Re: [xmca] Fundamental Questions

Helena,
   
  That film does sound interesting. But doesn't it just show that capitalism's advances depend on destroying the collective solidarity? On "privatization" which is really nothing more than Marx said: the separation of labor from the means of production? I doubt I'll find this movie in the pirated videos that are all that's available here. But I'm curious to know what happened to the workers after they went their own ways.
   
  Lately I've been looking at what World Bank money is used for in Peru. Privatization of land is one of it's most important projects under the guise of providing "titles" to lands that were originally communial property and inalienable. Once these lands can be sold by individuals ,which will occur as individual responses to all kinds of supra-indivvidual processes, from a bad rain season to a chola's desire to look like Madonna, the future of the unique and valuable culture sustained in these communities will be undermined.
   
  The same process, the same inexorable grinding away at the collective structures of human existence, the same subordination of all social relations to market-logic rationality, the same process of exploitation increasingly deepened and hidden within the myth of the individual.
   
  Like deep throat said: you want to know what's going on, follow the money.
   
  Paul Dillon
   
   
   
   
   
  Mike Cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:
  To all interested in following this film up, it is available on netflix.
mike

On 9/5/07, Worthen, Helena Harlow wrote:
>
> Bruce, thank you for this information. It adds a whole new dimension to
> my understanding of the film. Especially the scene in which the workers
> carry equipment out into the yard and are told to smash it up with
> sledgehammers.
>
> Helena
>
>
> Helena Worthen
> Clinical Associate Professor
> Labor Education Program
> Institute of Labor & Industrial Relations
> 504 E. Armory, Room 227
> Champaign, IL 61821
> Phone: 217-244-4095
> hworthen@uiuc.edu
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
> On Behalf Of Bruce Robinson
> Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2007 1:10 PM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: Re: [xmca] Fundamental Questions
>
> I knew the person who wrote the 'Navigators', Rob Dawber. He was a
> working class marxist activist who when he graduated got a job working
> on the railways around 1980 and the film is based on his experiences of
> how things changed over the years. (You can catch a glimpse of him in
> one scene.) Sadly he contracted mesothelioma from being told to demolish
>
> buildings containing asbestos. He kept on fighting for adequate
> compensation which he finally won in the courts shortly before he died
> (about two years later than predicted).
>
> There are obituaries here:
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4140804,00.html
> http://www.le.ac.uk/press/press/baftafor.html
>
> Bruce Robinson
>
>
> Worthen, Helena Harlow wrote:
> > I had been reading this thread, about individual/collective, with a
> > sense of detachment until this morning when I realized that a film we
> > showed in a class last night provides an instance of the process of
> > separating the individual from the collective. The "individual" and
> > "collective" aren't abstract, either, and both are fully dramatized.
> >
> > It's Ken Loach's 2001 film The Navigators, about a team of railroad
> > workers experiencing the privatization and break-up of British Rail
> > under Margaret Thatcher. The workers have functioned in this heavily
> > unionized environment for -- well, the oldest shows a photo of himself
> > with his team that has to be 45 years old -- and they possess all the
> > social norms of that very collective environment; one refuses
> > opportunities to work any overtime as long as others "are on the
> dole."
> > One by one, they learn in different ways what the new work system will
> > require of them, namely, to act not as a collective but as
> individuals.
> > It's a brilliant film. You can chart this process as it unrolls step
> by
> > step, differently with each character.
> >
> > Helena
> >
> >
> > Helena Worthen
> > Clinical Associate Professor
> > Labor Education Program
> > Institute of Labor & Industrial Relations
> > 504 E. Armory, Room 227
> > Champaign, IL 61821
> > Phone: 217-244-4095
> > hworthen@uiuc.edu
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
> > On Behalf Of Mike Cole
> > Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2007 10:10 PM
> > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> > Subject: Re: [xmca] Fundamental Questions
> >
> > Stick with it on the ontology issue, Michael. Its a life time's
> > preoccupation and a good one.
> > If this thread continues, we are going to need to consider the fact
> that
> > as
> > social beings we are
> > also BIOLOGICAL beings (as well as CULTURAL) beings, and these 3
> factors
> > are
> > all in play.
