[Xmca-l] Vygotsky is dangerous...

Fri Nov 27 18:09:12 PST 2020

Oh yes, Vygotsky is actually very dangerous, the very left you can imagine, as the site you referenced here on xmca has revealed - the invisible serf collar or something, referencing my work by the way as a great danger...

So, I would think twice, if I were you (knowing what you posted), to be affiliated with Vygotsky and xmca. But then, I am not a boss here.

See, how dangerous this is, here are my words:

"Cultural-historical and activity theories need to [re]connect to radical strands of work, such as critical race theory, to be part of a wide movement of resistance in facing the all-encompassing crisis of late capitalism. The banal, biscuit-box Vygotsky could be then made dangerous again, that is, useful in the struggle for a better world. I borrow from Critchley (2013) who argued against the banal, biscuit-box Shakespeare, saying that ‘if the authorities really understood [what he was writing], students might never be allowed to study the text.’ This applies equally, if not more, to what could be a de-domesticated Vygotsky."

Anna Stetsenko, PhD
Professor
Ph.D. Programs in Psychology/Human Development and in Urban Education
The Graduate Center of The City University of New York
365 5th Avenue, New York, NY 10016
https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://annastetsenko.ws.gc.cuny.edu/__;!!Mih3wA!XRu1x0yYwaiXZTQFK0bUkct2ScQUUvhEAsGrahqNvimMV9BxVm6-54OkZZyUOlBwhO4ehA$ 
visit https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.academia.edu__;!!Mih3wA!XRu1x0yYwaiXZTQFK0bUkct2ScQUUvhEAsGrahqNvimMV9BxVm6-54OkZZyUOlA4rwOckg$ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.academia.edu__;!!Mih3wA!XRu1x0yYwaiXZTQFK0bUkct2ScQUUvhEAsGrahqNvimMV9BxVm6-54OkZZyUOlA4rwOckg$ > for my recent publications
________________________________
From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of Anthony Barra <anthonymbarra@gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, November 27, 2020 8:43 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: keeping eyes open

Yes, sins were committed... e.g., sharing the work of 4 widely respected (and contested) African-American scholars, whose heterodox scholarship is additive, though of course not definitive.
Additive, that is, to anyone open to intellectual diversity.

I came to here hoping to learn more about Vygotsky, not to argue.
And if you'd like me to leave, Anna, why not just ask me? This is your field, not mine; I haven't put in 1/1000th the hours you have.

I won't mind -- I'm very tolerant of diverse views other than my own.

It's a virtue,

Anthony Barra

P.S. To my best understanding (very minimal, no doubt), the subject matter of Vygotsky's cultural-historical theory is the development of human higher psychological functions. (How that is "left," "right," or otherwise is beyond me.)

On Fri, Nov 27, 2020 at 7:33 PM Stetsenko, Anna <AStetsenko@gc.cuny.edu<mailto:AStetsenko@gc.cuny.edu>> wrote:

There is always background and history to everything. Things were clear at least since this exchange (below), are our eyes open? Read back from that June 7th email, Michael Glassman writing regarding Anthony Barra's posts. There was no appropriate action taken then and so things have been dragging on. Glassman might have quit too after that.

And also - there should be no doubt that the origins of CHAT have to do with the left, there is no other way to understand it other than from the left in political terms (even if Vygotsky has been domesticated since his days). No surprise, theory is never neutral. There is politics in this recent episode of course too, through and through.

On Sunday, June 7, 2020, Glassman, Michael <glassman.13@osu.edu<mailto:glassman.13@osu.edu>> wrote:

What I find difficult about this is that XMCA, whose earlier versions was one of the earliest well-functioning communities is being used to proliferate this type of information, or I would say misinformation. The list has always run with minimalist moderation but I wonder if it is possible in this day and age.
These are observations. I have no desire to argue about this with anybody.
Michael

On Sunday, June 7, 2020, Glassman, Michael <glassman.13@osu.edu<mailto:glassman.13@osu.edu>> wrote:
...

What I find difficult about this is that XMCA, whose earlier versions was one of the earliest well-functioning communities is being use to proliferate this type of information, or I would say misinformation. The list has always run with minimalist moderation but I wonder if it is possible in this day and age.

These are observations. I have no desire to argue about this with anybody.

