Thanks for articulating this Judy,
I confess to being WAY out on the periphery here and wondering how
legitimate I am. I have not read much Marx and find myself struggling with
LBE when it relies heavily on that literature. I keep bumping into trees and
am not seeing the woods that all this is leading to. The analyses of works
of literature and science apocrypha, for example, seems somehow forced.
Springboards, models, microcosms seem to me to be in the eye of the beholder
(YE?) and not some sort of verifiable "object" (if I dare use that word).
Different points of view, even cultures, might identify different
springboards (or question the concept entirely). Different analyses of the
"double bind" might likewise produce much different readings (what is
subject, artifact, division of labor, etc.), different contradictions, or,
again, might highlight something quite different (efficacy, for example,
instead of contradiction). All of the examples seem to lead to "expansion"
as if that were the default. Is it? And is expansion always good? I'm also
having a lot of trouble with the word "history" that seems, from the
periphery, to be used in multiple and sometimes contradictory ways.
So I'm going to engage in some Level 2 learning here and skip ahead to
chapter 5 where all of this presumably comes together. I know I learn best
when I have the big picture in mind. Then I can return to the earlier
chapters with some renewed sense of their role in the argument. David
Ausubel was right. Progressive differentiation IS a good way to
learn...................djc
-----Original Message-----
From: Judy Diamondstone [mailto:diamonju@rci.rutgers.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2001 5:09 PM
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: what collective ... theory?
Paul has a point, that many on this list do not accept Marxism as LV knew
it.
There is also a gap in scholarly familiarity with the Marxist tradition
among participants here, which I think Paul and perhaps others have found
frustrating, but which invokes the CH in CHAT -- viable communities of
practice honor the newcomers, etc.
There is also a significant difference in concerns with respect to the
development of object-oriented activities and the workings of discourse.
The distribution of these concerns is surely gendered and reflecting other
social divisions too
It seems to me (but what do I know) that there is a potentially regressive
outcome when the pendulum swings too far towards one end of the continuum
or the other (e.g., orthodoxy without reflexivity OR reflexivity without
productive theory)
There are also BIG contradictions within each one of us, as well as in the
CHAT "community" which we are respectively more or less aware of/ willing
to acknowledge/address.
impasse.
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