Right on, Helen! In the case of Vygotsky, as I understand him, he was a
revolutionary who supported the original goals of the bolshevik-led
Revolution, and steeped his theory building in the material reality around
him, and wanted to use Science to CHANGE the social inequities and
backwardness created by the class system. For this attitude, surely he
would have been purged, or worse, by the stalinists, had he not died so
early. Am I wrong in assuming that his desire to unify all the social
sciences into one grand framework (a marxist, materialist one) was part of
this revolutionary attitude, to create a more transparent Social Science,
more amenable to serving humanity; as opposed to the disparate disciplines
whose insularity more readily serves the interests of the ruling class?
Pete Farruggio
At 07:20 AM 2/11/02, Helena Worthen wrote:
>So.....
>
>We have Vygotsky, according to Paul Dillon, ..." trying to create the
>psychological component of a unified dialectical materialist social theory"
>... and Joseph Glick saying Piaget was attempting ...."to link changing
>structures to the biologically invariant functions - "adaptation" (ultimately
>made of assimilation and acccomodation in balance) and Organization (which
>organizes these adaptations with respect to
>one another)"..
>
>Neither of these goals has been accomplished yet, out there in the real world
>where people are or are not funding education, welfare programs, training,
>etc.
>
>And here on xmca we are talking about support for minority grad students. I
>myself am working in a program that tries to teach minority/community people
>enough math to pass building trades apprenticeship tests and get into union
>construction apprenticeships.
>
>So, don't these two goals still need to be worked on? Maybe the context in
>which they can be applied has changed, but certainly, to have a social theory
>that was grounded in material reality (I'm being a little Procrustean
>here) and
>that had a psychological component and was broadly understood by people who
>make decisions about, for example, access to community colleges, or
>funding for
>training for laid-off workers, would be great! And to really understand -- and
>to have people out there in the day care/Head Start/ state legislature
>universe
>really get why it's important for kids who are trying to grow to have a decent
>breakfast -- we're nowhere near being able to get this news out there in a
>clear, simple way that the people who make decisions can use.
>
>So I'd say that the problems V and P were working on are still alive and acute
>today, and that the problems people on xmca are working on can be loosened
>up a
>bit by referring back to them and clarifying their application.
>
>Helena Worthen
>
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: Glick, Joseph <JGlick@gc.cuny.edu>
> > To: <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> > Sent: Sunday, February 10, 2002 4:40 PM
> > Subject: Quasi-historical discourse
> >
> > >
> > > If we want to find out what these guys were really about we should look
> > > to the kinds of theoretical problems that they were trying to solve -
> > > which were quite different and which are, I think, quite different from
> > > the kinds of problems that we are trying to solve.>
>
>
>
>
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