[Xmca-l] Re: Emotion as "Sputnik"

Fri Jun 19 13:40:12 PDT 2020

Iju (my co-author) was a sardonic, even satirical teacher, and her kids,
sixth graders, would feed on, feed back and greatly amplify her critical
attitude to the texts. I remember her presenting a lesson about shopping to
her kids by pointing to herself and telling the kids that she was  a
meandering, browsing, gatherer in the local shopping mall while her
husband, alas, was a hunter who just goes for his kill and then scurries
back to the lair. She then plaintively asked if the kids had time to go
shopping with her, and the kids said something like "Teacher! Crisis! All
bankrupt!". It was true--in the wake of the 2008 stock market collapse, the
local shopping mall had gone out of business. Anyway, knowing her and her
kids, I would not be surprised if the lesson on two boys arm-wrestling
for the right to take a girl to an amusement park was presented to the kids
as a parody of Korean rom-coms or a pastiche of Korean reality TV.

So what Spinoza says about the "passions" is that they are the "affections"
(modes? manners?) of the body which increase or decrease the power of
activity "or the ideas thereof". The word "or" suggests either/or--a kind
of dualism that sits poorly with Spinoza's monism ("Deus Sive
Natura"--"God, in other words, Nature"). One way of elminating that "or"
and the finger of salvation it extends to dualism is simply to replace it
with "and" or "with". .The Edelman version of this is that consciousness
arises from preconcepts in animals which enable learning--the experience
and or along with the experience of having had an experience. He explains
this by re-entrant neurons: neural networks which appear redundant in
animals and even in infants (where the pain that makes the infant cry is
really not easily distinguishable from the experience of having had the
pain) and occur only because neural networks are not parsimonious and do
not evolve to be. These neural networks turn out to be non-redundant as
soon as true concepts arise, and true concepts are defined as being able to
have the experience and to define it in terms of other experiences. Not a
bad definition of "perezhivanie", no?

My Friday classes on Communication tend to be rather like Iju's: I put on a
sardonic, satirical, and somewhat self-deprecating persona and my
students play a lively bunch of wise-cracking gym-rats and self-parodying
mall-rats (and yes, the roles are largely self-cast by sex and by gender).
Yesterday one of the liveiest mall-rats was missing because her grandfather
had died (mourning is taken very seriously here). This was an "affection"
that did not increase the power of the activity of the class body to act,
and some of the usual wise-cracking of the class was obviously a somewhat
forced compensation. But if negative emotion consistently debilitates
rather than facilitates our capacity to act, why does tragedy have so much
more currency in the verbal arts than comedy?  Why, for that matter, is
violence so much more permissible in the visual-illustrative arts than sex?

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!Xf95FeVXta6Ev1a7tffa_sN6YaOIeTDyZ_D88QCnGdqlhAtReA1oY_kMjerse25ZW6viHg$ 
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!Xf95FeVXta6Ev1a7tffa_sN6YaOIeTDyZ_D88QCnGdqlhAtReA1oY_kMjerse25ljFMnRQ$ 

On Sat, Jun 20, 2020 at 4:05 AM Annalisa Aguilar <annalisa@unm.edu> wrote:

