[Xmca-l] Re: Trust and Science

[Alfredo Jornet Gil]

Thanks Greg; I did not think you suggested capitalism is “ethical”, but I was questioning the notion that capitalism was a framework for ethical evaluation. I of course see it is a context within which all sorts of practices emerge, but that it itself provides an ethical framework crashes with my preconceptions of what ethics means. I think I need someone to help us clarify what “ethics” means.
Alfredo

On 30 Sep 2019, at 07:44, Greg Thompson <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com<mailto:greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>> wrote:

Alfredo,

I appreciate your generosity in reading/responding as well as your forthrightness (without which, conversation can feel a bit empty). And I entirely respect and appreciate your position.

One point of clarification: on the relativism front I was simply making a statement of fact, capitalism provides a framework that people use to make ethical judgments. I wasn't suggesting that capitalism is ethical. I might add that as an anthropologist I believe that it is possible to judge beliefs and practices but that this can only be done after a deep understanding of the entire context of those beliefs and practices. I've had a lot of experience with capitalism and I'm pretty comfortable saying that, to my mind, capitalism is unethical and that it provides a rather unfortunate grounding for ethics and morality. (and you'll notice that this leads me directly to what I was chiding you for - an argument about the false consciousness of the proponents (pushers?) of capitalism!!).

And I agree with Andy about the important contributions of others in this thread but I'm lacking the bandwidth to adequately acknowledge/engage right now.

And still wondering if we could hear more from/about Vaedboncoeur and her work? Maybe there is a publication that someone could point us to?
Beth Ferholt's work seems quite relevant as well.
(but perhaps this thread is a bit too tiresome?).

Very best,
greg



On Sun, Sep 29, 2019 at 5:11 PM Alfredo Jornet Gil <a.j.gil@ils.uio.no<mailto:a.j.gil@ils.uio.no>> wrote:
Thanks a lot Greg for your help and care, I really appreciate it and it is very helpful. And thanks also for emphasizing the importance of bridging across positions and trying to understand the phenomenon not only from our (often privileged) point of view, but also from that of others, even those with opposed belief systems. I truly appreciate that.

Let me try to follow the signposts you nicely identified:

  1.  I see that my language lent itself to that reading. I believe the root of our differences is that I am trying to discuss denialism as a given historical practice, and not as something individual. At the individual level, both deniers and people who accept the science do so out of trust; just as you say, the one can argue that the other is the one who is wrong or trusting the wrong people. From the socio-historical perspective, however, neither position is the “free” choice of individuals who came upon the thought and believed it. Climate science communication and dissemination has its channels and ways to reach the public, just as climate science denial does. It so happens, though, that climate science denial was born of an explicit attempt to generate doubt in people, to confuse them and manipulate them for profit. This is well documented in the links I shared earlier. If both science and science denial have a function of persuading, and we cannot differentiate between the two, then I think we have a big problem. What I am saying is that we should be able to differentiate between the two. I am not saying people who believe climate change is real is more conscious or better conscious or any other privilege; they may be acting out of pure habit and submission. I am saying, though, that if people would engage in critical inquiry and question the history of their reasoning habits, then they may be better equipped to decide; both sides. It so happens, however, that, if we all would engage in such exercise, one side would find out they are (involuntarily perhaps) supporting actions that really harm people. In today’s modern societies, not finding out is truly an exercise of faith.
  2.  You invite us to try to understand what the frameworks are within which people may see choosing to deny climate science as “good” or the “right” thing to do, and I applaud and support that goal. I think that framework is the sort of sociocultural object I am trying to discuss. Yet, by the same token, I’d invite anyone to consider the views and positions of those who are already suffering the consequences of global warming, and I wonder what justifies ignoring their suffering. This can be extrapolated to a myriad practices in which all of we engage, from buying phones to going to the toilette; we live by the suffering of others. And when we do so, we are wrong, we are doing wrong. That’s my view, but perhaps I am wrong. I believe human rights are not partisan, or negotiable; again, my leap of trust.
  3.  Thanks for sharing your experience with your acquainted. I’d like to clarify that, when using the language of criminality, I refer to the people directly involved in making conscious decisions, and having recurred to science, to then not just ignore the science but also present it wrongly, making it possible for denial practices to thrive. People like the one you describe are having to deal with what it’s been left for them, and I totally empathize.
Finally, you explicitly state that you do not want to relativize, but then you also say that “If capitalism is the framework for evaluating ethical behavior, then there is every reason to believe that EM execs are acting ethically”. To me, the suggestion that capitalism can be an ethical framework suggests a treatment of ethics as fundamentally arbitrary (meaning that any framework can be defined to evaluate ethical behavior). I am not sure I am ready to accept that assertion.

