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Re: [xmca] The Interpersonal Is Not the Sociocultural
Well David,
Nothing is so effective as getting something completely wrong in trying to read anothers ideas and getting further clarification. I now see just how much you are in agreement with M. Levyke's article on emotions in the ZPD. As Levyke insists those pesky emotions are alive and well and distributed within situated activity.
Creating trust is foundational to creating a ZPD and is critical for maintaining the ZPD.
I guess our biases to "see" and experience emotions as private subjective phenomena is far greater than developing the capacity to "see" cognition" as distributed. For just this reason, the topic of emotions within the ZPD must continue to be elaborated in our theories.
For another post I would like to take up the further question of the centrality of "peer culture" as often the most significant relations for many students in schools and how this relates to creating and sustaining zopeds. [in other words does peer sociocultual interactions create zpd's that lead development in directions that compete with adult goals]
David, in my struggling to understand your position on emotions it has helped me have a more nuanced understanding of cultural emotions in contrast to private emotions. I still want to bring in the notion of "feeling-attuning" within ZPD's but that's another story.
Larry
----- Original Message -----
From: David Kellogg <vaughndogblack@yahoo.com>
Date: Saturday, April 3, 2010 8:04 pm
Subject: Re: [xmca] The Interpersonal Is Not the Sociocultural
To: Culture ActivityeXtended Mind <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Jay has brought this thread full circle. Hundreds of years ago,
> (well,hundreds of hours anyway) the subject line started off
> with my critical appreciation of precisely this article. I said
> I thought that it had THREE great advantages (by no means to be
> despised or lost in the consideration of its ONE disadvantage).
> And I thought the disadvantage was that there was a tendency to
> confuse the sociocultural with the interpersonal.
>
> This developed into a very lively discussion in which I
> personally learned an awful lot. I learned, for example, that
> most people interpret the subject line to say that in addition
> to the sociointeractional there is the CULTURAL, and that we
> have to keep that at least in the background when we are
> considering the sociointeractional. But of course Michael
> Levykh's article DOES do this (and even foregrounds it!), and so
> that wasn't really my criticism.
>
> I suppose it is partly MY fault, since I buried a lot of what I
> DID mean under obscure quotations from Moby Dick. But Larry has
> my position almost completely upside down when he says that I
> distrust the word emotion, and that
>
> "As a person develops higher mental functions, character and
> attitudes are formed that support self-reflection and more
> reasoned and dispassionate activity in collaboration with
> others. It is this reasonableness which encourages shared mutual
> activity."
> Melville and I are trying on something a little different. It
> seems to us that for a very wide range of phenomena (e.g.
> hunger, death, and elaborate forms of sexuality) our emotions
> are social from the OUTSET--we learn about these things entirely
> second hand, often through literature, which is a social
> expression of emotion, or through shipboard life.
>
> Now, that means to me that for a very wide range of very
> significant phenomena, it's really the "thinking with the spine"
> that is artificial and derivative, the nineteenth century rage
> of
> Caliban not seeing his face in the mirror, as Wilde said.
>
> It is often (and in a classroom almost always) inauthenticity of
> emotion which is original and genuine, because it is
> inauthenticity (social and not private emotion) which is shared
> and objective. I personally think that "authenticity" is grossly
> overrated (there is almost nothing so excruciatingly insincere
> as attempts at authenticity in the classroom).
>
> So it seems to me that Spinoza is right and Kant utterly
> demonstrably and terminally wrong. There is nothing so ethically
> POSITIVE and morally POWERFUL as a good strong emotion. True,
> this is only true of SOCIAL and SHARED emotion, emotions such as
> social justice and solidarity and scientific curiosity.
>
> But properly understood, precisely these emotions are the primal
> ones, because socially shared emotion does not grow out of
> private feelings; it is instead private feelings that are
> derived (rather painfully, in my case) from public ones. Guilt
> comes from shame, not the other way around.
>
> David Kellogg
> Seoul National University of Education
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --- On Sat, 4/3/10, Larry Purss <lpurss@shaw.ca> wrote:
>
>
> From: Larry Purss <lpurss@shaw.ca>
> Subject: Re: [xmca] The Interpersonal Is Not the Sociocultural
> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Date: Saturday, April 3, 2010, 5:50 PM
>
>
>
> Jay
> your translation
> "meaning-making AND feeling-attuning"
>
> as a dynamic process of mutual participation is an excellent way
> to imagine our human situation historically developing. The
> language of attunement is a discourse which is developing and
> being elaborated in "attachment theory" [which is a topic which
> includes Bowlby, but is now a discourse crossing disciplinary
> boundaries.Larry
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Jay Lemke <jaylemke@umich.edu>
> Date: Saturday, April 3, 2010 4:04 pm
> Subject: Re: [xmca] The Interpersonal Is Not the Sociocultural
> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
>
> > Yes, the notion of "attunements" strikes me as a nice
> > metaphorical way in to the issues of meaning-and-feeling being
> > context-sensitive but not context-determined. And also
> > recognizing that there is a certain degree of "negotiation"
> > going on -- though I tend to reserve that term more for
> dialogic
> > situations where interests are conflicting and getting both
> > goals is not easily done. I might say instead that there is an
> > active process of meaning-making and feeling-attuning that is
> > never entirely satisfying, always still-in-process, until we
> > move on to something else.
