[Xmca-l] Re: social / societal
Andy Blunden
ablunden@mira.net
Mon Jan 15 06:16:51 PST 2018
Exactly, the context of the usage makes the concrete meaning
clear, rather than a supposed dictionary meaning.
Andy
------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden
http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
On 16/01/2018 1:08 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote:
> Andy,
> but you can hear this phrase as saying that Ricardo looked
> at the social structure, not Marx ... Marx is writing how
> Ricardo approached the problem, not he himself. The
> paragraph is about distribution (I am looking at the
> phrase in MEW42), and the preceding one begins with a
> statement about societies. In the paragraph before, Marx
> writes about societal law, and societal distribution
> (MEW42, p.31). So I would not say that Marx writes about
> structure as social---it is societal, and all the
> surrounding text makes it such.
>
> But of course, you know that we are all struggling with
> the use of language, especially when we are trying to move
> to different discursive forms, and when the old ones still
> show up so that there are inconsistencies in what we
> articulate.
>
> 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 Mon, Jan 15, 2018 at 5:50 AM, Andy Blunden
> <ablunden@mira.net <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:
>
> Oh, and further down the same document, Marx says:
>
> "Ricardo, dem es darum zu tun war, die moderne
> Produktion in
> ihrer bestimmten sozialen Gliederung aufzufassen ..."
>
> translated as: "Ricardo, whose concern was to grasp the
> specific social structure of modern production ..."
>
> So, even Marx, it seems, occasionally uses "sozial" in the
> sense of "societal"!
>
> Andy
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> Andy Blunden
> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
> <http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm>
> On 16/01/2018 12:01 AM, Andy Blunden wrote:
> > David I never said social/societal wasn't a useful
> > distinction. I said in 40 years of studying Marxism
> I had
> > come across the word "societal" - I was not a
> psychologist,
> > that's all.
> >
> > Consider the opening words of the Grundrisse:
> >
> > "Der vorliegende Gegenstand zunächst die /materielle
> > Produktion/. In Gesellschaft produzierende
> Individuen -
> > daher gesellschaftlich bestimmte Produktion der
> > Individuen ist natürlich der Ausgangspunkt."
> >
> > Translated into English as "The object before us, to
> begin
> > with, /material production/. Individuals producing in
> > society – hence socially determined individual
> production –
> > is, of course, the point of departure."
> >
> >
> > Isn't it blindingly obvious that "socially" here
> means what
> > you might call "societally"? Isn't it obvious that
> having
> > been introduced to "social" in this sense, there is
> no need
> > for the word "societal"? Nonetheless, I accept, if your
> > topic is psychology, there is a useful distinction
> there.
> > But in the context of reading Marx, there is no need
> for a
> > different word.
> >
> >
> > Andy
> >
> >
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> > Andy Blunden
> > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
> <http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm>
> > On 15/01/2018 8:45 AM, David Kellogg wrote:
> >> Like Wolff-Michael (and unlike Andy), I have always
> found the distinction
> >> between social and societal a useful one. Yes, I
> see that the similarity
> >> between the words makes them very confusible: I
> myself use "interpersonal"
> >> vs. "social" when I teach, but this actually makes
> them too distinct. I
> >> think that "social" and "societal"--even MORE than
> their German
> >> equivalents--emphasize how linked they are, and
> also how tied they are to
> >> language. At some point--and it is a point that is
> just as traumatic as the
> >> first year of life, when the child must pass from
> primary to secondary
> >> intersubjectivity--the interpersonal begins to
> confront us as something
> >> more, something alien, something quite beyond our
> direct control. Instead
> >> of speaking language, language begins to articulate us.
> >>
> >> I think, in some ways, Wolff-Michael's example of
> crime is a poor one,
> >> because I don't think that "crime" actually exists
> at the social level:
> >> "crime" is simply what the ruling class chooses to
> call certain forms of
> >> exploitation, aggression, and violence from which
> it doesn't directly
> >> profit. But Wolff-Michael is right to argue for
> the link--both social
> >> relations and societal phenomena are the result of
> the ensemble of human
> >> relations, although which social relation is
> foregrounded and which
> >> backgrounded must necessarily change as we move
> from the social to the
> >> societal. The feminist slogan "the personal is
> political" is not a
> >> redundancy, but it is usually understood backwards,
> to mean that everything
> >> social is societal, when in fact it should be
> understood to mean that
> >> everything societal is in the final analysis social.
> >>
> >> But sometimes the news cycle will bat a poor
> example away and provide a
> >> better one. Take, for example, the presidential
> proposal that US
> >> immigration policy distinguish between "shithole
> countries" and Norway.
> >> Now, for many years, racists have been whining that
> people are
> >> being "politically correct" and taking all the fun
> out of being publically
> >> offensive and rude by insisting on some link
> between social interactions
> >> and societal issues. The idea is that if you
> interact with Omarosa, Kanye
> >> West, Ben Carson, and Condoleeza Rice socially you
> can say what you like
> >> about the societies they came from. When liberals
> insist that someone born
> >> in America is one hundred percent American, no
> matter where their ancestors
> >> were born, they also subscribe to this kind of
> magical disjunction.