Thanks!
Alfredo


From: <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>> on behalf of Greg Thompson <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com<mailto:greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>>
Reply to: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>>
Date: Sunday, 29 September 2019 at 23:44
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>>
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trust and Science

Alfredo,

Thanks for reminding me of the importance of my own humility with respect to the positions of others. (conclusion jumping is an unfortunate consequence of trying to respond quickly enough on a listserve to remain relevant - or at least that's a challenge for me).

Thank you for clarifying that your position is not to dehumanize. I appreciate that.

Let me see if I can recover what it was from your prior email that provoked my response and I'll do my best to stick more closely to your words (respectfully) and what I didn't quite understand.

Here is the quote from your post: "I agree on the difficulties, but I would like to emphasize that being on the right or the wrong side in issues of climate change in today’s Global societies is a matter of having fallen pray to self-interested manipulation by others, or of being yourself one engaged in manipulating others for your own."

This language of "fallen pray..." or, worse, "being... engaged in manipulating others..." were both phrases that I read to mean that this is something that THEY do and something that WE don't do (and ditto for the psychological studies that explain "their" behavior in terms of deterministic psychological principles - rather than as agentive humans (like us?)). But it seems that maybe I've misread you?

I think calling them "criminals" is a little better but doesn't capture the systemic nature of what they are doing or why it is that many people would say that they are doing good. Or to put it another way, I'd like to better understand the minds and life situations and experiences of these criminals - what are the frameworks within which their actions make sense as good and right and just and true. The point is not to relativize but to understand (this is the anthropologists' task).

Relatedly, I may have mistakenly assumed that your question was somewhat tongue-in-cheek: "the motives of these corporations never were the “feel that this is the ethically good and right position for humanity”. Or do we?"

I think that this is a real question and for my two cents I would suggest that the answers to this question are important to the work of climate justice.

As I mentioned in the p.s. above, I recently had the opportunity to push the ExxonMobil recruiter on these issues. He's been working for them for about 7 years. He was conflicted when first joining ExxonMobil (hereafter EM) but I could sense how hard he continues to work to justify working for EM. A brief summary of his justification (and I took this to be EM's justification) could be summed up with: "just as there was an iron age in which innovations were essential to the development of human beings, we are now in the oil age". He acknowledged that oil is a problem but then pointed out that everything in the room was enabled by oil - whether because it was transported there by gas-powered vehicles or because of the massive amounts of plastic, rubber, and other products that are made from oil and are everywhere in our everyday lives. His argument was that this is the way it is right now. Our lives (and our current "progress") are entirely dependent upon oil. And he clarified that EM's position is to find ways to transition away from oil dependency but remain as central to the world as they are now. He saw his position as one in which he could be on the "inside" and help to enable this transition and change.

Now my point is NOT that he is right in all of what he says (or that EM is not a central cause of the problem that he seems not to be able to see). At the end of the day, I personally concluded that he is an oil apologist (and I did my best to point this out to him and to the potential ethical ironies of his work). Rather, my point is that I took him at his word that he genuinely believes what he says and that he did not "fall prey" to the manipulations of others and is not himself manipulating others to further his own interests. He does feel conflicted about his work but at the end of the day he feels that he is doing what is ethically good and right for humanity.

And to take this one step further, I think that in order to evaluate whether something is ethical or not, we need some kind of framework within which to make such a determination. If capitalism is the framework for evaluating ethical behavior, then there is every reason to believe that EM execs are acting ethically.

