Re: [xmca] motive/project

Paul-- This seems like it must be an overgeneralization:

Marcel Mauss repeatedly stressed that reciprocity relations
(pre-commodity economic relations) did not exist between individuals,
but between groups .

Tell that to newborn and mom.

Or is it me who is overgeneralizing and newborns and moms don't count?
mike

On Sun, Dec 21, 2008 at 1:52 AM, Paul Dillon <phd_crit_think@yahoo.com>wrote:

> Andy,
>
> you wrote: " . . . Vygotsky actually was closer to the mark with
> retaining his focus
> on interactions between just two individuals in order to unlock the
> dynamics of societal phenomena. Marx had the same idea after all with
> the idea of the commodity relation."
>
> when you say "closer", I think i need clarification, closer to what?
> Unlocking the dynamics of societal phenomena? I'm not clear what that
> means? Maybe it's clearer to others
>
> I'm also not sure what this set of claims implies. Why is developing a
> theory of "societal phenomena" on the basis of dyads closer to the mark?
>
> For one thing, there are clearly social phenomena whose dynamic cannot be
> reduced to dyadic interaction between individuals .In kinship systems (as
> basic a social phenomena as there is) it is not possible to reduce a
> generalized kinship systems, with exchanges between lineages of the form
> (A->B->C->A) to rrestricted exchange, of the form (A<-->B). Like squaring a
> circle..Yet the notion of incest in which the relationships between these
> "groups" is defined constitutes one of the most powerful "tool/artefact/3rd
> order model/ whatever" for the regulation of social behavior. e.g.,
> Malinowki's description of the young Trobiand male who climbed high up a
> palm tree and leaped to his death, unable to bear the shame of having been
> discovered sleeping with his "classifcatory" matrilateral cousin...
>
> Neither do I understand exactly why you think that Marx's commodity theory
> contained the idea that the interactions of "two individuals" unlock the
> "dynamics of societal phenomena." I feel incompetent to comment on whether
> this "idea" suitably characterizes Vygotsky's theories. But I can give my
> reasons for questioning its applicapbility to Marx's theory of commodities.
>
> The analysis of the commodity form in Capital v.I Ch1 provides the
> theoretical cornerstone of Marx's critique of political economy. In
> Marx's critique theoretical categories (value, surplus value, relative
> surplus value, etc.) replace tbe categories of the everyday capitalist
> economic organization (e.g., wage, price, profit.). The derivation of these
> theoretical categories from the commodity form, even the identification of
> the commodity form as the "secret" of the capitalist system, constituted the
> end point of more than a decade of directed investigation . The preparatory
> writings for Capital, e.g. Outline of a Critique , Contribution . . .,
> Grundrisse) do not use the commodity-form to generate the economic
> categories The commodity-form in these pre-Capital writings is not the
> "unit of analysis". To the contrary, Marx starts with the the everyday
> categories of capitalist economic organization. Though he identified , the
> theoretical categories of value, surplus value, etc. in the early writings
> he had not yet accounted for or deduced them from the commodity form. The
> identification of the commodity-form as the "germ" for explaining the
> everyday categories comes as s the end result of more than a decade of
> research and analysis of the a phenomena presented in the everday categories
> that hid and fetishized the reality of the social nature of commodities
> themselves.
>
> Marx's analysis of the commodity form has nothing at all to do with
> individuals, either figuratively (human individuals) or logically ( (x=y )
> => x and y are individuals). .. Rather, there is simply a question of
> equivalence relations between of "products" of human productive activity.
> How much iron equates to how much corn? There is really no "individual"
> involved, The processes are social, the agents exchanging the corn and iron
> might well be companies, collectives. Of course there are only two poles
> here, but that doesn't convert the variables at either end of the double
> arrow into "individuals" in any other than a purely formal sense. One could
> easily (and Marx does) insert n-tuples in place of individual variables on
> either end of the exchange.
>
> This is also true of societies whose economies are not based on the
> production of commodities. Marcel Mauss repeatedly stressed that
> reciprocity relations
> (pre-commodity economic relations) did not exist between individuals,
> but between groups .
>
> Well, those are my reasons for disagreeing with your claim about starting
> with individuals or dyads to explain "societal phenomena" both
> inparticular, i.e., the nature of the commodity-form, and in general, i.e.,
> including non-capitalist "societal phenomena".
>
> Paul
>
>
>
>
>
> --- On Sat, 12/20/08, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:
> From: Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
> Subject: Re: [xmca] motive/project
> To: phd_crit_think@yahoo.com, "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <
> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Date: Saturday, December 20, 2008, 5:16 PM
>
> Mike.Martin, on "choosing a unit of analysis": according to the
> 18th/19th century Germans who created this idea, yes of course, it is all
> about
> tracing the immanent development of the thing itself. But history has shown
> surely that tracing the immanent development of the thing itself actually
> takes
> serious intellectual effort, even once you know what "the thing" is,
> i.e., what particular science or problem needs investigating, which is
> actually
> a matter of free choice.
>
> Paul, I think your observations about the need to mine the theoretical
> resources of activity theory, rather than invent new models is very wise.
> Whatever we think, I am sure that the future is with one or another variety
> of
> Activity Theory. And I am personally pretty happy with the first two