> Hello Phillip, Peg, Mike, and welcomed others,
>
> A Juneteenth federal holiday would be marvelous. I'm sure it could be as
> marvelous if not more than to have something as grand as a Thanksgiving Day
> Parade in every city.
>
> I like the idea of calling it Freedom Day (or even Liberation Day) as
> well, because that is a concept that everyone can value as something worth
> having. Apparently it used to be called Freedom Day once upon a time.
>
> ---
> Getting back to the original topic, I would like to voice my skepticism
> about negative and positive emotions and their role in learning.
>
> I believe that just emotion (whatever the quality) isn't something that
> "aids" learning. I think positive emotions are far more powerful in the
> registry of learning than negative ones.
>
> What I think is likely of consequence with negative emotions that
> accompany a "situation" for learning, likely has to do with trauma and
> survival.
>
> In other words, negative emotions do have a role and influence, but will
> wire into memory in a different way than positive ones would. This makes
> sense in terms of what we understand about PTSD and how it is that certain
> somatic reactions "bypass" conscious thought of the afflicted person after
> having suffered a traumatic experience (i.e., flashbacks).
>
> I think I understand more why Mike and Phillip have indicated the coupling
> of emotion and learning can be misused by fascists, etc.
> I don't exactly agree with this, but perhaps I'm not fully understanding
> the reference.
>
> There is something deeply different going on with learning that maps with
> negative vs positive emotions, though we might not yet be able to determine
> the "mechanics" of these processes and how they are different.
>
> I'm thinking about another article I read at the Intercept about facebook
> moderators. These are the digital turks of the Internet (No offense I hope
> to any Turks by using that phrase).
>
>
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://theintercept.com/2020/06/18/facebook-moderator-ptsd-settlement-accenture/__;!!Mih3wA!Xf95FeVXta6Ev1a7tffa_sN6YaOIeTDyZ_D88QCnGdqlhAtReA1oY_kMjerse24K_-FNzA$ 
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://theintercept.com/2020/06/18/facebook-moderator-ptsd-settlement-accenture/__;!!Mih3wA!XNTLGP4ko664qvzSyLs_cSQbCpJ6cjYSRXd-a8S1tTYir12Z7Kjok9JZT38ScSksDu_DMA$>
>
> Being exposed to negative imagery (that generates negative emotions)
> doesn't transform learning, it makes people unwell. If it were a neutral
> input (that it didn't matter if it were positive or negative), then people
> wouldn't be getting sick just from exposure to images.
>
> Something very different is going on.
>
> I sense that the next decades we will be learning more about the effects
> of trauma. That would be a good thing because it might also be instrumental
> in forging the means to prevent wars and other forms of group violence
> (genocide, refugee encampments, homelessness, other forms of deep, human
> suffering).
>
> Maybe we can also defund the Pentagon and put some of that money into
> diplomacy. Or even start that US Department of Peace that Congressman
> Kucinich had proposed once upon a time.
>
> As ever... I remain hopeful,
>
> kind regards,
>
> Annalisa
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> on behalf of mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu>
> *Sent:* Friday, June 19, 2020 10:40 AM
> *To:* eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: Emotion as "Sputnik"
>
>
> *  [EXTERNAL]*
> Its a Bakhtinian moment, Peg, when when repressed voices bring back a
> national memory
> and the consciousness of a nation (consciousness as humans' relationship
> to nature and each other) has
> undergone a qualitative shift. Will it be papered over by future
> forgetting? Too soon to tell.
>
> If Juneteenth becomes a national holiday, it would be a very interesting
> shift in national memorializing and perhaps,
> even, race relations.
>
> For those like me who have inherited only a foggy notion of  Juneteenth ,
> the attached link might be helpful.
>
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/*inbox/WhctKJVrDFZHHxRlWkntMlVkVGGMxhnSmgMtqSjmJRWnZRpQjsxLHhpHTlPVtsZRbGvGkBv__;Iw!!Mih3wA!Xf95FeVXta6Ev1a7tffa_sN6YaOIeTDyZ_D88QCnGdqlhAtReA1oY_kMjerse24JCazu9w$ 
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/*inbox/WhctKJVrDFZHHxRlWkntMlVkVGGMxhnSmgMtqSjmJRWnZRpQjsxLHhpHTlPVtsZRbGvGkBv__;Iw!!Mih3wA!URjX7UEtEjKC9GjF4K7CtoTq6JHOljqil1jLajq7UdsEwHQHmq3v1ap9-GQC2cDEuPmgLQ$>
>
>
> mike
>
>
> On Fri, Jun 19, 2020 at 9:07 AM Peg Griffin, Ph.D. <Peg.Griffin@att.net>
> wrote:
>
> Phillip,
>
> Your note on missing voices reminded me of Sandro Duranti once saying that
> he had gained ears.
>
> And it seems a propos of a good Juneteenth Day.  So…
>
>
>
> Long ago and far away (from me right now at least), before xmca,  even
> before xlchc maybe, in two funny temporary buildings in a little grove of a
> few trees with occasional ocean breezes and a picnic table and benches,
> there were a bunch of what some on the staff called “labbies,” with lots of
> differences in academic standing, community culture, family race,
> nationality, and short and long term motives.  We gathered and gave each
> other questions and occasional answers and lots of worrying and enjoying.
>
> Along came Sandro as a post doc.  His family lived in LA and he stayed in
> San Diego for several days a week.  After a month or so, he told us about a
> party he went to over the weekend when he was back in LA.  As usual there
> were lots of local university faculty and students.  He said it felt
> different for him, though.  And he had finally pinned down what it was.
>
> He was listening with extra ears – ears from black and brown people who
> constituted a large portion of the lab, its taken for granted history, its
> day to day goings on.  He heard things that needed to be countered,
> challenged, questioned, discussed – things that might have just passed by
> before but now seemed to be things that wouldn’t be said had he been a
> person of color from the Lab.  His extra ears gave him ideas, feelings,
> words and motives that he hadn’t experienced before.
>
> Sandro is a gifted anthropologist, originally from Italy, with advanced
> degrees from the US.  And a dear sweet man.
>
> Peg
>
>
>
> *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:
> xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] *On Behalf Of *White, Phillip
> *Sent:* Friday, June 19, 2020 10:18 AM
> *To:* eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: Emotion as "Sputnik"
>
>
>
> David - very contextualising background information - which i appreciate.
>  do you think that there is a thread here in the activity of resolving
> disputes that 'might makes right' -
>
>
>
> reflecting on my initial response to Veresov, could have been an emotional
> sputnik - so much tension in the air these days here in denver - but i
> don't want to make excuses -
>
>
>
> i'm reminded on Nina Simone's song:
>
>
>
> Alabama's gotten me so upset
> Tennessee made me lose my rest
> And everybody knows about Mississippi goddam
>
>
>
> not just racism, but all isms have just gotten to me recently -  and i'm
> missing the voices of twenty years ago - to mention just a few: Suzanne
> De Castle - Mary Bryson - Kathryn Alexander - Eva Ekablad, to mention just
> a few - of course, we've still got Peg -
>
>
>
> later -
>
>
>
> phillip
>
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Crush human humanity out of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it
> will twist itself into the same tortured forms. Sow the same seed of
> rapacious license and oppression over again, and it will surely yield the
> same fruit, according to its kind.  C.Dickens.
> ---------------------------------------------------
> Cultural Praxis Website: https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://culturalpraxis.net__;!!Mih3wA!Xf95FeVXta6Ev1a7tffa_sN6YaOIeTDyZ_D88QCnGdqlhAtReA1oY_kMjerse27ohxArZA$ 
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://culturalpraxis.net__;!!Mih3wA!URjX7UEtEjKC9GjF4K7CtoTq6JHOljqil1jLajq7UdsEwHQHmq3v1ap9-GQC2cBclOLiRw$>
> Re-generating CHAT Website: re-generatingchat.com
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://re-generatingchat.com__;!!Mih3wA!URjX7UEtEjKC9GjF4K7CtoTq6JHOljqil1jLajq7UdsEwHQHmq3v1ap9-GQC2cB2Him4CA$>
> Archival resources website: lchc.ucsd.edu.
> Narrative history of LCHC:  lchcautobio.ucsd.edu.
>
>
>
>
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