Let me know where I've misread you and/or misunderstood you.
With apologies,
greg

On Sun, Sep 29, 2019 at 9:59 AM Alfredo Jornet Gil <a.j.gil@ils.uio.no<mailto:a.j.gil@ils.uio.no>> wrote:
Thanks Greg, for reminding us of the importance of humility. Please, let us all realize of the humanity of deniers, as much as those of anyone else. But no, I am not saying that they are the ones who live in a world of false consciousness. Please, if I wrote that somewhere, help me correct it, cause I did not intend to write so. I never said Exxon staff were not human, Greg. I said they are criminals. I am not alone in this: https://theintercept.com/2019/09/24/climate-justice-ecocide-humanity-crime/

I am more than happy to disagree, but your misrepresentation of what I just wrote went beyond what I can explain or understand in the language that I use. So, I think I’ll need help to find common ground and continue dialogue.

Alfredo


From: <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>> on behalf of Greg Thompson <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com<mailto:greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>>
Reply to: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>>
Date: Sunday, 29 September 2019 at 17:45
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>>
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trust and Science

Alfredo,

You point to an important possibility that I would not want to rule out, the possibility of false consciousness. Yet, I'd like to also just point to the fact that one must undertake such a claim with the utmost of humility since "they" are making precisely the same kind of claim about you.

You say that THEY are the ones who live in a world of false consciousness, while WE are the ones who are awake to the reality of things. This is precisely what climate deniers say of you!!! They say that you are caught up in the pseudo-science of climate change that works to further the introduce governmental control over our daily lives (an outcome that for them is just as monstrous as what you describe).

We can stand and shout and say that we are right and they are wrong, but we have to recognize that they are doing the same thing. We could try and kill them off since we are convinced that they are murders, but they might do the same. To me it seems, there is still something more that is needed.

Another way to go about this is to seek some kind of true understanding across these divides. Rather than dismissing "them" as a bunch of manipulators who are just trying to get theirs or a bunch of dupes who are going along with a line that they've been sold, why not try to engage "them" as humans just like "we" are humans? How many climate change deniers have we actually talked to and treated as humans? (but, you object, they aren't human!)

I don't think that this needs to be ALL of the work of climate justice, but I do think that it should be part of this work. And it happens to be one that is sorely lacking in many approaches. (and just to be clear, I'm not saying that it is lacking in yours, Alfredo, I'm just posing the question, perhaps you know and have had conversation with many deniers and realize their humanity).

-greg
p.s., I spoke with a recruiter for ExxonMobil this past week and he noted that their new CEO stated unequivocally that man-made climate change is real and that oil is a major cause of it.




On Sun, Sep 29, 2019 at 8:39 AM Alfredo Jornet Gil <a.j.gil@ils.uio.no<mailto:a.j.gil@ils.uio.no>> wrote:
Andy,

I see and Greg’s point. I can see that not everyone denying climate change is necessarily a “bad” person or the evil in and of themselves.

However, I cannot agree with the statement that “everyone acts because they think it right to do so”. I’ve done (and keep doing) enough stupid (and wrong!) things in my life to be convinced of the falsehood of that statement. That statement, in my view, would ONLY apply to (a) instances in which people indeed ponder/consider what they are about to do before they do it, and (b) the nature of their pondering is in fact ethical.

Should we refer to Exxon corporate decision-makers who initiated misinformation campaigns to cast doubt on climate science as psychopaths (as per your definition)? Would that be fair to people with actual pathologies? I’d rather call them criminals.

You seem to assume (or I misread you as assuming) that all actions are taken based on a pondering on what is right or wrong, even when that pondering has not taken place. First, I don’t think we always act based on decision-making. Second, not every decision-making or pondering may consider ethical dimensions of right or wrong. I invite you to consider how many people among those who deny the climate science has actually gone through an ethical pondering when they “choose” to deny the science. My sense is that most deniers do not “choose,” but rather enact a position that is, in the metaphorical terms that the author of the article that Anne-Nelly has shared uses, in the air they breath within their communities. I am of the view that exercising ethics, just as exercising science denial in the 21st century, is engaging in a quite definite historical practice that has its background, resources, and patterns or habits. I think that if we exercised (practiced) more of ethics, science denial would be less of a “right” choice. That is, decision-making is a sociocultural endeavor, not something an individual comes up with alone. Sometimes we cannot choose how we feel or react, but we can choose who we get together to, the types of cultures within which we want to generate habits of action/mind.

