[Xmca-l] Re: My Hometown Minneapolis

[HENRY SHONERD]

IMHO
David says, "Perhaps American-centrism and American-exceptionalism is in the way we read events rather than in the events themselves.” I am thinking about what Andy Blunden said, something to the effect that every experience is both mediated and un-mediated. Anthony seems to be looking for something more objective, something that transcends ideology. David K. might object that the facts of murderous and explotative British and French colonialism and the brutality of the Chinese regime are simply the facts, the kinds of facts that drive the passion and compassion of the people on the street in the U.S. Let cool heads prevail? That is the Cartesian take. The Spinoza turn in Vygotsky circles would conclude that without affect (passion and compassion) reason is impossible. Perhaps Anthony’s quest is Quixotic, laid out on the windmill. He’s certainly been a caballero about his trouncing. I admire him for that. 
Henry

> On Jun 5, 2020, at 3:10 PM, David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> (Is this thread American-centric? If so, 'twere a grievous fault. But grievously hath Haydi answered it--I don't think anybody can consider his dense, encyclopaedic blocks of text--the polar opposite of Anthony's American-centric orthography as well as Anthony's style and content--in any way American-centric....)
> 
> Perhaps American-centrism and American-exceptionalism is in the way we read events rather than in the events themselves, Anthony. To me, the situation in and around Washington DC looks very much like the situation in and around Beijing in May1989. As in DC, Beijing had laws preventing the entry of the armed forces other than those of the Beijing Military Region into the city (the exclusion laws were actually written into the Chinese constitution by Mao, who was always afraid of powerful military opponents like Peng Dehuai and Lin Biao). The Beijing Military Region, however, was loyal to the people of Beijing and to the General Secretary Zhao Ziyang, and they opposed to a coup. So, as in DC, the "martial law" forces were called to the city perimeter where they halted for several weeks. As in DC, the provenance of the "martial law" forces were quite mysterious--they didn't carry insignia and it later turned out that these were forces personally loyal to two PLA warlords, the brothers Yang Baibing and Yang Shangkun. As in DC, there were different waves of demonstrators inside the city: someone put up artworks in the square (as the mayor did in DC this morning) and others told people to go home and organize and not stay to be massacred. And then, almost exactly thirty-one years ago, the unmarked shock troops went in shooting, and at least a thousand people died.  I hope that part is NOT like DC, but so far the "American exceptionalists" have been proved wrong on every single detail.
> 
> Clorox on cloth? Gadzooks, Peg. Don't Americans have real N-94s yet? At the very height of the Daegu outbreak people had to resort to cloth masks (I don't think anybody used Clorox, though). Then the government brought in a rationing system so that health care workers could get PPE, and the extras are still rationed according to the numbers on registration cards: we go to the pharmacy twice a week to pick up our ration of three masks. No one is allowed onto a bus, a subway, or into a public building without one. Yesterday I went hiking for two hours and whenever I saw someone coming towards me they hastily put on a mask and bowed.
> 
> (Do you know, the largest factory for PPE in the USA, and possibly the world until recently, is 3M in Minneapolis? There's a solid transitional demand for a general strike--Masks for all! Occupy 3M!)
>  
> 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__;!!Mih3wA!Ul5daExVhX57ADcOvTQ_HCnrre4snCtgLYIoMGGfzHUw1WuT3Lmp3cHDLhFaiyi7J-IDZQ$  <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://tidsskrift.dk/outlines/article/view/116238__;!!Mih3wA!Xp_sgr0_UzNqr7vRI1XOMts503dCWTEnbJj5gRjnZG4dhhNbDC9HkM8UT-m4O5QGCUaqfQ$>
> New Translation with Nikolai Veresov: L.S. Vygotsky's Pedological Works Volume One: Foundations of Pedology"
>  https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!Ul5daExVhX57ADcOvTQ_HCnrre4snCtgLYIoMGGfzHUw1WuT3Lmp3cHDLhFaiygncU7M2g$ 
>  <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!Xp_sgr0_UzNqr7vRI1XOMts503dCWTEnbJj5gRjnZG4dhhNbDC9HkM8UT-m4O5QTbNA7-g$>
> 
> On Fri, Jun 5, 2020 at 6:30 PM Anthony Barra <anthonymbarra@gmail.com <mailto:anthonymbarra@gmail.com>> wrote:
> Thank you, I'll take a look. Sounds similar to dialectics, little I know of both. 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Thursday, June 4, 2020, Richard Beach <rbeach@umn.edu <mailto:rbeach@umn.edu>> wrote:
> Anthony, the concept of “expansive learning” posits that objects/motive in activity are ideally always open to change/transformation—that they are never fixed given that as participants encounter new contradictions/challenges, they “learn to”/formulate new objects/motives. This requires learners to be open to exploring optional actions/tools/norms as they redefine/revise their ever expanding objects/motives.
> 
> Coping with decades-long racist practices in Minneapolis, requires “expansive learning” to continually experiment with new objects/motives given that some of the tools/practices attempted in the past haven’t necessarily worked, although attempts were made to do so, only to be blocked by a timid political leadership <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.startribune.com/in-2008-we-had-a-reform-plan-for-the-mpd-it-got-derailed-by-politics/570998162/__;!!Mih3wA!SLGpQj8PmApHqKlEeH3z-ohB8R76qeqnpglVMrj9N2HOiJRn_QxL9FXpHMmS9eXEdK2Cgg$>. 
> 
> For more on expansive learning theory, see attached reports: 
> Engeström,Y., & Sannino, A. (2010). Studies of expansive learning: Foundations, findings and future challenges. Educational Research Review, 5, 1–24.
> Sannino, A., Engeström, Y., & Lemos, M. (2016). Formative interventions for expansivelearning and transformative agency. Journal of the Learning Sciences, 25(4), 599-633.
> 

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