Michael

Anna Stetsenko, PhD
Professor
Ph.D. Programs in Psychology/Human Development and in Urban Education
The Graduate Center of The City University of New York
365 5th Avenue, New York, NY 10016
https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://annastetsenko.ws.gc.cuny.edu/__;!!Mih3wA!XRu1x0yYwaiXZTQFK0bUkct2ScQUUvhEAsGrahqNvimMV9BxVm6-54OkZZyUOlBwhO4ehA$ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://annastetsenko.ws.gc.cuny.edu/__;!!Mih3wA!SMQkpxPjp5wNS_KhNFjGmxYk4nRxGGmWJCUwFCsae_mfzFIBqhqJHiSrbjTWDEGJ-a7qPw$>
visit https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.academia.edu__;!!Mih3wA!XRu1x0yYwaiXZTQFK0bUkct2ScQUUvhEAsGrahqNvimMV9BxVm6-54OkZZyUOlA4rwOckg$ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.academia.edu__;!!Mih3wA!SMQkpxPjp5wNS_KhNFjGmxYk4nRxGGmWJCUwFCsae_mfzFIBqhqJHiSrbjTWDEEWoKOutg$> for my recent publications
________________________________
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 Beth Ferholt <bferholt@gmail.com<mailto:bferholt@gmail.com>>
Sent: Friday, November 27, 2020 6:10 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Fwd: [New post] Why generations?

Zara invited other risks -- Thank you for asking us all! -- I would like to add:

6.  "If I say something and there is only silence ... and then I say something else and there is only silence, again ... how will I remember that this is Not just the evidence I need to prove that I should have remained in another profession, where people understood me when I spoke?"
The design question we can ask ourselves: How do we sustain our collective work to help all members to hold at bay the pernicious deficit model, never thinking that this is a battle we each must fight in private and alone, or with a few select supporters?  How do we help all of us to remember that this fight takes active and ongoing as well as collective work, and that for each success story against the odds we have lost 100's of voices -- and often the voices of those with the most valuable (as they are rare in the field) perspectives for the field?  Can we each be supported as long as necessary as we "learn to ride this particular kind of bike" (or adjust the bike so that we can ride it), providing only that we have the desire to try?

#7. ??

Beth

On Fri, Nov 27, 2020 at 5:37 PM Andy Blunden <andyb@marxists.org<mailto:andyb@marxists.org>> wrote:

Wow! That is a really useful post, Zaza. I have bookmarked it.

I think your suggestion to frame xmca in terms of "risk" is very productive.
Thank you.

andy

________________________________
Andy Blunden
Hegel for Social Movements<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1484-hegel-for-social-movements__;!!Mih3wA!SBkmBkhWhBnjWkghRbECZoK90gYyR9xX7PrktzIstGwEZ2sa4rY9UyfIoQi8rpUwQ0cvqg$>
Home Page<https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm__;!!Mih3wA!SBkmBkhWhBnjWkghRbECZoK90gYyR9xX7PrktzIstGwEZ2sa4rY9UyfIoQi8rpW1h-ftPQ$>
On 28/11/2020 7:51 am, Zaza Kabayadondo wrote:
I follow a lot of the discussions on xmca but rarely post. Despite many very warm invitations from Mike and others, I have only posted on this forum 3 times since joining in 2014. I read about 80% of the threads.

So to the question, "isn't any adult xmca member allowed to type..." here's are my thoughts:

I'm a millennial so I have been observing online discussion forum blowouts since I was about 16. People who look like me (black, female, immigrant) get trolled online all the time. I'm not saying xmca has trolls but I've become conditioned to worry about the risks of posting in any online forum. As a general rule it is safer not to get sucked in - to watch but not to get blood on my hands. I am only an active poster in groups where I trust the members and feel safe in, even when I don't know all the members. So what I asked myself what is it about xmca that makes me feel like I have to be super careful about what I post? What makes this group feel "unsafe" or "toxic". In other words, what makes it feel risky to post something on xmca? Below I've listed the 5 risks that I worry about. There are more, certainly, but I picked just the first few to start and paired them with some design questions I think we should be asking about how to design the community we want here.

1. "What is the context for this post? I think I get it but are we talking about the same thing?"
The design question we can ask ourselves: What can we do to provide better context, in a way that invites more members to add to an original post?

2. "I'm only marginally familiar with this topic, I'm curious but I won't ask questions but I don't have the energy to be "schooled" on this today." The design questions we can ask ourselves: How can we be argumentative, informative, without being toxic? What is the best way to engage novices and experts in this topic?

3. "Who else is out there, reading this? I don't know who I'm talking to except the 5 or so active members"
The design question we can ask ourselves: What can we do as a community to learn more about each other, our work, and our domains of focus or ways of applying CHAT.

4. "If I post this will it turn into a long and laborious (unpleasant) email exchange? Am I ready for a fight in this space?"
The design question we can ask ourselves: How do we bring critique without criticism? How do we sustain conversation without putting the burden on only the original poster?

5. "Dude, I don't read or speak Russian so I have nothing to say about the translation from the original."
The design question we can ask ourselves: How do we get around the challenges of casual and virtual engagement; and the challenge of not knowing who this community is or if what I (each of us) can contribute will be valuable to the community.