We cannot de-politicize science, for it is only in political contexts that science comes to effect lives outside of the laboratory. But we can generate cultures of critical engagement, which I think would bring us closer to your option (3) at the end of your e-mail when you ponder whether/how to disentangle bipartisanism and scientific literacy. I don’t think then relativism (that you act ethically or not depending on what you think it’s right or not, independently of whether great amounts of suffering happen because of your actions) is what would thrive. Rather, I believe (and hope!) *humanity* would thrive, for it would always ponder the question Dewey posed when considering why we should prefer democracy over any other forms of political organization, such as fascism:

“Can we find any reason that does not ultimately come down to the belief that democratic social arrangements promote a better quality of human experience, one which is more widely accessible and enjoyed, than do nondemocratic and antidemocratic forms of social life? Does not the principle of regard for individual freedom and for decency and kindliness of human relations come back in the end to the conviction that these things are tributary to a higher quality of experience on the part of a greater number than are methods of repression and coercion or force?” (Dewey, Experience and Education, chapter 3).

Please, help me see how Exxon leaders considered any of these when they chose to deny the science, and thought it was right. I know voters did not “choose” in the same way (Exxon staff trusted the science, indeed!). But it is back there where you can find an explanation for climate change denial today; it is in the cultural-historical pattern of thinking they contributed engineering, along with political actors, and not in the individual head of the person denying that you find the explanation.

Alfredo
From: <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>> on behalf of Andy Blunden <andyb@marxists.org<mailto:andyb@marxists.org>>
Reply to: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>>
Date: Sunday, 29 September 2019 at 15:28
To: "xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>>
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trust and Science


Alfredo, I think Greg's point is basically right, that is, everyone acts because they think it right to do so. The only exception would be true psychopaths. The issue is: why does this person believe this is the right thing to do and believe that this is the person I should trust and that this is the truth about the matter?

Take Darwinian Evolution as an example. In the USA, this question has been "politicised," that is, people either accept the science or not according to whether they vote Democrat or Republican. There are variants on this, and various exceptions, but for the largest numbers belief in the Bible or belief in the Science textbook are choices of being on this side or the other side. This is not the case in many other countries where Evolution is simply part of the Biology lesson.

In the UK, Anthropogenic climate change is not a Party question  either. People believe it whether they vote Tory or Labour. Still, how much people change their lives, etc., does vary, but that varies according to other issues; it is not a Party question.

In Australia, Anthropogenic climate change is a Party question, even though this year right-wing political leaders no longer openly scorn climate science, but everyone knows this is skin deep. But like in the UK, Evolution is not a partisan question and eve the right-wing support public health (though it was not always so).

The strategic questions, it seems to me are: (1) is it possible to break a single issue away from the partisan platform, and for example, get Republicans to support the teaching of Biology and sending their kids to science classes with an open mind? Even while they still support capital punishment and opposed abortion and public health? Or (2) Is it possible to lever a person away from their partisan position on a scientific or moral question, without asking for them to flip sides altogether? or (3) Is it easier to work for the entire defeat of a Party which opposes Science and Humanity (as we see it)?

Andy

________________________________
Andy Blunden
Hegel for Social Movements<https://brill.com/view/title/54574>
Home Page<https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm>
On 29/09/2019 8:16 pm, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote:
Thanks Anne-Nelly, I had not read this one. Very telling!
Alfredo


On 29 Sep 2019, at 10:20, PERRET-CLERMONT Anne-Nelly <Anne-Nelly.Perret-Clermont@unine.ch<mailto:Anne-Nelly.Perret-Clermont@unine.ch>> wrote:
Alfredo,
You probably remember  this very interesting report from a journalist :
https://www.dailykos.com/story/2019/6/8/1863530/-A-close-family-member-votes-Republican-Now-I-understand-why-The-core-isn-t-bigotry-It-s-worse
I like to mention it because it contributes to illustrate your point, shading light on powerful micro-mechanisms.
Anne-Nelly

Prof. emer. Anne-Nelly Perret-Clermont
Institut de psychologie et éducation Faculté des lettres et sciences humaines
Université de Neuchâtel
Espace Tilo-Frey 1 (Anciennement: Espace Louis-Agassiz 1)
CH- 2000 Neuchâtel (Suisse)
http://www.unine.ch/ipe/publications/anne_nelly_perret_clermont
A peine sorti de presse: https://www.socialinfo.ch/les-livres/38-agir-et-penser-avec-anne-nelly-perret-clermont.html