> >
> > As in the discussion with Michael R. about Derrida, Rorty and
> > meaning, this is where I think Pragmatism in its more
> > sophisticated, Peircean forms and continental "deconstruction"
> > can live productively together. For Peirce the "interpretant"
> or
> > the semiotic process as a whole, dynamically viewed, is
> endless,
> > it always keeps driving itself forward, there is no stable,
> > final, definitive meaning. And clearly also for Derrida
> meanings
> > cannot be stable, because in interacting with them, or in
> > framing them in terms of differences and deferrals of
> > alternatives, we get caught up in a process in which
> > interpretation, or elaboration of meaning never stops.
> >
> > This seems to be quite upsetting to people who have low
> > tolerance for ambiguity and absence of closure. It hardly
> means
> > that life is impossible, because it would seem to be the very
> > essence of being alive that there is always something next,
> and
> > it always arises in part from our now. Time makes itself move
> > forward. What it does make impossible is certainty and Truth,
> > absolutes and essences. The strongest objections to this
> > approach that I've heard are the political ones: that you
> can't
> > beat the rhetoric of certainty with a discourse of open-
> > endedness. Or even, that you can't decide to pull a trigger
> > without the kind of certainty that I would claim is impossible.
> >
> > But I don't think either of these objections are more than
> > fears. People do get drawn to dogmatics, but they just as
> surely
> > rebel against them and seek the freedom to re-attune, re-
> > imagine, re-invent. And I think it is quite possible to pull
> the
> > trigger while remaining very unsure of the consequences.
> People
> > do it all the time. Certainty cannot be the sine qua non of
> > moral judgment, else we choose between moral paralysis and
> > fanaticism. In fact in many ways our modernist emphasis on
> truth
> > and certainty seems to be leading to just this dichotomy. The
> > wise hesitate, while the fools take action.
> >
> > The moral implications of our theories of meaning are not
> often
> > enough explored with sense.
> >
> > 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 Cognition
> > University of California -- San Diego
> > La Jolla, CA
> > USA 92093
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Apr 1, 2010, at 11:20 PM, Larry Purss wrote:
> >
> > > Well
> > > the interpersonal is not the sociocultural seems to be a
> > fascinating topic.
> > > I'm on a role on reading Martin Packer's articles off the
> internet.> > Martin, I know these articles are a decade old but
> I'm a
> > decade behind on my historical development of ideas so for me
> > they are very current. And I do appreciate your systematic
> > and coherent ways of linking ideas that are dancing in my (I'm
> > hesitant to say "head")
> > > I'm now reading your article "Sociocultural and
> Constructivist
> > Theories of Learning: Ontology, not just Epistemology" IN the
> > journal Educational Psychologist, 35(4). p. 227-241.
> > > I appreciate your historical lens for viewing sociocultural
> > theory from Hegel to the dialectical materialists,
> > phenomenologists, postmodernists, poststructuralists, and
> > pragmatists.[I would add relational psychoanalysis is very
> much
> > engaged with these themes]
> > > You mention 6 themes of these nondualist ontologies
> > > 1.The person is constructed
> > > 2. In a social context
> > > 3. Formed through practical activity
> > > 4. Formed in RELATIONSHIPS OF DESIRE AND RECOGNITION [my emphasis]
> > > 5. these relationships can split the person [tension]
> > > 6. Motivating the search FOR IDENTITY. [my emphasis]
> > >
> > > Martin, in your excellent elaboration of each point I pay
> > particular attention to themes 4, 5, and 6. They move us into
> > themes of learning as ontology and not just epistemoloy [how
> we
> > developmentally come "to know and understand"
> > >
> > > I want to amplify one specific quote on these 3 themes. The
> > reference is from Greeno and TMSMTAPG (1998) as elaborated in
> > your article.
