Re: [xmca] more questions about Sawchuk and Stetsenko article: whose sociology???

Hi Paul-- I am among those who are convinced that LSV and his colleagues
were in fact avid supporters
of the revolution in Russia. Very I also believe that Jaan and Rene were
dead wrong that the "troika" and "pyatorka" were post hoc myths. But your
note brings back over threshold my questions about the relation of their
scholarship to their activism (I would use the term, bolshevism, but I am
pretty sure that Luria was a kind of tolstoyan reformist when he met LSV and
have little idea about Leontiev's early history in this regard). Psychology
of Art, chapter 1 is the earliest source I know of in LSV's work where his
links to Marx are made crystal clear, but maybe pedagogical psych was
written earlier, Anna would know, and I hope she enlightens on this score,
or some ones of our other Russian psych history buffs on xmca.

Looking back, we can say that they advocated something like "transformative
collective activity" as their common program. But can we see this in work
printed before, say, 1929, when Stalinism began to make itself felt? In the
three articles printed in English in J of Genetic Psych is this program made
clear? They were all written by about 1930. These aspirations seem crystal
clear in various of their undertakings (LSV at the inst of defectology, ARL
in his work with homeless orphans), but where is it in their academic,
empirical work? (Note, I am not saying it is not there, but asking, where is
it?). The Vygotsky/Sakharov research
that Paula has brought back to our attention? Leontiev's work on mediated
memory? Luria's attempt to solve the riddle of knowing what someone else is
thinking through the combined motor method?

Another BIG issue you touch on is an effort to unite CHAT theorists within
any modern discipline. Sociology and psychology without anthropology,
linguistics, aesthetics, evolutionary biology? How could it be done? I kinda
like Communication as a home base precisely because joint mediated activity
is its central concept and is possible to bring all the different fragmented
parts of late 19th century humane sciences back together, sort of.

I think these issues are worth considering because it is linked to the idea
of current research in their tradition (I would call THAT tradition
canonical, actually, not the other way around.... a perspectival shift owing
to age and historical location probably). Vygotsky's work with retarded
kids, work with the blind-deaf, in preschools, and of course the brain
damaged, were all hallmarks of the work these people did. Among whom, and
for what ends, are people in this tradititon now working?

Not incidently, I think the prior writings of Harry Daniels about Bernstein
are of relevance here. Not sure where has disappeared to, perhaps taking in
the Bath(s)? :-)) I'll cc him.

I think we all owe Anna and Peter a debt of gratitude for opening up these
important issues. But it sure would be nice to see them discussed in a way
where a positive program of transformative collaborative
activity emerged.

Or, Paul, are you saying it can't happen under capitalism, so why bother?
mike

of socio-cultural development) would no longer disfigure human personality.
> Sadly, as S&S make clear in the article, this inspiration of the early years
> of the Russian Revolution did not survive and flourish.
>
> The authors point to three key elements of the CHAT tradition and use them
> to situate the sample of sociologists they choose to discuss: a)material
> production,, 2) intersubjective exchange, 3) subjectivity. It's not at all
> clear to me that these glosses capture the direction of a "psychology of
> liberation" or that they provide a useful triangulation for sociological
> theory.
>
> The authors point out that the goal of exploring how particular social
> structures, with their power constellations and systems of privilege shape
> development has not typically been pursued within CHAT. Yes, yes, and again
> yes. There is some kind of fanciful dream that the Vygotskian lineage can
> develop its original aim within capitalist society and consequently we see
> multiple "reinterpretations" by academic mega-stars whose names will surely
> be forgotten in a few decades, as the name of those who won prizes in Paris
> while Van Gogh suffered in anonymity.
>
> But the article didn't live up to my hopes for several reasons.
>
> The Review of Sociological Theory was really spotty, arbitrarily
> selective. For example:
>
> Durkheim: social facts, what about Mauss? Was Durkheim a sociologist or
> an anthropologist? Do these disciplinary distinctions matter. If so, it
> wasn't explained why? If not, what about the entire tradition of
> anthropological theories about culture and society?
>
> Social Action v. Theories of Enactment.
>
> Weber. - summary of Parsons somewhat strange, ignorying Parson's four
> structural levels etc.
>
> Garfinkel, ethnomethodology, what about Berger and Luckman?
>
> Attempts at integration of social action and enactment, but the dismissal
> of Bourdieu really weird, inexcusable? Giddens is really both derivative
> of and much less influential than Bourdieu. Not to mention his sychophantic
> brown-nosing in the Blair administration in contrast to Bourdieu's active
> opposition to the depredations of global capitalism. Furthermore, unlike
> Bourdieu, he did not carry out important on-the-ground research comparable
> to Bourdieu's "Distinction" or the ground-breaking Kabyle research—
> Furthermore, in whose scheme of things if Judith Butler (though dismissed)
> considered an important sociological theorist – why not other feminist or
> queer theorists, not to mention that she is also someone who has not
> published significant primary research; in this vein, where are Zizek, La
> Clau, Mouffe, and others who attempt a post-modern integration (is it
> "deconstruction" or disintegration we're talking about here)?
> Really, Gramsci has a lot more to offer than Giddens, etc.
>
> Discussion of Schutz very interesting but to say he was "heavily influenced
> by Husserl" ignores the fact that he was Husserl's student and that most of
> Schutz's most important ideas can be found in Husserl's "Ideas II". Factual
> errors: Schutz's horizons of temporality are not "past now", "now" and
> "future now" but "ancestors", "contemporaries", and "descendants which also
> also derive from Husserl's "retention", "present", and "protention". ". The
> concepts of "past now", "now" and "future now" don't make any sense and
> their very incoherence was criticized way back in 1960 by Friedrich Kummel,
> nor can such glosses deal with the fundamental problem of phenomenology or
> any serious investigation of temporality: i.e., the incompatibility of
> duration (within which the so-called NOW happens) and succession . All talk
> about "time scales" here on xmca throughout thee years and elsewhere
> simply overlooks "duration"d i.e., – Husserl's "melody" – and hence can
> provide no real understanding of the rrelationship between meaning and
> existence which is a central issue in CHAT.
>
> And what about the elephant in the living room: Jurgen Habermas, not to
> mention various other giraffes and rhinocerii roaming the house, such as
> G.H. Mead (obviously key to all that followed in the Garfinkel tradition),
> or Thomas Merton, C. Wright Mills, and others. This all goes to the
> arbitrariness and spottiness of the discussion of sociological theory.
>
> Finally, how does the placement of the arbitarily selected sociologists
> into a triangle whose nodes are similarly arbitrary lead to a realization of
> Marx's 11th Thesis on Feuerbach that Vygotsky's psychology and the best of
> CHAT tradition have sought? Doesn't it just lead to more academic
> commodities that don't lead to social transformation but to another form of
> consumption.
>
> Wishing everyone the best of the Holiday Season!
>
> Paul Dillon
>
>
>
>
>
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Received on Mon Dec 8 20:01:04 2008