De : <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>> on behalf of Alfredo Jornet Gil <a.j.gil@ils.uio.no<mailto:a.j.gil@ils.uio.no>>
Répondre à : "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>>
Date : dimanche, 29 septembre 2019 à 09:45
À : "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>>
Cc : Vadeboncoeur Jennifer <j.vadeboncoeur@ubc.ca<mailto:j.vadeboncoeur@ubc.ca>>
Objet : [Xmca-l] Re: Trust and Science

Greg,

Thanks, we are on the same page. But you write: «most climate change deniers are such because they feel that this is the ethically good and right position for humanity». I agree on the difficulties, but I would like to emphasize that being on the right or the wrong side in issues of climate change in today’s Global societies is a matter of having fallen pray to self-interested manipulation by others, or of being yourself one engaged in manipulating others for your own.

When you pick up a scientific article (very unlikely if you are a denier) or a press article, and read that the Earth is warming due to human civilization, and then think, “nah, bullshit”, you most likely are inclined to infer that way cause that’s a cultural pattern of thinking characteristic of a group or community you belong to. There are out there many psychology studies showing the extent to which “opinions” on climate science vary not with respect to how much one knows or understand, but rather with respect to your religious and political affiliation (see, for example, https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate1547 ).

My point being that, when you deny climate change today, you engage in a practice that has a very definite historical origin and motive, namely the coordinated, systematic actions of a given set of fossil fuel corporations that, to this date, continue lobbying to advance their own interests, permeating through many spheres of civic life, including education:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/sep/19/shell-and-exxons-secret-1980s-climate-change-warnings
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Greenpeace_Dealing-in-Doubt-1.pdf?53ea6e

We know that the motives of these corporations never were the “feel that this is the ethically good and right position for humanity”. Or do we?
Again, educating about (climate) *justice* and accountability may be crucial to the “critical” approach that has been mentioned in prior e-mails.

I too would love seeing Jen V. chiming in on these matters.
Alfredo

From: <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>> on behalf of Greg Thompson <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com<mailto:greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>>
Reply to: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>>
Date: Sunday, 29 September 2019 at 04:15
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>>
Cc: Jennifer Vadeboncoeur <j.vadeboncoeur@ubc.ca<mailto:j.vadeboncoeur@ubc.ca>>
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trust and Science

Alfredo and Artin, Yes and yes.

Alfredo, yes, I wasn't suggesting doing without them, but simply that something more is needed perhaps an "ethical dimension" is needed (recognizing that such a thing is truly a hard fought accomplishment - right/wrong and good/evil seems so obvious from where we stand, but others will see differently; most climate change deniers are such because they feel that this is the ethically good and right position for humanity not because they see it as an evil and ethically wrong position).

Artin, I wonder if Dr. Vadeboncoeur might be willing to chime in?? Sounds like a fascinating and important take on the issue. Or maybe you could point us to a reading?

(and by coincidence, I had the delight of dealing with Dr. Vadebonceour's work in my data analysis class this week via LeCompte and Scheunsel's extensive use of her work to describe data analysis principles - my students found her work to be super interesting and very helpful for thinking about data analysis).

Cheers,
greg

On Sat, Sep 28, 2019 at 9:19 AM Goncu, Artin <goncu@uic.edu<mailto:goncu@uic.edu>> wrote:

The varying meanings and potential abuses of the connection between imagination and trust appear to be activity specific.  This can be seen even in the same activity, i.e., trust and imagination may be abused.  For example, I took pains for many years to illustrate that children’s construction of intersubjectivity in social imaginative play requires trust in one another.  Children make the proleptic assumption that their potential partners are sincere, know something about the topics proposed for imaginative play, and will participate in the negotiations of assumed joint imaginative pasts and anticipated futures.  However, this may not always be the case.  As Schousboe showed, children may abuse play to institute their own abusive agendas as evidenced in her example of two five year old girls pretending that actual urine in a bottle was soda pop  trying to make a three year old girl to drink it.  This clearly supports exploring how we can/should inquire what Alfredo calls the third dimension.  More to the point, how do we teach right from wrong in shared imagination?  Vadeboncoeur has been addressing the moral dimensions of imagination in her recent work.

