Re: [xmca] Re: Six key points on sociocultural models of development

[Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>]

Andy

Counterposing survival and recognition may be a false dualism.  The term our
current"preoccupation" with the universal NEED for any person in any era to
be recognized may be more accurate.  The question becomes

Where does this preoccupation come from?
 Hegel may have posed it more as a problem of a struggle for life or death.
Andy, there seems to be another theme of recognition as central for
constituting the KINds of persons we become.  I this era we are preoccupied
with recognition AS identity.  As Gregory outlined is this a result of how
profoundly we have taken a wrong turn and our formation of identities
within institutional participation is currently NOT meeting our universal
need for recognition [except sublimated as recognition of achievement]  Is
this wrong turn developing I-IT forms of relational dialogue rather than
I-Thou forms of recognition.  Is this the "cost" of membership that is being
required?

On the same topic but looking at FORMS of reasoning.  I read this statement
by Rupert Wegerif

"In place of reductionist explanations, Wittgenstein's method is that of
rediscriptions to SHOW US the phenomena in a DIFFERENT light. This he calls
PERSPICUOUS REPRESENTATION"

This term "perspicuous" as emphasizing a form of reasoning that SHOWS
[perception] is similar to Merleau-Pont's form of reasoning as
figure/ground.

On Thu, Jun 23, 2011 at 6:39 AM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:

