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Re: [xmca] Inappropriate affect
Eric
Your statement that humans have "innate drives" that include emotions generates the question, What are the innate drives? All our discussion and different standpoints being explored on CHAT have contrasting perspectives on what in particular is innate and what is sociocultural.
I am taking a position that there are two socially mediated foundational "drives" 1) the need to be socially connected to others and 2) the need for novelty and exploration of one's environment.
I further believe that it is the relation BETWEEN these two basic social needs that are socioculturally mediated. There is always a TENSION or balance between these two "drives" When the threat to the social bond is in the foreground the impulse for novelty and exploration moves to the background.
The central construct I am fascinated with is the emergence of "self" or "subjectivity" or "identity" within the "I - Other" dialectic. Cooley called it the looking glass self, Mead called it the "I-me" dialectic, Buber called it the "I-thou" dialectic, John Macmurray called it the "I-you" dialectic.
All these perspectives view the emergence of the self as being located in the space BETWEEN the "I" and "other" and view the self not as essentialized or reified but rather as fundamentally a RELATIONAL and TEMPORAL process of emergence.
Culture constrains and determines the social side of the dialectic whereas the "I" is the side of novelty, exploration, and emergence. It is this ongoing tension and balance in the space of the "hyphen" of the "I-other" dialectic which is the location of the emergence of BOTH "I" and "OTHER".
Back to innate drives.
There may be other innate drives such as fear of danger and therefore fear would be a basic emotion but that emotion may be more biologically rooted. However there probably are also basic emotions which are activated when the social bond is threatened.
The particular relational patterns that develop BETWEEN the basic "drives" of connectedness and exploration may be a productive way to view different cultural patterns of the "I-other" dialectic. It is this perspective which I believe Thomas Scheff is exploring and trying to articulate in his extension of Cooleyey's and Goffman's work on the centrality of shame as a basic emotion regulating social bonds.
Larry
----- Original Message -----
From: ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org
Date: Thursday, December 10, 2009 6:44 am
Subject: Re: [xmca] Inappropriate affect
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Jay:
>
> I am not stating that culture does not mediate individual
> emotional
> responses. My point is that humans have inate drives that
> include
> emotions. Hunger is not mediated by culture. How one
> satiates that
> hunger can be culturally mediated. How one responds to
> emotions can be
> mediated by culture but I do not believe it to be a priori that
> all
> emotional responses are culturally mediated.
>
> make sense?
> eric
>
>
>
>
> Jay Lemke <jaylemke@umich.edu>
> Sent by: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
> 12/09/2009 08:06 PM
> Please respond to "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity"
>
>
>
> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity"
> <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu> cc:
>
> Subject: Re: [xmca]
> Inappropriate affect
>
>
> Eric,
>
> So how do we know that "culture does not mediate these
> individual
> responses"? That seem pretty unlikely to me.
>
> JAY.
>
>
> Jay Lemke
> Professor (Adjunct, 2009-2010)
> Educational Studies
> University of Michigan
> Ann Arbor, MI 48109
> www.umich.edu/~jaylemke
>
> Visiting Scholar
> Laboratory for Comparative Human Communication
> University of California -- San Diego
> La Jolla, CA
> USA 92093
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Dec 8, 2009, at 4:33 AM, ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org wrote:
>
> >
> > Inappropriate affect is a clinical psychiatric term that
> refers to an
> > individual's response to emotion; examples are laughing at
> hearing
> > about
> > the death of a loved one, crying that someone ate the last
> piece of
> > pie, or
> > outrageous anger that a favorite TV show has been postponed
> because
> > of a
> > weather report. Culture does NOT mediate these
> individual responses.
> > People exhibit internal drives. What is discussed when
> exploring the
> > meaning of emotions is aesthetics and not the actual emotions.
> > Animals are
> > not happy, they are content. Humans experience true joy
> that is not
> > mediated by culture and it is what separates us from the animals.
> > Archeological evidence is revealing that Homo Sapiens and
> Neanderthals> existed at the same time; one succeeded due to a
> development of a
> > culture.
> > I dare say that culture developed as a result of shared emotional
> > experiences found beyond what other animals experience.
> Humans are
> > extremely vulnerable and within this vulnerability they have
> found
> > their
> > greatest strength!
> > eric
> >
> >
> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity"
> <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> > cc:
> > bcc:
> > Subject: Re:
> [xmca] Emotions and Culture
> > Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
> > Sent by: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
> > 12/08/2009 01:53 PM ZE11
> > Please respond to
> ablunden <font size=-1></font>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Yes, for Hegel when Spirit first manifests itself out of
> > Nature it is in the form of Feeling arising from a
> > Nature-given physical body. But really, this is just the
> > point where Hegel makes his biggest mistakes, he thinks the
> > human body emerges directly as a thing of Nature, rather
> > than being a product of culture.
> >
> > Andy
> >
> > ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org wrote:
> >> Andy; you and I have discussed much of CHAT and have come to
> >> agreements
> >> about a great deal concerning the definitions pertaining to
> CHAT
> >> but when
> >> it comes to true emotions you have yours and I have
> mine. Hegel I
> > believe
> >> spoke of them as the Spirit.
> >> eric
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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> > xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
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> >
> >
>
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