Artin

Artin Goncu, Ph.D
Professor, Emeritus
University of Illinois at Chicago
www.artingoncu.com/<http://www.artingoncu.com/>



From:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>] On Behalf Of Alfredo Jornet Gil
Sent: Saturday, September 28, 2019 9:35 AM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>>
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trust and Science

Yes, Greg, I agree there is all grounds and rights to question trust and imagination, but I am less inclined to think that we can do without them both. So, if there is a difference between imaginative propaganda aimed at confusing the public, and imaginative education that grows from hope and will for the common good, then perhaps we need a third element that discerns good from evil? Right from wrong? That may why, in order for people to actually engage in transformational action, what they need the most is not just to understand Climate Change, but most importantly, Climate Justice. Don’t you think?

Alfredo

From: <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>> on behalf of Greg Thompson <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com<mailto:greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>>
Reply to: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>>
Date: Saturday, 28 September 2019 at 16:05
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>>
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trust and Science

Note that there is a great deal of trust and imagination going on right now in the US. We have the most imaginative president we’ve had in years. He can imagine his way to bigly approval ratings and a massive inaugural turnout. He imagines that trying to get dirt on an opponent is a “beautiful conversation”. And if you watch the media these days, he has a cadre of others who are doing additional imagining for him as well - they are imagining what the DNC is trying to do to ouster this president, they are imagining what Joe Biden might really have been up to with that prosecutor. And what makes matters worst is that there is a rather large contingent of people in the US who trust this cadre of imaginative propagandists and who trust Trump and believe that they are the only ones who have the real truth.
So I guess I’m suggesting there might be reason to question imagination and trust (and this all was heightened for me by a dip into the imaginative and trust-filled land of conservative talk radio yesterday - but you can find the same message from anyone who is a Trump truster - including a number of politicians who are playing the same game of avoiding the facts (no one on those talk shows actually repeated any of the damning words from Trumps phone call) while constructing an alternative narrative that listeners trust).
Sadly,
Greg


On Sat, Sep 28, 2019 at 5:17 AM Alfredo Jornet Gil <a.j.gil@ils.uio.no<mailto:a.j.gil@ils.uio.no>> wrote:
Henry, all,

Further resonating with Beth et al’s letter, and with what Henry and Andy just wrote, I too think the point at which trust and imagination meet is key.

A couple of days ago, I watched, together with my two daughters (10 and 4 years old respectively) segments of the Right to a Future event organized by The Intercept https://theintercept.com/2019/09/06/greta-thunberg-naomi-klein-climate-change-livestream/, where young and not-so-young activists and journalists discussed visions of 2029 if we, today, would lead radical change. It was a great chance to engage in some conversation with my children about these issues, specially with my older one; about hope and about the importance of fighting for justice.

At some point in a follow-up conversation that we had in bed, right before sleep, we spoke about the good things that we still have with respect to nature and community, and I–perhaps not having considered my daughter’s limited awareness of the reach of the crisis–emphasized that it was important to value and enjoy those things we have in the present, when there is uncertainty as to the conditions that there will be in the near future. My daughter, very concerned, turned to me and, with what I felt was a mix of fair and skepticism, said: “but dad, are not people fixing the problem already so that everything will go well?”

It truly broke my heart. I reassured her that we are working as hard as we can, but invited her not to stop reminding everyone that we cannot afford stop fighting.

My daughter clearly exhibited her (rightful) habit of trust that adults address problems, that they’ll take care of us, that things will end well, or at least, that they’ll try their best. In terms of purely formal scientific testing, it turns out that my daughter’s hypothesis could easily be rejected, as it is rather the case that my parent’s generation did very little to address problems they were “aware” of (another discussion is what it is meant by “awareness” in cases such as being aware of the effects of fossil fuels and still accelerating their exploitation). Yet, it would totally be against the interest of science and society that my daughter loses that trust. For if she does, then I fear she will be incapable of imagining a thriving future to demand and fight for. I fear she will lose a firm ground for agency. Which teaches me that the pedagogy that can help in this context of crisis is one in which basic trust in the good faith and orientation towards the common good of expertise is restored, and that the only way to restore it is by indeed acting accordingly, reclaiming and occupying the agency and responsibility of making sure that younger and older can continue creatively imagining a future in which things will go well at the end.

