[Xmca-l] Re: Love's In Need of Lean on Me

Wed Apr 29 09:41:40 PDT 2020

The second version is soooo produced, so much “handling". The first so simple, authentic, coming from someone on the firing line. If a white person is going to appropriate a Black cultural artifact, surely the doctor does it right. 

I first heard Stevie as Little Stevie Wonder. So creative, constantly reinventing his song but always Stevie. I only learned he wrote “Lean on Me” late in his life, not long before he died really. 

Stay well, David

> On Apr 28, 2020, at 7:37 PM, David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> No, shared property is always better, Henry, particularly where "property" is to be understood as meaning something like "quality" rather than mere right of possession.
> 
> As usual, you got it right away (it took me a while to work it out). I think that's because you always focus on the postive content. What strikes me is the dark warnings, the force of evil, the precautionary measures, and the need to fight back. But the real "message", to the extent that art has a message mortals understand, lies beyond both the form and the content.
> 
> The specific form in which genre--always a shared property--is internalized is as not as a genre but as an indefinitely creative form of imagination we can call the repertoire. But this repertoire, that feeling that helps Stevie merge the two songs so that you only notice the seam if you know both songs by heart, is always an inner property tied "by a thousand strands and ten thousand threads" (as we say in Chinese), "intertwined and then interwoven" (as we say in Russian) to shared property.
> 
> It's not about race, although it does have something to do with class (in both senses of the word). Listen to the way this doctor sings the song:
> 
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qCKrDJ5OL8__;!!Mih3wA!TsXJv3mvGbZpciU-ZB8aeVKIl8dDvUSGcvr5K8dMsOryEm5ZQKDzuWXhXhcMRQLwcQlNLQ$  <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qCKrDJ5OL8__;!!Mih3wA!VabcjW3NhbX_sOIPqWyp8qCr3_UlX0jS_bL0rn7d6qHAS3raLqlSn4MO0lj4TuDl6xhlEw$>
> 
> Yeah, I know. He sounds like a white dude--he doesn't collapse the consonants and he pronounces "strong" without the /sh/ sound that Stevie uses. But no one can say he doesn't sing with class.
> 
> Compare to the way this black guy in New Orleans does it:
> 
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiouJsnYytI__;!!Mih3wA!TsXJv3mvGbZpciU-ZB8aeVKIl8dDvUSGcvr5K8dMsOryEm5ZQKDzuWXhXhcMRQIHGzrv1g$  <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiouJsnYytI__;!!Mih3wA!VabcjW3NhbX_sOIPqWyp8qCr3_UlX0jS_bL0rn7d6qHAS3raLqlSn4MO0lj4TuCM_o-qgw$>
> 
> See, that one just doesn't do it. It's not just because of the switch from "I'm gonna need" to "you're gonna need" and from "I just might have a problem you'd understand" to "you just might have a problem I'd understand".
> 
> I just don't think you can treat this tune like a travel info-mercial. The change of message does, however, better reflect the message of the performance sponsors, Bill and Melinda Gates.
>  
> David Kellogg
> Sangmyung University
> 
> New Article: Ruqaiya Hasan, in memoriam: A manual and a manifesto.
> Outlines, Spring 2020 https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://tidsskrift.dk/outlines/article/view/116238/167607__;!!Mih3wA!TsXJv3mvGbZpciU-ZB8aeVKIl8dDvUSGcvr5K8dMsOryEm5ZQKDzuWXhXhcMRQJ2UZoFzw$  <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://tidsskrift.dk/outlines/article/view/116238/167607__;!!Mih3wA!VabcjW3NhbX_sOIPqWyp8qCr3_UlX0jS_bL0rn7d6qHAS3raLqlSn4MO0lj4TuDVcE8N1g$>
> 
> New Translation with Nikolai Veresov: L.S. Vygotsky's Pedological Works Volume One: Foundations of Pedology"
>  https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!TsXJv3mvGbZpciU-ZB8aeVKIl8dDvUSGcvr5K8dMsOryEm5ZQKDzuWXhXhcMRQL3zxxqUw$  <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!VabcjW3NhbX_sOIPqWyp8qCr3_UlX0jS_bL0rn7d6qHAS3raLqlSn4MO0lj4TuCvn2gXLA$>
> 
> 
> On Wed, Apr 29, 2020 at 9:50 AM HENRY SHONERD <hshonerd@gmail.com <mailto:hshonerd@gmail.com>> wrote:
> David,
> 
> I wrote some ideas in response to your post below, then, as I ofen do, decided to forego the anxiety of posting it to the entire XMCA listserv. Here is  some inchoate thinking/feeling that I will send to you off-line:
> 
> Am I wrong? What is love, if not reciprocity? At any scale, iove is revolutionary. A parasite takes from its host and gives nothing in return. Work gives meaning to life and is a way to make a living. Love is freely given:  It doesn’t say I give so that you will give back, but a lopsided giving and taking demeans the giver and the taker. At least say thank you. From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.
> 
> Stay well
> Henry
> 
> 