So this is why, for me, it's not so straightforward to say anyone can post. I'd love to see what other "risks" people have perceived. I'd also love to be part of doing something about addressing them, because I do think this forum has the potential to be an incredible community for more than just a handful of members.

On Fri, Nov 27, 2020 at 12:35 PM Anthony Barra <anthonymbarra@gmail.com<mailto:anthonymbarra@gmail.com>> wrote:
Um, isn't any adult xmca member allowed to type what he or she wishes and then click the Send button?

This talk of stifling, excluding, suppressing, etc is confusing to me.

Maybe this is something only someone on the left can understand?

If people want to post a comment, question, remark, new topic, etc, they should just do it. Who cares if it's not automatically received with open arms or agreement?  Isn't that half the fun?

Is there really that much pressure and/or backstabbing in academia? Shouldn't the accomplishment of reaching that level come with the freedom to speak openly? As one on the outside, I guess I'm naive to these pressures. But nonetheless, they seem really counterproductive to me.

Naively (I suppose),

Anthony

On Friday, November 27, 2020, mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu<mailto:mcole@ucsd.edu>> wrote:
Great to see your voice, Phillip. Its been a while.
I, too, have been thinking about the long history of xmca's inability to create a level and welcoming playing field. I mourn
the days when Mary Bryson, Susanne Castell and Eva Ekblad would conduct pointed lessons for those participating in the discussion
for their utter blindness to issues of gender. And we have seen the correctness of Foucault's reminder of our inability to know
with any certainty the effects of our speech actions too often to enumerate. Being "put on the spot," as you say, is a clear example of a
discourse practice that discourages participation from those who are intimidated for fear of being seen as misguided or of offending some
senior person who will, one day, be writing a letter of recommendation for a scarce job.

So I, too, welcomed all of Arturo's notes and those over everyone else. The crack in American society opened up by the BLM, Metoo,
covid disruption, television of police murders, ...... has brought us the presence of young scholars sympathetic to, but critical of, Vygotsky and the
tradition we refer to as CHAT. They are also scholars who are adept in, and leaders in, the use of digital media for reorganizing educational
practices at both the colleague and elementary school levels in a manner that does not put learners on the spot but affords a variety of desired
pedagogical outcomes.

Inspired by the elderly voices who remember that this problem did not spring out of the ether, but is baked into the way that xmca and
before it xlchc, developed-- against the explicit wishes and designs of its creators.

At the following link in the lchcautobio you will find a report, written in 1992 by two former post-docs at lchc about the beginnings of xlchc, its
transformation into xmca as a way amplify the feedback that xmca authors received (this only worked well a couple of times, precisely because of
the issues being raised here for the past week).

http://lchc.ucsd.edu/XLCHC-PDFs/Finkelstein-Gack_Seeds-of-XLCHC.pdf [lchc.ucsd.edu]<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__lchc.ucsd.edu_XLCHC-2DPDFs_Finkelstein-2DGack-5FSeeds-2Dof-2DXLCHC.pdf&d=DwMFaQ&c=8v77JlHZOYsReeOxyYXDU39VUUzHxyfBUh7fw_ZfBDA&r=2kfPn11YFbh2hkICurgZ1_xSyFEpUsNf13uxtVwxkSg&m=3AUK7ZRvUZ6elnOIXQ6TqlTPjRCmYpirZa7vmylw9EE&s=qw8ho7gBZka4fkD-ao8twhvvnCmUTajj8tSs-wbYRvI&e=>

There you will see all of the problems that we encountered when LCHC tried to expand beyond the face to face practices in order to keep
former students, post-docs, and visitors in touch with each other on a working basis as a way to work around the discriminatory institutional
that restricted our ability to maintain an integrated collective. A lot of smart, experienced, people tried  (Yro, Jim Wertch, ...It failed, as we are witnessing.
Time for the next generation to join the discussion.

Like Phillip, I feel I have written enough, probably too much.

thanks for reading this far if you have!
stay safe. take care
mike  😷

I, personally, have been lectured regularly by colleagues who lament, xmca's failure to overcome its white male, gender-blind
bias

On Fri, Nov 27, 2020 at 9:40 AM White, Phillip <Phillip.White@ucdenver.edu<mailto:Phillip.White@ucdenver.edu>> wrote:
dear Everyone:

thinking over all of the posts as an aggregate, rather that individually referencing them, regarding marginalization of xmca members, i'm reminded that this has been a topic over the last twenty-five years, that i've noticed.  only this time, the response is different in both quality and quantity, as well as introducing shared tools of analysis - which in my mind i believe is in part due to BLM activism, and certainly a newer and younger generation of colleagues here on xmca with a mindful use of our shared professional ethnographic tools. which i appreciate, greatly.