Alfredo



From: <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>> on behalf of Andy Blunden <andyb@marxists.org<mailto:andyb@marxists.org>>
Reply to: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>>
Date: Saturday, 28 September 2019 at 04:38
To: "xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>>
Subject: [Xmca-l] Trust and Science


Science is based on trust, isn't it, Henry. Only a handful of people have actually measured climate change, and then probably only one factor. If we have a picture of climate change at all, for scientists and non-scientists alike, it is only because we trust the institutions of science sufficiently. And yet, everyone on this list knows how wrong these institutions can be when it comes to the area of our own expertise. So "blind trust" is not enough, one needs "critical trust" so to speak, in order to know anything scientifically. Very demanding.

Important as trust is, I am inclined to think trust and its absence are symptoms of even more fundamental societal characteristics, because it is never just a question of how much trust there is in a society, but who people trust. It seems that nowadays people  are very erratic about who they trust about what and who they do not trust.

Probably the agreement you saw between Huw and me was probably pretty shaky, but we have a commonality in our trusted sources, we have worked together in the past and share basic respect for each other and for science. Workable agreement. I despair over what I see happening in the UK now, where MPs genuinely fear for their lives because of the level of hatred and division in the community, which is beginning to be even worse than what Trump has created in the US. A total breakdown in trust alongside tragically misplaced trust in a couple of utterly cynical criminals! The divisions are just as sharp here in Oz too, but it has not go to that frightening level of menace it has reached in the UK and US.

Greta Thunberg talks of a plural, collective "we" in opposition to a singular personal "you." She brilliantly, in my opinion, turns this black-and-white condition of the world around in a manner which just could turn it into its negation. Her use of language at the UN is reminiscent of Churchill's "we fill fight them on the beaches ..." speech and Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech. There's something for you linguists to get your teeth into!

Andy

________________________________
Andy Blunden
Hegel for Social Movements<https://brill.com/view/title/54574>
Home Page<https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm>
On 28/09/2019 2:42 am, HENRY SHONERD wrote:
Andy and Huw,
This is a perfect example of what I was talking about in the discussion of your article on Academia: Two philosophers having a dialog about the same pholosophical object, a dialog manifesting an experience of common understanding. In the same way that two mathematicians might agree on a mathematical proof. I have to believe that you are not bull shitting, that you really have understood each other via your language. So, of course this is of interest to a linguist, even though he/I don’t really get the “proof”. I may not understand the arguments you are making, but I can imagine, based on slogging through thinking as a lingist, what it’s like to get it.

I think this relates to the problem in the world of a lack of trust in scientific expertise, in expertise in general. Where concpetual thinking reigns. So many climate deniers. So many Brexiters. But can you blame them entirely? Probably it would be better to say that trust isn’t enough. The problem is a lack of connection between trust and the creative imagination. It’s what Beth Fernholt and her pals have sent to the New Yorker.

Henry


On Sep 27, 2019, at 6:40 AM, Andy Blunden <andyb@marxists.org<mailto:andyb@marxists.org>> wrote:

