Re: [xmca] motive/project

Let me illustrate.

When I started work at Melbourne Uni., I joined the
University of Melbourne General Staff Association (UMGSA); a
few years later we amalgamated into a registered Federal
Union, the State Public Services Federation (SPSF); a few
years after that, most of us joined the National Tertiary
Education Union (NTEU).

The UMGSA was an in-house association set up by the
University, when the upsurge of militancy in the early 70s
threatened to overtake them; the officials were mostly
middle level managers.

The SPSF was a federal union representing white collar
staff, not academics, throughout the public sector.

The NTEU represents everyone who worked in Universities, and
represents the entire industry to government.

One could say that all these responded to the same need for
representation. But *psychologically* the impact of each of
them was very different. They were very different projects.
They represented different ideals, different identities for
their members, different visions of the place of the general
staff in relation to their bosses and their work. Each was
the outcome a very complex, interweaving history.

Helena has lots of these stories in the US context.

Andy

Mike Cole wrote:
> Andy--
>
> Among all the issues on the table, could I inquire more about
> motive/project/activity?
> (This query could some help from our native Russian speakers as well as
> German
> scholars because I figure issues of translation are involved).
>
> The question concerns the term, motive. You want to move away from it with
> relation to
> activity because (in part? ) because of its internal/mentalistic
> connotations (or maybe
> denotation?). Project is the preferred alternative. I'll let that one lie
> for now, but it, too
> is worth coming back to because of links (least!) to Sartre and Heidegger
> which I do not
> well understand).
>
> But concerning motive. A long time ago, when LCHC was first busily trying to
> understand
> Leontiev we had a lot of discussion about motive. It is a term with a long
> and varied history
> in English. Waiting for someone to drop off more exams for me to read, I
> snuck over to
> the OED and read under "motive." If there is interest, I could post the
> whole, long entry.
> But it really IS complicated, and far from all its uses are internal mental,
> although that is
> where the entry starts. I pulled just the first several such definitions,
> sans examples. They
> are:
>
> 1. Senses relating to inner impulses and mental activities.
> 2. A matter or issue moved or brought forward, *esp.* a question
> requiring an answer; a motion, a proposition. Freq. in *to move *(also*make
> *)* a motive*
> 3. Chiefly *Sc.* An inward prompting or impulse. Chiefly in *of
> *(also*by, from
> *)* one's own *(*proper*)* motive*
> 4. *a.* A circumstance or external factor inducing a person to act in a
> certain way; a desire, emotion, reason, argument, etc., influencing or
> tending to influence a person's volition. Also: a contemplated end the
> desire for which influences or tends to influence a person's actions.
>
> *b. *More generally: the reason or cause behind something. *Obs.*
> 5.* *Proof, justification; an argument or consideration offered as grounds
> for believing something to be true; a piece of evidence intended to
> convince or produce assent. *Obs.*
>
> Note that as we move down this list, internal starts to be joined with
> external. My colleague Peg Griffin particularly
> liked a version of #5, as in "a well motivated decision" where motive means
> based on prior evidence, experience, etc.
>
> It is clear which of these various senses Leontiev was using??
> mike
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-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden http://home.mira.net/~andy/ +61 3 9380 9435 
Skype andy.blunden
Hegel's Logic with a Foreword by Andy Blunden:
http://www.marxists.org/admin/books/index.htm
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