> >>
> >> Trevor Noah is right to say that the truly shocking
> thing in what the
> >> president said wasn't "shithole". It was Norway.
> This isn't simply ignorant
> >> and unrealistic (what Norwegian would give up the
> generous trust of oil
> >> revenues and emigrate to a country like the USA
> which totally lacks a
> >> decent health service or retirement plan?). As in
> Finland, the Centre-Right
> >> government in Norway is in a coalition with a
> far-right, anti-immigrant
> >> party, dedicated to keeping the country Nordically
> pure. THAT is not
> >> just an attack on civility, like using the word
> "shithole". It's an attack
> >> on civil rights. As soon as the US government takes
> this
> >> minority government as a model, it is no longer a
> social,
> >> personal, offense; it's societal now.
> >>
> >> David Kellogg
> >>
> >> Recent Article in *Mind, Culture, and Activity* 24
> (4) 'Metaphoric,
> >> Metonymic, Eclectic, or Dialectic? A Commentary on
> “Neoformation: A
> >> Dialectical Approach to Developmental Change”'
> >>
> >> Free e-print available (for a short time only) at
> >>
> >>
> http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/YAWPBtmPM8knMCNg6sS6/full
> <http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/YAWPBtmPM8knMCNg6sS6/full>
> >>
> >>
> >> On Mon, Jan 15, 2018 at 4:29 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil
> <a.j.gil@iped.uio.no <mailto:a.j.gil@iped.uio.no>>
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Absolutely difficult to satirise, Rob. As if
> reason was literally being
> >>> stretched to push what could be considered to be
> reasonable, so that at
> >>> every stretch what few years ago would be
> absolutely unthinkable becomes
> >>> not only thinkable but normal. Like Spanish police
> beating people for going
> >>> to vote to an (illegal, yet peaceful) referendum
> in Catalonia and
> >>> politicians being held for months in prison only
> for "prevention," while a
> >>> horde of citizens in other parts of the country
> encouraging the police like
> >>> they encourage football teams, "A por ellos!!"
> >>> Alfredo
> >>> ________________________________________
> >>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
> <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
> <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>>
> >>> on behalf of robsub@ariadne.org.uk
> <mailto:robsub@ariadne.org.uk> <robsub@ariadne.org.uk
> <mailto:robsub@ariadne.org.uk>>
> >>> Sent: 12 January 2018 20:18
> >>> To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu
> <mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> >>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: epidemic or endemic? white
> suprem-racists
> >>> international science?
> >>>
> >>> I was going to joke that I bet Toby Young was on
> the guest list, but I
> >>> see he was. Truth is becoming really hard to satirise.
> >>>
> >>> Rob
> >>>
> >>> On 12/01/2018 19:06, Peter Smagorinsky wrote:
> >>>> I believe that this is London's way of making
> London a more appealing
> >>> place for Trump to visit. Recently they have said
> some not-nice things
> >>> about him, and that makes him turn from orange to
> red-orange. On the color
> >>> scale, that's an escalation of tensions. I see
> this conference as a
> >>> validation of his world-view, making the UK less
> of a shithole of a country
> >>> to him and his followers.
> >>>> -----Original Message-----
> >>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
> <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@>
> >>> mailman.ucsd.edu <http://mailman.ucsd.edu>] On
> Behalf Of Peg Griffin
> >>>> Sent: Friday, January 12, 2018 11:25 AM
> >>>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>>
> >>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] epidemic or endemic? white
> suprem-racists
> >>> international science?
> >>>>
> https://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/
> <https://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/>
> >>> 51323/title/Secret-Eu
> >>>>
> genics-Conference-Uncovered-at-University-College-London/
> >>>>
> <https://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/
> <https://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/>
> >>> 51323/title/Secret-E
> >>>>
> ugenics-Conference-Uncovered-at-University-College-London/&
> >>> utm_campaign=TS_D
> >>>>
> AILY%20NEWSLETTER_2018&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=
> >>> email&utm_content=5994
> >>>> 4918&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--0-XeLCUUnDDfuDnseG5HUEF4e07f2Kt6
> >>> FETdaZKU-LuNy2l-YYp5OtU
> >>>>
> MYu_TX7t6Cty6Zf5sNwbX7zL0wBteZ0FmKQ29FAn7V0wUCfIAPc_PrMXk&_hsmi=
> >>> 59944918>
> >>>> &utm_campaign=TS_DAILY%20NEWSLETTER_2018&utm_source=
> >>> hs_email&utm_medium=emai
> >>>>
> l&utm_content=59944918&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--0-XeLCUUnDDfuDnseG5HUEF4e07f2Kt6
> >>> FETda
> >>>> ZKU-LuNy2l-YYp5OtUMYu_TX7t6Cty6Zf5sNwbX7zL0wBteZ0FmK
> >>> Q29FAn7V0wUCfIAPc_PrMXk&
> >>>> _hsmi=59944918
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> Peg Griffin, Ph. D.
> >>>>
> >>>> Washington, DC 20003
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >
> >
>
>
More information about the xmca-l
mailing list