> Larry, my guess is that Recognition is a universal need for any person, in
> whatever era, only that in postmodernity it has become problematised. Axel
> Honneth claims, for example, that wage struggles were always *really*
> struggles for recognition. I don't think that makes sense. I think being
> underpaid is always an insult, and I guess there has always been a basis for
> reading this motivation into economic struggles, but I would distinguish
> between a mode of theorisation and a mode of action. There is also a
> question over whether it makes sense to counterpose survival and
> recognition.
>
> It seems to me that Hegel introduced the idea of Recognition very much as a
> matter of life and death. Imagine two creatures of different species (eg a
> human and a lion) bumping into each other in a confined space. You have a
> definite problem of mutual recognition. Consider Captain Cook sailing into a
> harbour in New Zealand. Same problem. Imagine being an asylum seeker
> arriving in NW Australia in a leaky boat. Same problem. Imagine being a
> graffiti artist. Same problem. But I think it is only recently that
> recognition (as having the rights of an equal citizen within a nation-state,
> someone whose labour meets the needs of other people) has become
> problematised. Certainly, the desire for recognition is now a major
> motivation for people. I suspect that people write research papers for
> learned journals more for recognition than money or science.
>
> Andy
>
>
> Larry Purss wrote:
>
>> Hi Gregory and Andy
>>
>> Thank you for your responses
>>
>>  As you can see in my response to Martin,  I am wondering if the desire
>> for
>> recognition is a general "type" of desire for humans.  Gregory,  from this
>> possibly basic, primary desire for recognition, the particular forms of
>> recognition developing as  psychological experiences that are experienced
>> as
>> split as we participate in our institutional arrangements is unique to
>> modernity.  From this particular historically constructed formation of
>> psychological splitting a particular kind of search for identity ensues. I
>> agree with this way of looking at the question of identity, and
>> recognition.  There is a dialogical aspect of response and anticipation
>> in using language [and possibly a dialogical resonse to
>> prelinquistic primary intersubjectivity].
>>
>> Merleau-Ponty and Bahktin both seem to have grappled with this ontological
>> theme and the various ways this theme is expressed epistemologically.
>> Their
>> reflections on "differences" which don't get transcended but rather get
>> contained [subjegated] within particular relational configurations or
>> forms
>> as persons become INformed.  The ethical question from this assumption of
>>  dialogue [as opening spaces between perspectives] becomes what
>> institution
>> formations are best able to "hold" the differences through opening spaces
>> of
>> I-Thou mutual dialogue. Identity from this stance is not a search for
>> identity as [A=A] but rather a search for spaces of opening that hold the
>> differences.
>>
>> This may sound too "merely interactional" as  "holding of perspectives
>> within shared space."  But scholars such as Merleau-Ponty who are
>> articulating perspectives within a figure/ground metaphor of "looking" as
>> a
>> particular form of reasoning emphasize the cultural-historical source of
>> perspectives and the dialogical spaces of intersubjectivity where meaning
>> is
>> located BETWEEN perspectives as the arena they are playing in.
>>
>> Larry
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Jun 22, 2011 at 4:40 PM, Gregory Allan Thompson <
>> gathomps@uchicago.edu> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>> Larry,
>>> Very thought provoking post. These happen to be issues that are on my
>>> mind
>>> for a paper that I'm working on, and so thank you for providing me with
>>> an
>>> opportunity to write these ideas out. But please forgive my indulgence in
>>> the far too many words that follow.
>>>
>>> I think that Andy's concerns with mediation are good ones. The split in
>>> ways of thinking about recognition that I have suggested previously is a
>>> split between "recognition" as a psychological need (maybe kin to
>>> "self-esteem" of the 90's) and recognition as an ontological ground of
>>> subjectivity. I would put W.I. Thomas and (hesitatingly) Axel Honneth
>>> more
>>> in the first camp and Hegel and Mead in the second. I would further
>>> suggest
>>> that the second camp, recognition as an ontological ground of
>>> subjectivity,
>>> has more relevance around the globe, whereas the first one, recognition
>>> as a
>>> psychological need, is particularly relevant in Western contexts.
>>>
>>> For evidence of the non-global nature of recognition as a psychological
>>> need (in the particularly Western way that we think of it), you simply
>>> need
>>> to look to how people respond to depressed persons in China. In America
>>> (and
>>> the West generally?), we tend to offer recognition to someone who is
>>> depressed by saying nice things about them, e.g., to a disconsolate grad
>>> student who is depressed about their dissertation and unable to write:
>>> "you're a great scholar and you're work is very important so don't get so
>>> down," OR, as the SNL character Stuart Smalley used to say "you're good
>>> enough, you're smart enough, and people like you."
>>>
>>> In contrast, in China, the kind of thing that is said to depressed
>>> persons
>>> is more like: "you're a shame to your family, everyone else is working
>>> hard,
>>> quit being so lazy and finish your work!" And the funny thing is, it
>>> works.
>>> (this anecdote is loosely based on the work of a colleague, Jason
>>> Ingersoll, who spent over 2 years in China studying depression - his
>>> rather
>>> remarkable dissertation is available online, and I have a copy).
>>>
>>> So for this reason, I'm hesitant to consider the "psychological need"
>>> approach to recognition as a cultural universal. But within the US, it
>>> seems
>>> essential.
>>>
>>> I think that there might be an interesting third approach that captures
>>> the
>>> Hegelian sense of recognition as an ontological grounding for