>> On Apr 23, 2020, at 3:15 PM, David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com <mailto:dkellogg60@gmail.com>> wrote:
>> 
>> You can lean on me, Anthony. I was, as you guessed, being pretty critical of the video you sent around: I think Wertsch hasn't even got his Hayden White right (Hayden White was drawing on a study of medieval literature and he argued that the narrative is not so much memory as moral iinstruction). But most of the moral instruction (not entertainment) I intended is there in the tune, which is from the recent "Home Alone" concert which Lady Gaga curated over Zoom.
>> 
>> As you probably heard, Stevie Wonder is mashing up a song from the late great Bill Withers that goes like this:
>> 
>> You just call on me, Brother, when you need a hand
>> We all need somebody to lean on
>> I just might have a problem that you'll understand
>> We all need somebody to lean on
>> 
>> Interestingly, a lot of people can't follow that switch. Even my wife argues that it makes the idea of mutuality transactional--the song says that you can lean on me if and only if I can then lean on you, which makes it a covert form of exchange. So there are some versions that switch the pronouns and sing "You just might have a problem that I'll understand" which makes it coherent narrative, but entirely unidirectional.
>> 
>> But there's a real moral message which makes it a Hayden White type narrative. It's not just about mutuality. It's about this:
>> 
>> Good morn or evening friends
>> Here's your friendly announcer
>> I have serious news to pass on to every-body
>> What I'm about to say
>> Could mean the world's disaster
>> Could change your joy and laughter to tears and pain
>> 
>> It's that
>> Love's in need of love today
>> Don't delay
>> Send yours in right away
>> Hate's goin' round
>> Breaking many hearts
>> Stop it please
>> Before it's gone too far
>> 
>> The force of evil plans
>> To make you its possession
>> And it will if we let it
>> Destroy everybody
>> We all must take
>> Precautionary measures
>> If love and peace you treasure
>> Then you'll hear me when I say
>> 
>> Love's in need of love today
>> love's in need of love today
>> Don't delay don't delay
>> Send yours in right away
>> 
>> See what I mean? It's not really a narrative. It's not even two narratives spliced together. It's repertoire: the kind of thing a great musician carries around in his or her head. But that head carries that repertoire not just because it leans on ten thousand hours of gruelling practice (pace Malcolm Gladwell). That repertoire is a subset of meaning potential winnowed (not "produced") by a thousand years of turbulent history (which is what Hayden White REALLY said), That's what we are seeing now.
>> 
>> David Kellogg
>> Sangmyung University
>> 
>> Book Review: 'Fees, Beets, and Music: A critical perusal of Critical Pedagogy and Marx, Vygotsky and Freire: Phenomenal forms and  educational action research'  in Mind Culture and Activity
>> 
>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10749039.2020.1745847__;!!Mih3wA!TsXJv3mvGbZpciU-ZB8aeVKIl8dDvUSGcvr5K8dMsOryEm5ZQKDzuWXhXhcMRQKNDr_hDg$  [tandfonline.com] <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10749039.2020.1745847__;!!Mih3wA!SO4kUoEeU_FR5aPViymlPNA0pwker2y0TwRxTsCASYxLLKB4bIsIF2okDfLtTcDjV92fpQ$>
>> 
>> Some free e-prints available at:
>> 
>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/QBBGIZNKAHPMM4ZVCWVX/full?target=10.1080*10749039.2020.1745847__;Lw!!Mih3wA!TsXJv3mvGbZpciU-ZB8aeVKIl8dDvUSGcvr5K8dMsOryEm5ZQKDzuWXhXhcMRQJao68ehQ$  [tandfonline.com] <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/QBBGIZNKAHPMM4ZVCWVX/full?target=10.1080*10749039.2020.1745847__;Lw!!Mih3wA!SO4kUoEeU_FR5aPViymlPNA0pwker2y0TwRxTsCASYxLLKB4bIsIF2okDfLtTcA7Hdqguw$>
>> 
>> New Translation with Nikolai Veresov: "L.S. Vygotsky's Pedological Works Volume One: Foundations of Pedology"
>> 
>>  https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!TsXJv3mvGbZpciU-ZB8aeVKIl8dDvUSGcvr5K8dMsOryEm5ZQKDzuWXhXhcMRQL3zxxqUw$  [springer.com] <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!SO4kUoEeU_FR5aPViymlPNA0pwker2y0TwRxTsCASYxLLKB4bIsIF2okDfLtTcDdQp814g$>
>> 
>> 
>> On Fri, Apr 24, 2020 at 3:25 AM Anthony Barra <anthonymbarra@gmail.com <mailto:anthonymbarra@gmail.com>> wrote:
>> Thank you. In this post, David provides value for me by including a video I might enjoy, and even greater value to the group by writing three paragraphs they will understand.
>> 
>> I will reread a few times and try to take what I can from them.
>> 
>> Thanks again ~
>> Anthony
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> On Thu, Apr 23, 2020 at 7:41 AM David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com <mailto:dkellogg60@gmail.com>> wrote:
>> Anthony:
>> 