Thanks, Huw.
The interconnectedness of the "four concepts," I agree, they imply each other, but nonetheless, they remain distinct insights. Just because you get one, you don't necessarily get the others.
Hegel uses the expression "true concept" only rarely. Generally, he simply uses the word "concept," and uses a variety of other terms like "mere conception" or "representation" or "category" to indicate something short of a concept, properly so called, but there is no strict categorisation for Hegel. Hegel is not talking about Psychology, let alone child psychology. Like with Vygotsky, all thought-forms (or forms of activity) are just phases (or stages) in the development of a concept. Reading your message, I think I am using the term "true concept" in much the same way you are.
(This is not relevant to my article, but I distinguish "true concept" from "actual concept." All the various forms of "complexive thinking" fall short, so to speak, of "true concepts," and further development takes an abstract concept, such as learnt in lecture 101 of a topic, to an "actual concept". But that is not relevant here. Hegel barely touches on these issues.)
I don't agree with your specific categories, but yes, for Vygotsky, chapters 4, 5 and 6 are all talking about concepts in a developmental sense. There are about 10 distinct stages for Vygotsky. And they are not equivalent to any series of stages identified by Hegel. Vgotsky's "stages" were drawn from a specific experiment with children; Hegel's Logic is cast somewhat differently (the Logic is not a series of stages) and has a domain much larger than Psychology.
The experienced doctor does not use what I would call "formal concepts" in her work, which are what I would call the concepts they learnt in Diagnostics 101 when they were a student. After 20 years of experience, these formal concepts have accrued practical life experience, and remain true concepts, but are no longer "formal." Of course, the student was not taught pseudoconcepts in Diagnostics 101. But all this is nothing to do with the article in question.
Hegel and Vygotsky are talking about different things, but even in terms of the subject matter, but especially in terms of the conceptual form, there is more Hegel in "Thinking and Speech" than initially meets the eye.
Andy
________________________________
Andy Blunden
Hegel for Social Movements<https://brill.com/view/title/54574>
Home Page<https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm>
On 27/09/2019 4:32 pm, Huw Lloyd wrote:
The "four concepts", for me, are four aspects of one understanding -- they imply each other.

Quoting this passage:

"The ‘abstract generality’ referred to above by Hegel, Vygotsky aptly called a ‘pseudoconcept’ - a form of abstract generalization, uniting objects by shared common features, which resembles conceptual thinking because, within a limited domain ofexperience, they subsume the same objects and situations as the true concept indicated by the same word.
The pseudoconcept is not the exclusive achievement of the child. In our everyday lives, our thinking frequently occurs in pseudoconcepts. From the perspective of dialectical logic, the concepts that we find in our living speech are not concepts in the true sense of the word. They are actually general representations of things. There is no doubt, however, that these representations are a transitional stage between complexes or pseudoconcepts and true concepts. (Vygotsky, 1934/1987, p. 155)"

My impression from your text, Andy, is that you are misreading Vygotsky's "Thinking and Speech". Implicit LSV's whole text of vol. 1 is an appreciation for different kinds of conception (3 levels: pseudo, formal, and dialectical), but the terminology of "concept" is only applied to the formal concept, i.e. where Vygotsky writes "concept" one can read "formal concept".

In vol. 1, the analysis of the trajectory of the thought of the child is towards a growing achievement of employing formal concepts. These formal concepts are only called "true concepts" (not to be confused with Hegel's true concept) in relation to the pseudo (fake or untrue) formal concepts. The pseudo concepts pertain to a form of cognition that is considered by Vygotsky (quite sensibly) to precede the concepts of formal logic.  This is quite obvious to any thorough-going psychological reading of the text.

However, within the frame of analysis of the text there is another form of conception which is Vygotsky's approach towards a dialectical understanding. None of Vygotsky's utterances about dialectics (in this volume) should be conflated with the "true concept" which he is using as a short-hand for the "true formal concept", similarly none of Vygotsky's utterances about "pseudo concepts" should be confused with formal concepts.

I hope that helps,
Huw






On Sat, 21 Sep 2019 at 06:37, Andy Blunden <andyb@marxists.org<mailto:andyb@marxists.org>> wrote:
I'd dearly like to get some discussion going on this:
It will be shown that at least four foundational concepts of Cultural Historical Activity Theory were previously formulated by Hegel, viz., (1) the unit of analysis as a key concept for analytic-synthetic cognition, (2) the centrality of artifact-mediated actions, (3) the definitive distinction between goal and motive in activities, and (4) the distinction between a true concept and a pseudoconcept.
https://www.academia.edu/s/7d70db6eb3/the-hegelian-sources-of-cultural-historical-activity-theory
Andy
--
________________________________
Andy Blunden
Hegel for Social Movements<https://brill.com/view/title/54574>
Home Page<https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm>

--
Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology
880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602
WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu<http://greg.a.thompson.byu.edu>
http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson


--
Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology
880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602
WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu<http://greg.a.thompson.byu.edu>
http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson


--
Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology
880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602
WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu<http://greg.a.thompson.byu.edu>
http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson


--
Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology
880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602
WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu<http://greg.a.thompson.byu.edu>
http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson


--
Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology
880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602
WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu<http://greg.a.thompson.byu.edu>
http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
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