>>> subjectivity
>>> while also recognizing it as a psychological need. Larry, it seems like
>>> this
>>> might be where you are headed.
>>>
>>> In this regard, I think that Charles Taylor has some interesting thoughts
>>> on recognition as having a kind of particular importance in modernity.
>>> This
>>> is because in earlier times identities were prescribed by society (think
>>> feudal system or the caste system of India). In capitalist modernity,
>>> individuals are thrown into society without any solid anchors of
>>> identity. I
>>> take this to be a projection of Marx's "all that is solid melts into air"
>>> onto the realm of identity. Nowadays, because we no longer have an a
>>> priori
>>> anchor - a biological (or otherwise) right - to a particular identity,
>>> WHO
>>> we are is up in the air and we are confronted with a kind of existential
>>> crisis (importantly, this is a crisis only so long as we have a desire to
>>> be
>>> a "somebody" - an assumption that I find generally plausible, but not
>>> absolutely necessary; cf. Buddhistic notions of Self). The resolution of
>>> this crisis comes through the various moments of recognition
>>> (consummation)
>>> that we experience throug!
>>>  h !
>>> others and which constitute us as a particular "somebody" (and better a
>>> "somebody" than a "nobody").
>>>
>>> This recognition can happen in everyday interaction rituals where we
>>> greet
>>> others and are greeted by others in particular ways (e.g., the somewhat
>>> stereotyped scene from old movies where the company president walks in
>>> and
>>> is greeted along his walk by a string of "Good morning Mr. X" and Mr. X
>>> either responds with a simple nod or responds with "Good morning Jane" -
>>> in
>>> the lack of parallelism in the greeting ("Mr. X" vs. "Jane" or nothing at
>>> all), there is an important moment of recognition for both parties - an
>>> emergent WHO).
>>>
>>> Recognition can also happen through various institutional means, such as
>>> when we take a test or get a good grade in school (and listen to high
>>> school
>>> or college students after getting the results of a test and you'll
>>> see/hear
>>> that this moment of comparison/recognition is one of the first things
>>> that
>>> they seek: "I got XX, what did you get?", or more tactfully, "How did you
>>> do?").
>>>
>>> Recognition can also happen through other social means such as the value
>>> of
>>> one's portfolio (a different kind of "value" but one that appears to the
>>> bearer to have a kind of universality for seeing how one "measures up" to
>>> others), or the act of going shopping and being realized as a "customer"
>>> (and advertising is fundamentally about creating a moment of recognition
>>> as
>>> a particular type of customer - traditionally an "elite", but currently a
>>> "unique"). Political news programs (Foxnews or MSNBC) can also provide a
>>> moment of recognition by validating the interpretive framework
>>> ("Democrat"
>>> or "Republican") or ground against which we define ourselves as good,
>>> right,
>>> and moral. And there are, of course, the more obvious kinds of
>>> recognition
>>> in "the praise and ovation of the people" - as the tag line of the TV
>>> show
>>> Iron Chef used to say - and which you would find on other audience
>>> competition shows like American Idol.
>>>
>>> Now treating these examples in reverse order, the local cultural
>>> fetishization of American Idol, political news programs, shopping,
>>> grades,
>>> and greetings - all of this points to a particular importance of the role
>>> of
>>> recognition in THIS historical moment. Recognition is the resolution to
>>> the
>>> existential crises of *being* in modernity. In the interests of making
>>> the
>>> point, I've gone well beyond Taylor's argument. But hopefully this
>>> provides
>>> one (potentially flawed) way of thinking about recognition in THIS
>>> cultural
>>> historical moment.
>>>
>>> Larry, I find your approach to all of this to be particularly interesting
>>> precisely because it is different from how I have been approaching it and
>>> so
>>> it pushes me to think in new ways about these ideas. I'm not sure if
>>> you'll
>>> be able to make sense of any of the deeply confused ideas I put forward
>>> above, but I'm always interested in hearing what you have to say.
>>>
>>> As for your question about whether mediation of dialogical relational
>>> intersubjectivity is prior to mediation by material artifacts, I'm not
>>> sure
>>> I understand you perfectly clearly. I wonder how you are conceiving of
>>> these
>>> two types of mediation? And how does answering one way or the other
>>> affect
>>> your approach to, say, teaching kids? (I'm assuming that this is what you
>>> are after, in the end). And I do like your both/and approach to answering
>>> this question but I'm not clear that you were comfortable with this as an
>>> answer.
>>>
>>> And now, in looking back at your post, I just realized that I failed to
>>> consider what seems to be the most important issue that you raised - what
>>> does this mean in pedagogical practice.
>>>
>>> As for this question, I fully agree with what I take to be your main
>>> point,
>>> namely, that teachers often loose sight of the role of recognition for
>>> students and tend to focus more on the stuff to be taught/learned. But I
>>> think that I would take it in a slightly different direction by
>>> emphasizing
>>> recognition less as a kind of humanistic need (or desire) and thinking
>>> more
>>> in terms of the teacher contributing to the determination of WHO the
>>> child
>>> takes her/himself to be in a given moment, and this will affect who the
>>> child will be in the next (i.e. how s/he will act).
>>>
>>> Effectively recognizing a child as a good student will lead to the child
>>> be(com)ing a good student. The real challenge is: HOW do you
>>> *effectively*
>>> recognize a child as a good student? Andy's concern with the mediatedness
>>> of
>>> recognition makes this HOW into a non-trivial task. Because recognition
>>> is
>>> mediated, it is beyond the simple control of the teacher.
>>>
>>> Take the following as an example: would it be enough for a teacher to