> > With CSCL as a framework you are not likely to be dealing with rocks
> and
> > trees and water....
> > (not that the problems go away).
> >
> > As to the individual|collective antinomy, (thanks tony!), the fact
> that
> > Anglo Americans are way
> > way out there on the individualism side of things as Paul points out
> is
> > important for all of us
> > to keep in mind (without going to the opposite extreme which has its
> > mirror
> > image problems)
> > mike
> >
> > On 9/4/07, Michael A. Evans wrote:
> >
> >> Mike and All,
> >>
> >> Thank you very much for the links and resources - the chapter
> provided
> >> below
> >> is especially helpful for preparing to respond to the question of
> >> ontology,
> >> the "basic concept of reality"...chapter 3 of the same source
> >>
> > addresses
> >
> >> epistemology, which I'll look at as well...
> >>
> >> I may be misguided here, but when I referred to social constructivism
> >>
> > I
> >
> >> was
> >> thinking (primarily) of an epistemology, how one comes to know and
> >>
> > what
> >
> >> that
> >> knowledge is, that was equally influenced by social interaction and
> >> cultural
> >> context - thus, my students and I are exploring intermental
> >>
> > development of
> >
> >> higher order thinking, this is the focus of Stahl's text...another
> >>
> > concept
> >
> >> we're exploring is "intersubjective meaning making," which Suthers
> >>
> > (2006)
> >
> >> has proposed as an important research agenda for CSCL:
> >> http://tinyurl.com/3agcgl
> >>
> >> The dialectical unity of opposites (say, individual vs. collective)
> is
> >> very
> >> intriguing as a line of thought and is supported in one of our
> >>
> > readings
> >
> >> from
> >> this week: Dalgarno, B. (2001). Interpretations of constructivism and
> >> consequences for computer assisted learning. British Journal of
> >> Educational
> >> Technology, 32(2), 183-194.
> >>
> >> In this piece, Dalgarno cites Moshman (1982) to identify 3 strands of
> >> constructivism - endogenous, exogenous, and dialectical, dialectical
> >> constructivism defined as an approach that "emphasises the role of
> >>
> > social
> >
> >> interaction in the learner's knowledge construction process, leading
> >>
> > to an
> >
> >> emphasis on cooperative and collaborative learning strategies" (p.
> >>
> > 190)...
> >
> >> I must say that what I found encouraging during last night's class
> was
> >> that
> >> although students were admittedly uncomfortable with concepts such as
> >>
> > "a
> >
> >> world without withins," they were willing to "hang in there" to
> >>
> > explore
> >
> >> the
> >> possibilities of a non-dualistic approach...
> >>
> >> Thanks, again!
> >> Michael~
> >> --
> >> ____________________________________
> >> michael a. evans
> >> assistant professor
> >> 306 war memorial hall (0313)
> >> department of learning sciences & technologies
> >> school of education
> >> virginia tech
> >> email: mae@vt.edu
> >> phone: +1 540.231.3743
> >> fax: +1 540.231.9075
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>> From: Mike Cole
> >>> Reply-To: , "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity"
> >>>
> >>> Date: Mon, 03 Sep 2007 14:28:05 -0700
> >>> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture,Activity"
> >>> Subject: [xmca] Fundamental Questions
> >>>
> >>> We all learn through teaching, Mike, and you are lucky to have
> >>>
> > students
> >
> >>> asking fundamental questions.
> >>>
> >>> I am not sure precisely what you mean by social constructivism, and
> >>>
> > will
> >
> >> see
> >>
> >>> what others have to say since I am guessing that the answers are
> >>>
> > going
> >
> >> to
> >>
> >>> vary a lot. (And I have a LOT of reading to do to get ready to teach
> >>> classes in a couple of weeks!, and Tony's query re joint mediated
> >>>
> >> activity
> >>
> >>> to deal with!). So I took the following
> >>> dodge thinking it might be helpful to you.
> >>>
> >>> 1) I googled leontiev ontology and found a lot of info. This site
> >>>
> >> directly
> >>
> >>> addresses your question from the
> >>> perspective of a leading activity theorist.
> >>> http://informationr.net/ir/12-3/Karpatschof/Chapter_2.pdf
> >>>
> >>> 2) I googled the lchc site itself (google on home page) for
> >>> individual/collective. There has been a lot
> >>> of discussion here about that. (I do not know the way to create that
> >>> directly vertical symbol that michael
> >>> roth and others do to indicate a dialectic unity of opposites).
> >>>
> > Anyway,
> >
> >>> googling just the lchc site
> >>> works well.
> >>>
> >>> good luck!
> >>> mikec
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> xmca mailing list
> >>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> >>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >>>
> >> _______________________________________________
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> >>
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Received on Wed Sep 5 13:55 PDT 2007