> "levels" of Leontyev's system and how they interconnect with each
> other and the third level, viz., activity.
>
> However, I remain of the view that Vygotsky actually was closer to the mark
> with retaining his focus on interactions between just two individuals in
> order
> to unlock the dynamics of societal phenomena. Marx had the same idea after
> all
> with the idea of the commodity relation.
>
> Andy
>
> Paul Dillon wrote:
> > mike,
> >
> > I don't think the historical questions about the Russian revolution
> and fates of the individual forerunners of CHAT and their work after Stalin
> took
> control and Trotsky went into exile can help us deal with the central
> problem
> that you mention: 'The answer with respect to contemporary capitalism then
> becomes the focal topic,"
> >
> > But I think that Engestrom provided a framework for pursuing that answer:
> ie, studying the manifestations of the primary contradiction between use
> value
> and exchange value. Peter has published a lot on this: e.g., secretaries
> playing solitaire on the computers as an example to their own struggle to
> reappropriate the use value of their time. The problem, to my mind, isn't
> the absence of appropriate theoretical tools in CHAT itself, but the
> absence
> (with a few exceptions, Helena and Peter stand out, who have pursued
> research
> into these domains. Engestrom "runaway objects" and the dynamics of
> use value/exchange value in the contemporary globalized economy also
> deserve
> attention since, just as the bourgeoisie in the 16th-18th centuries
> emerged in
> the interstices of the feudal society with its lord-peasant primary
> contradiction, it would seem that a new class is emerging in the
> interstices of
> the capitalist contradictions in the dominant society. The
> > resolution of contradictions sublates the contradiction itself in a new
> conceptual order, not the triumph of one of the sides of the previous
> order.
> >
> > But there are conceptual tools in CHAT for addressing these problems and
> I"m not sure that finding "new models" should replace an
> incomplete exploration of the existing model.
> >
> > Paul
> >
> >
> > --- On Sat, 12/20/08, Mike Cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:
> > From: Mike Cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>
> > Subject: Re: [xmca] motive/project
> > To: phd_crit_think@yahoo.com, "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity"
> <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> > Date: Saturday, December 20, 2008, 3:42 PM
> >
> > Paul-- I think this is what Martin was suggesting re activity and unit of
> analysis:
> > I have a problem with Andy's idea of "choosing a unit of
> analysis". Doesn't the unit analysis come out of a process of movement
> from the
> > abstract to the concrete.
> > LSV in T&S was seeking to understand the development of higher
> psychological processes and proposed word meaning as such a unit. I think
> he
> also thought of it as a germ cell, the development of which he seeks to
> >
> > trace in, for example, the blocks experiment that Paula introduced into
> the
> > discussion and which some of us have been fussing over.
> >
> > And, yes, I think that Peter and Anna were focused primarily on the goal
> of consistently exploring how particular social structures,
> > with their power constellations and systems of privilege shape
> > development has not typically been pursued within CHAT".
> >
> > The answer with respect to the USSR is presumably Stalinist hijacking of
> the revolution (or the general wrong headedness of Marx, depending upon
> one's
> >
> > views of that history). The answer with respect to contemporary
> capitalism
> then becomes the focal topic, although discussion of the paper, including
> my own
> contributions to it, may obscure that aim (probably a symptom of the
> problem,
> maybe even a clue to the answer?)
> >
> > mike.
> >
> >
> > And yes, On Fri, Dec 19, 2008 at 10:06 AM, Paul Dillon
> <phd_crit_think@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > Andy, Martin, everyone,
> >
> >
> >
> > I have a problem with Andy's idea of "choosing a unit of
> analysis". Doesn't the unit analysis come out of a process of movement
> from the abstract to the concrete, a process that Marx first described in
> the
> Grundrisse, "The Method of Political Economy"?
> >
> >
> >
> > I haven't read all of Vygotsky, really glad to have gotten mike and
> david's freebies, but as I understand what I have read, didn't he adopt
> a similar procedure when coming up with "word-meaning" as a unit of
> analysis?
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > I continue to mull over this question of linking the smaller systems of
> social interaction that are the "pan de todos los dias" (can't
> think of a good translation) of CHAT to the larger macro-structures towards
> which Sociology orients itself: class. strata, ideology, forms of
> authority,
> legitimacy, social structure in general, etc.. Wouldn't these
> "notions" be comparable to the abstractions with which we begin the
> journey, they are totally abstract. Marx wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > When we consider a given country politico-economically, we begin
> >
> > with its population, its distribution among classes, town, country, the
> coast,
> >
> > the different branches of production, export and import, annual
> production
> and
> >
> > consumption, commodity prices etc.
> >
> >
> >
> > It seems to be correct to
> >
> > begin with the real and the concrete, with the real precondition, thus to
> >
> > begin, in economics, with e.g. the population, which is the foundation
> and
> the
> >
> > subject of the entire social act of production. However, on closer
> examination
> >
> > this proves false. The population is an abstraction if I leave out, for
> >
> > example, the classes of which it is composed. These classes in turn are
> an
> >
> > empty phrase if I am not familiar with the elements on which they rest.
> E.g.
> >
> > wage labour, capital, etc. These latter in turn presuppose exchange,
> division
> >
> > of labour, prices, etc. For example, capital is nothing without wage