>> Wertsch believes that governments have very limited power to create narratives: they can only "produce" narratives that people will "consume", never mind that this production and consumption involves neither fixed nor variable capital and exchanges neither use nor exchange value, and he feels no need whatsoever to offer us a theory (beyond "my side bias", which is nothing but a Piagetian egocentrism that dare not speak its name) about why one culture should prefer this narrative and another should prefer that one. An example he gives is that the US Communist Party never in its history, which is now over a century long, was able to produce a narrative that American workers wanted to consume.
>> 
>> Except that whole generations of terror, state and private, were manifestly required to bring about this happy result: race riots, night-riding, lynching, and massacres. Even then HUAC and McCarthy were required to consolidate it.  Ethel Rosenberg was practically burnt at the stake; Paul Robeson practically driven to suicide. .And still you have weird little kids like me, born the child of a Manhattan Project scientist, who dares to believe all the things that so surprise and shock Wertsch: that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was an unconscionable war crime whose only real purpose was to scare the USSR away from China and Korea (where a huge proportion of the population had to be murdered less they "consume" the Communist "narrative"). I believed these things not because of a narrative template, but simply because they fit perfectly with facts I grew up knowing. Now that I live here I know these things are true and undeniable, the way that Auschwitz and Birkenau cannot be denied.
>> 
>> I think that Wertsch's powers of decentration fail him right at the crucial moment: his very notion of narrative as a basis of human culture is ethocentric, because it is based on the language variables that Han Hui-jeong and I called SELF: Subjects, Expectancy of nominal bias, Linearity of sentences along SVO lines, and the Focalizing voice that passes judgement at the end of the story. These are not properties of culture, as Wertsch seems to think, they are merely properties of the English language. Similarly, "narrative" is simply an individual realization of a particular autobiographical genre, quite different to and alien from the way that most people on this planet experience the episodes of their lives. And even genre is, despite the work of J.R. Martin, not an over-arching category which all discourse semantics must realize: genre is a rather fusty and fixed category of something much larger we can call meaning potential. It is much easier to explain my own beliefs and even the productions of Korean children as mash-ups of a growing repertoire of genres, similar to repertoires of music: classical, folk, K-pop and R&B.
>> 
>> (Did you catch Stevie Wonder's mash-up of "Lean on Me" and "Love's in Need of Love Today"?  https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vgfBJhlEEo__;!!Mih3wA!TsXJv3mvGbZpciU-ZB8aeVKIl8dDvUSGcvr5K8dMsOryEm5ZQKDzuWXhXhcMRQJL3opsrw$  [youtube.com] <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vgfBJhlEEo__;!!Mih3wA!WwA-tBJOSIPWHffI6l01V56XDACw7rS9pUwfERwHIq5y7LHof50x9gnwjNDy2ONah0WO6Q$> Is it narrative or repertoire?)
>> 
>> David Kellogg
>> Sangmyung University
>> 
>> Book Review: 'Fees, Beets, and Music: A critical perusal of Critical Pedagogy and Marx, Vygotsky and Freire: Phenomenal forms and  educational action research'  in Mind Culture and Activity
>> 
>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10749039.2020.1745847__;!!Mih3wA!TsXJv3mvGbZpciU-ZB8aeVKIl8dDvUSGcvr5K8dMsOryEm5ZQKDzuWXhXhcMRQKNDr_hDg$  [tandfonline.com] <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10749039.2020.1745847__;!!Mih3wA!WwA-tBJOSIPWHffI6l01V56XDACw7rS9pUwfERwHIq5y7LHof50x9gnwjNDy2OM01OQ3Yg$>
>> 
>> Some free e-prints available at:
>> 
>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/QBBGIZNKAHPMM4ZVCWVX/full?target=10.1080*10749039.2020.1745847__;Lw!!Mih3wA!TsXJv3mvGbZpciU-ZB8aeVKIl8dDvUSGcvr5K8dMsOryEm5ZQKDzuWXhXhcMRQJao68ehQ$  [tandfonline.com] <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/QBBGIZNKAHPMM4ZVCWVX/full?target=10.1080*10749039.2020.1745847__;Lw!!Mih3wA!WwA-tBJOSIPWHffI6l01V56XDACw7rS9pUwfERwHIq5y7LHof50x9gnwjNDy2OMB9VtfUA$>
>> 
>> New Translation with Nikolai Veresov: "L.S. Vygotsky's Pedological Works Volume One: Foundations of Pedology"
>> 
>>  https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!TsXJv3mvGbZpciU-ZB8aeVKIl8dDvUSGcvr5K8dMsOryEm5ZQKDzuWXhXhcMRQL3zxxqUw$  [springer.com] <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!WwA-tBJOSIPWHffI6l01V56XDACw7rS9pUwfERwHIq5y7LHof50x9gnwjNDy2OOF0N3D8g$>
> 

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