> > >
> > > Individuals operate not with schemata and procedures 9as
> > cognitive science models human behavior0 but through
> ATTUNEMENTS
> > to constraints and affordances. Attunements are 'regular
> > patterns of an individual's participation' (p.9 Greeno) they
> > support but do not determine activity, for 'activity is
> > continual NEGOTIATION.' 'Learning in this situative view, is
> > hypothesized to be BECOMING ATTUNED to CONSTRAINTS and
> > affordances of activity and becoming more centrally INVOLVED
> in
> > the pracices of community" 9p. 11 Greeno as quoted Packer p.230)
> > >
> > > To Martin, Jay, Andy, Mike, and everyone else the CONCEPT
> > "attunement" I believe captures the centrality of e-motion and
> > affect in all negotiations of affordances and constraints.
> > Tension [splits] must be navigated "feelingly" as one's
> identity
> > "forms" "emerges" "develops" in sociocultural communities.
> > >
> > > This is my attempt to bring Martin's notion of nondualist
> > ontology into the conversation and link it with my theme of e-
> > motions AS ATTUNEMENTS.
> > >> From this perspective I agree with Jay's responses on this theme.
> > >
> > > All the various discourses on social "recognition"
> [especially
> > when connected to the theme of "response to recognition" [see
> V.
> > Reddy's book "How Children Know Minds" which Rod P.
> recommended]
> > also is elaborating the e-motional realm.
> > >
> > > Larry
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > ----- Original Message -----
> > > From: Jay Lemke <jaylemke@umich.edu>
> > > Date: Thursday, April 1, 2010 9:25 pm
> > > Subject: Re: [xmca] The Interpersonal Is Not the Sociocultural
> > > To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> > >
> > >> Just another small note on the basic "interpersonal is not
> > the
> > >> sociocultural" theme --
> > >>
> > >> It used to be my responsibility in a phd program to teach
> > about
> > >> Vygotskyan and sociocultural approaches to teaching,
> > learning,
> > >> development, etc. And to ask the questions for either the
> > >> written or oral qualifying exams related to these themes.
> > >>
> > >> In the course, and on the exams, I found it necessary to
> push
> > >> students very hard to understand that "social" did not
> simply
> > >> mean interpersonal, but also cultural. Whether talking
> about
> > ZPD
> > >> or scaffolding or any sort of social theory of learning,
> > >> students, even good, bright, phd students, unless
> previously
> > >> trained in anthropology (rare) and even if with some
> training
> > in
> > >> sociology or political science, simply saw the social as
> > always
> > >> the interaction among individuals. (Non-American students
> > seemed
> > >> to have less of this problem.)
> > >>
> > >> Many had taken a lot of psychology courses, all
> > individualistic
> > >> and mentalistic in orientation ("old" cogsci). Even with
> > >> political science backgrounds, as some had, they were
> > equipped
> > >> with the (to me complete nonsense of) rational actor
> theory.
> > And
> > >> in sociology, somehow Durkheim seemed never to register
> (and
> > >> Marx of course does not get mentioned much).
> > >>
> > >> I usually found I needed to give them a good dose of
> cultural
> > >> anthropology, and a little systems theory, and I was not
> > above
> > >> reifying sociocultural systems a little more than I
> normally
> > >> would, to make the point and get them over the hump. There
> is
> > a
> > >> profound sense in which individual human beings are simply
> > NOT
> > >> the primary unit of analysis for phenomena like learning,
> > >> meaning, and even feeling.
> > >>
> > >> I like to think I succeeded a little more than half the time.
> > >>
> > >> 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 Cognition
> > >> University of California -- San Diego
> > >> La Jolla, CA
> > >> USA 92093
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> On Apr 1, 2010, at 2:17 PM, peter jones wrote:
> > >>
> > >>> Hello, As an aside to your discussion on this, I would
> just
> > >> like to provide a very high-level view:
> > >>>
> > >>> Within Hodges' model the interpersonal is not the
> > >> sociocultural.
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>> In previous blog posts I've referred to the
> 'interpersonal'
> > >> domain as 'intrapersonal' being concerned with individual
> > >> thoughts, beliefs, experience.
> > >>>
> > >>> I'm wondering increasingly about all the 'holistic
> bridges'
> > or
> > >> 'disciplinary highways' of which psychophysical,
> psychosocial
> > >> are examples:
> > >>>
> > >>> http://hodges-model.blogspot.com/2008/06/physio-political-
> > >> musings-songs-and.html
> > >>>
> > >>> Best regards,
> > >>>
> > >>> Peter Jones
> > >>> http://hodges-model.blogspot.com/
> > >>> Hodges' Health Career - Care Domains - Model
> > >>> http://www.p-jones.demon.co.uk/
> > >>> h2cm: help2Cmore - help-2-listen - help-2-care
> > >>> http://twitter.com/h2cm
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>> _______________________________________________
> > >>> 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
> > >>
> > > S
> > >
> > >
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > xmca mailing list
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> > >
> > >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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