as any native english speaker knows, the term - to put someone on the spot - elicits the synonyms:
embarass - humiliate - shame - inhibit - tease - degrade - crush - wither - show up.

if the intention was to praise the student, why then weren't words of praise - for example: "Thank you for that question.  I myself have wondered about that evolution."

i'm reminded of Foucault: People know what they do; frequently they know why they do what they do; but what they don't know is what what they do does."

in Brandon Taylor's novel Real Life, the narrator notes that in social gatherings when a white person makes a casually racist comment to a person of color, the whites remain silent, preferring not to move out of their own comfort level.  really, nothing was lost in translation.

from my perspective, there is too much protection here on xmca of both white fragilities, as well as white hetero-normative male fragility.  and one way to work around this is practice - i humbly suggest - is that those who self-identify as CIS white male could begin to point out points of view that support white hetero-normative supremacy.  the burden for this should not be placed on those already socially marginalized.

i'm reminded that in a class i taught for those working to get their master's degree in education, that when i would assign Bryant Keith Alexander's "(Re)Visioning the Ethnographic Site: Interpretive Ethnography as a Method of Pedagogical Reflexivity and Scholarly Production" - in which Alexander used the metaphor of pedagogy as drag - i would get blow-back from some students complaining that since they had no personal contacts with gay men, much-less gay men in drag, that they should not have to read the ethnography.  my response was that since they had no experience, this was a good way to start since they had no knowledge of who their students were, or their parents.  Yet within their classroom, or school community they worked in, there very well could be these life experiences.

i'm feeling that i've written enough - this is such a richly complex topic.

and so i'm grateful for Arturo's inadvertently public response - it was illuminating.

 phillip

--
I[Angelus                                                       Novus]<https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angelus_Novus__;!!Mih3wA!S7fCXtTCVQWkCXnNSwdyFfFitd3dB8EuTUKFK0sSSJdSy8_M6BJohNdCkFQYltd7V6VOEQ$>The Angel's View of History
The organism, by its life activities, creates what is outside.  So organisms create the conditions of their own future
which is different from their past" Richard Lewontin
Cultural Praxis Website: https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://culturalpraxis.net__;!!Mih3wA!XRu1x0yYwaiXZTQFK0bUkct2ScQUUvhEAsGrahqNvimMV9BxVm6-54OkZZyUOlBgZc4Waw$ <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://culturalpraxis.net__;!!Mih3wA!S7fCXtTCVQWkCXnNSwdyFfFitd3dB8EuTUKFK0sSSJdSy8_M6BJohNdCkFQYltd1dis3rA$>
Re-generating CHAT Website: re-generatingchat.com<https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://re-generatingchat.com__;!!Mih3wA!S7fCXtTCVQWkCXnNSwdyFfFitd3dB8EuTUKFK0sSSJdSy8_M6BJohNdCkFQYltesckucQg$>
Archival resources website: lchc.ucsd.edu [lchc.ucsd.edu]<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__lchc.ucsd.edu&d=DwMFaQ&c=8v77JlHZOYsReeOxyYXDU39VUUzHxyfBUh7fw_ZfBDA&r=2kfPn11YFbh2hkICurgZ1_xSyFEpUsNf13uxtVwxkSg&m=3AUK7ZRvUZ6elnOIXQ6TqlTPjRCmYpirZa7vmylw9EE&s=g6skXrmEZuuEOIpct0oUyv3_NYL_IjlDLr7WDYivmBM&e=>.
Narrative history of LCHC:  lchcautobio.ucsd.edu [lchcautobio.ucsd.edu]<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__lchcautobio.ucsd.edu&d=DwMFaQ&c=8v77JlHZOYsReeOxyYXDU39VUUzHxyfBUh7fw_ZfBDA&r=2kfPn11YFbh2hkICurgZ1_xSyFEpUsNf13uxtVwxkSg&m=3AUK7ZRvUZ6elnOIXQ6TqlTPjRCmYpirZa7vmylw9EE&s=nIE9aLUc2W8Ms5GeRAAKlzqb0zQk6skQmVmijPhc0VA&e=>.

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--
Beth Ferholt (pronouns: she/her/hers)
Associate Professor
Department of Early Childhood and Art Education
Brooklyn College, City University of New York

Affiliated Faculty, Program in Urban Education, CUNY Graduate Center
Affiliated Faculty, School of Education and Communication, Jönköping University

Email: bferholt@brooklyn.cuny.edu<mailto:bferholt@brooklyn.cuny.edu>
CC bferholt@gmail.com<mailto:bferholt@gmail.com> if writing to CUNY address.
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