> labour,
> >
> > without value, money, price etc. Thus, if I were to begin with the
> population,
> >
> > this would be a chaotic conception [Vorstellung] of the whole, and I
> >
> > would then, by means of further determination, move analytically towards
> ever
> >
> > more simple concepts [Begriff], from the imagined concrete towards
> >
> > ever thinner abstractions until I had arrived at the simplest
> determinations.
> >
> >
> >
> > I don't clearly understand Andy's idea of substituting the notion
> of "project" for activity system as a way to go beyond the meso- and
> micro- levels of analysis. But perhaps I've begun to grasp why Peter and
> Ana
> could place Schutz at the most central point of contact between theories
> concerning the manifestation of sociological macro-structures in individual
> "conduct" and theories concerning the intermediate formations on which
> CHAT normally focuses.
> >
> >
> >
> > Are we just trying to hook up theories or are we trying to overcome the
> problem that Peter and Ana indicated in their article: " . . . the goal of
> consistently exploring how particular social structures, with their power
> constellations and systems of privilege shape development has not typically
> been
> pursued within CHAT". If that type of exploration is the goal
> shouldn't we focus on the dimensions of power, privilege, etc. in activity
> systems, recognizing that these are abstractions which will give way to
> ever
> finer ones, until we get down to that simplest determination which would
> define
> the correct unit of analysis?
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Hmm. . . still muddling along.
> >
> >
> >
> > Paul
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --- On Fri, 12/19/08, ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org <ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org>
> wrote:
> >
> > From: ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org <ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org>
> >
> > Subject: Re: [xmca] motive/project
> >
> > To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity"
> <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> >
> > Date: Friday, December 19, 2008, 9:07
> >
> > AM
> >
> >
> >
> > I certainly have had extended thinking time on this topic lately because
> I
> >
> > do believe it gets to the heart of the issue at hand. Consider the
> >
> > following sentence:
> >
> >
> >
> > "Appropriate an engaged activity." No motive, no desire just a
> >
> > process.
> >
> >
> >
> > It may not fulfill the requested hermeneutic unit of anlaysis but it
> >
> > certainly makes a statement about what does go on in human development in
> >
> > the cultural/societal domain. just a thought
> >
> >
> >
> > eric
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Martin Packer
> >
> >
> >
> > <packer@duq.edu> To:
> "eXtended
> >
> > Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> >
> > Sent by: cc:
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > xmca-bounces@web Subject: Re: [xmca]
> >
> > motive/project
> >
> > er.ucsd.edu
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > 12/19/2008 09:47
> >
> >
> >
> > AM
> >
> >
> >
> > Please respond
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > to "eXtended
> >
> >
> >
> > Mind, Culture,
> >
> >
> >
> > Activity"
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Andy,
> >
> >
> >
> > I'm struggling to catch up with piles of xmca messages after a week
> away
> >
> > from the computer, but your comment here caught my attention. Perhaps you
> >
> > would agree with me that the selection of the commodity form as the unit
> >
> > of
> >
> > analysis was based on the presumption that it contains the key
> >
> > contradiction
> >
> > of a capitalist economy. This suggests to me that the identification of a
> >
> > unit has to be based on a consideration of the whole in which it is
> found.
> >
> > And this in turn suggests that there can be no unit of analysis for
> >
> > 'activity' in the abstract, but rather a variety of units each of
> which
> >
> > depends on the concrete whole which one is studying. As you suggest,
> >
> > 'wooing' is an activity that is possible only in the
> 'world' -
> >
> > the form of
> >
> > life - of romance. So, when we select a unit we will need to acknowledge
> >
> > both the spatial and temporal discontinuities among distinct forms of
> life.
> >
> >
> >
> > Martin
> >
> >
> >
> > On 12/18/08 9:34 PM, "Andy Blunden" <ablunden@mira.net>
> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >> f I sing to my beloved while standing outside
> >
> >> in the rain, in what sense am I "using" something? There is
> >
> >> a school of thinking that would say, it makes me
> >
> > feel nice
> >
> >> to be wooing my beloved, therefore I am using her to make me
> >
> >> feel nice. But all that is really bankrupt, isn't it? We
> >
> >> have to get into the idea of romance and find in the
> >
> >> figuring of the world according to a concept of romance, a
> >
> >> set of motives, which motivate the series of related
> >
> >> practices which make up the universe of romantic activity.
> >
> >> "Use" applies OK only to a resicted sense of motivation.
> >
> >
> >> Andy
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> >
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> >
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> >
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> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> >
> > xmca mailing list
> >
> > xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> >
> > http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> >
> > xmca mailing list
> >
> > xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> >
> > http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> >
>
> -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Andy Blunden http://home.mira.net/~andy/ <http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy/>+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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Received on Sun Dec 21 08:36:42 2008