I think I am from an 'old school.' To me, the citation from Natanson
regarding Mead's view that "persons are process....." is about the
interdependence of internal and external conversations. Those conversations
that remain internal to ourselves and those we have with the 'other.' I
take this to mean and have used it to explain how others are part of us
insofar as our conversations, relationships with them become part of our
internal conversations. The I is transformed by the part of the me that
does communicate/interact with others.(Simmel, Mead, James). Indeed,
tracking of the internal conversations is more than I want to go into here
and now. I use this concept of conversations to explain how what we do and
with whom we interact and share our thoughts, our lives, does matter. It is
a way of sharing with students that what they think matters.....to them and
to others. It is an attitude that introduces students to subject matter as
conversations and invites students to join the conversation. This attitude
is consistent with Mikhail Bakhtin's concept of dialogue as part of the
prosaics of each moment.50 According to Bakhtin, polyphony challenges the
model of truth that conveys there is only one truth [and] that this truth
stands objectively separate from the one who thinks it or voices it.
(Morson & Emerson, 1990)
50 Morson and Emerson (1990) also relate the Lorenz finding to Bakhtin's
prosaics:
Prosaics focuses on quotidian events that in principle elude reduction to
underlyinglaws or systems. ...To appreciate what Bakhtin had in mind,
...consider the new science of chaos.... and the demonstration by Edward
Lorenz that long-term weather forecasting was in principle impossible. The
reason....sensitive dependence on initial conditionswhich means that
infinitesimal differences rapidly multiply to produce major differences in
result. .....It appears that nature, as well as culture, may work by
Tolstoyan tiny alterations---by prosaics.(p.33)"
I have not been 'schooled' in CHAT. I see recursion across conversations
in CHAT, sociology of knowledge, symbolic interaction, (Mead, Dewey, James,
Durkheim, Goffman et al) and complex systems analysis. I salute the efforts
of CHAT to identify elements/details of the process ...
Molly
At 05:28 PM 12/30/02 -0800, Mike Cole wrote:
>Hi Molly-
>
>I am not sure whether you are responding to my ps (de but definitly PRESSING)
>or the main note. Assuming the former (and hearing family coming in the door)
>I am not sure what to think. On the one hand, I greatly admire Dewey and
>know he was read by LSV, and the quotation is thought provoking. On the
>second hand, I really mourn the face that I do not have the capacity to
>follow over long periods of time the kids I work with. Part of the problem
>is technical/ethical (Ashcroft and W may solve that problem-- but not for
>me-- I'll be on the inside of the fence). But part is practical. I spend
>outrageous amounts of time in a combination of environmental desigh and
>documentation (aka re-search). Followup/longitudinal study over decades
>was not something the importance of which I understood when I started (and
>got money) and now is something for which there is a very specifiable and
>fascinating convergence of interests to extinguish ( no money, but feel
>free!).
>
>My guess? If some humans could live 10,000 years and be supported to pursue
>the same objects of inquiry in dialogue with heterorchronous others, we
>might be able to make progress.
>
>Meanwhile, hermit crab-like, I rejoice that I was found crawling out of
>my shell and returned to the sea by sympathetic shell hunters.
>mike
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