>>> simply say individually to each student in the class that the teacher
>>> thinks
>>> that the student is a brilliant student? This might do some good for a
>>> kindergarten class, but for them, they don't exactly know what this means
>>> and even if they believe you, they won't know how this translates into
>>> behaviors and actions (and it probably won't have very lasting
>>> consequences). For a high school class, the kids would probably look at
>>> you
>>> and wonder about your sincerity - and/or your motivations (e.g., "is he
>>> just
>>> saying that so that we won't give him a hard time?" - and in college it
>>> would be: "is he just saying that so that we'll give him a good rating on
>>> RateMyProfessor.com?"). Some high school kids would "know" that you are
>>> just
>>> "blowing smoke up their you-know-where," and would disregard the comment
>>> altogether, and thus the moment of recognition is lacking.
>>>
>>> The problem is that once you get kids old enough (maybe 7-9), recognition
>>> is no longer just the simple dyadic recognition of a parent saying
>>> something
>>> to them at a particular moment in time. Instead, as kids get older,
>>> recognition becomes much more than this. It becomes an absolute. One IS
>>> this
>>> type of person or that. This is, in part, due to a more enduring notion
>>> of
>>> Self, but is also, in part, due to the fact that recognition now happens
>>> with respect to a macro-social order, it is now mediated by what we might
>>> call, following Mead, a generalized other. You might say that this
>>> perduring
>>> generalized other becomes the ground for the perduring self, and without
>>> which, the self could only be a groundless and fleeting mirage. The
>>> social
>>> ground locates the individual.
>>>
>>> But, importantly (and luckily for us), the ground is moving, as are the
>>> possible figurations. Thus, telling a student who has gotten C's and D's
>>> all
>>> her/his life that s/he is brilliant is not going to be very effective.
>>> S/he
>>> knows better. What is needed is the artful practice of bringing out this
>>> truth. This often involves re-interpretations of her/his behaviors and
>>> actions, but it can also involve introducing a new frame for interpreting
>>> those actions and behaviors such that these actions and behaviors can
>>> truly
>>> become evidence of "brilliance." When this works, it is a beautiful
>>> thing.
>>> But it doesn't always look like what we might expect (engaging in an
>>> argument with a student could function as a moment of recognition that
>>> the
>>> student is smart enough to be challenged). Furthermore, recognitional
>>> processes don't always work precisely as the teacher might have hoped.
>>> This
>>> is because the process of recognition is mediated and is thus, in the
>>> end,
>>> out of our hands. In a third t!
>>>  ha!
>>> t mediates the teacher student dyad. And most often, these processes of
>>> recognition go mostly unnoticed by teachers and do their work "in the
>>> dark,"
>>> so to speak. Shedding light on these processes of recognition seems to me
>>> to
>>> be important work.
>>>
>>> Okay, that was much too much, but all stuff that is on my mind for what
>>> I'm
>>> presently working on so thank you very much for the opportunity to think
>>> these ideas through in writing.
>>>
>>> All the best,
>>> greg
>>>
>>>
>>> Larry Purss wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> Gregory, thanks for this reference on the topic of desire for
>>>>
>>>>
>>> recognition.
>>>
>>>
>>>> My question to Martin was my attempt to understand our fundamental need
>>>>
>>>>
>>> for
>>>
>>>
>>>> recognition, [self/other], and how this fundamental need is transformed
>>>>
>>>>
>>> by
>>>
>>>
>>>> cultural-historical institutional arrangements.  As I read Martin's
>>>>
>>>>
>>> article
>>>
>>>
>>>> he located the need for recognition as one of the  6 foundational
>>>> [ontological?] GROUNDS of the sociocultural perspective.
>>>> If the desire for recognition is foundational , then the
>>>> dialogical understanding of communication as the relation BETWEEN self
>>>>
>>>>
>>> and
>>>
>>>
>>>> other is primary [not the dialectical resolution of tensions into a new
>>>> cognitive synthesis which may be derivative from a more
>>>> primary intersubjective relational foundation]  I'm wondering, reading
>>>> scholars such as Merleau-Ponty, if mediation of dialogical relational
>>>> intersubjectivity, is prior to mediation by material artifacts.
>>>>
>>>> This question is probably expressing my ignorance of the relation
>>>> between
>>>> the notions of tool use and intersubjectivity but how else to get
>>>>
>>>>
>>> clarity?
>>>
>>>
>>>> In actual practice it may be impossible to separate these two
>>>> mediational
>>>> means BUT it seems that the dialogical perspective emphasizes the
>>>>
>>>>
>>> mediation
>>>
>>>
>>>> of self/other intersubjective relational being/becoming while mediation
>>>>
>>>>
>>> via
>>>
>>>
>>>> tool use emphasizes internalization and cognitive synthesis through
>>>> cultural-historical object usage.
>>>>
>>>> The notion of biosocial niches can accomodate both mediation through
>>>>
>>>>
>>> other
>>>
>>>
>>>> persons AND mediation through artifacts, so really it is not an
>>>> either/or
>>>> question but rather a matter of emphasis.  The practical question in
>>>>
>>>>
>>> school
>>>
>>>
>>>> settings is how to be aware of the profound desire for recognition of
>>>> all
>>>> the persons [students and teachers] which teachers may loose sight of in
>>>>
>>>>
>>> the
>>>
>>>
>>>> focus on developing and internalizing scientific concepts. [which comes
>>>>
>>>>
>>> at a
>>>
>>>
>>>> cost of transmuted desire for recognition]
>>>>
>>>> The focus on the intersubjective relational "betweenness" of the
>>>>
>>>>
>>> dialogical
>>>
>>>
>>>> perspective seems to emphasize the "desre for recognition"  more than
>>>> the
>>>> language of mediated tool use.
>>>>
>>>> Hesitant to press "send" as I expose my ignorance
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Larry
>>>>
>>>>
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> ------------------------------**------------------------------**
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