I suppose that I do not share the Platonist sentiments that
Galina points to as the roots of and a basis for her special
interest in this model. But I still find many aspects of the
model interesting.
I was trying to think about it for the case of Language, the
analogy in the case of the poet, to a sort of Ideal. I have heard
people of a very different philosophical persuasion say some
quite similar things (Michael Halliday, for one), and the notion
there was of the relation between System and text, between
Language as a global set of patterns immanent in our continuing
use of language, and each actual use. A deep insight into those
patterns (not necessarily articulated as a linguist would do so,
but powerful nonetheless) can inform the work of a poet, and the
works of the poet, expanding the potential of the language in
ways that fit its existing patterns (in part) may catch on with
many people (like Shakespeare's English, Pushkin's Russian) and
indeed affect a Language and not just texts. In relation to our
other discussion about micro-macro, local-global, such patterns
are global, and while articulated explicitly by 'analysts' inform
the practice (through dispositions, habitus) of 'members' and in
the case of some members, the global may have a special
instantiation in the local (the poet's text), a nexus where the
dynamics of its processes of change are focussed for a time.
In Galina's account of El'konin's model, however, there is, as in
Plato, another dimension: that of values. It is not just the Idea
of Language, or of being Human, that is involved but an Ideal, a
vector toward the Best. In the case of language, it is not clear
that our intellectual culture today possesses an Ideal for
Language. We have learned to value diversity, the benefits of
multilingualism, many different dialects, many different means
for making as many meanings as possible. Some people still have a
notion of an Ideal for English, which seems rather narrow to me
and not my ideal at all. I don't know if literary people have
much sense of what would amount to Great English prose or poetry
today. I suspect the whole notion of a singular Ideal (and Plato
did seem to identify the Ideal as One) has been transcended;
that's part of why we are, like it or not, post-modern now.
But we may still have a lot of little local Ideals, if not for
Language, or for English, then for particular Registers and
Genres, which we can multiply endlessly, so as to have standards
of Better, but many of them.
So I wonder, in the case of human development, if the essential
point is not that at various times in our development we need to
gain an appreciation of 'Betterness', of _some_ local (in
culture, in history, in caste, in activity) standard of
excellence to admire, to aspire to, someday to challenge or
improve on. Perhaps we learn this lesson anew each time, in each
new activity: that there is a model of value. I don't doubt that
we are capable of appreciating and internalizing more than one
such model and standard, though I can well imagine that many
social forces would prefer to monopolize this critical aspect of
the development of the next generation. An Ideal is not
diminished for being One of Many. JAY.
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JAY LEMKE.
City University of New York.
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