
>