Re: [xmca] Collective Experience vs. Individual Experience? (Help, anyone?)

[mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>]

That helps, tony. It sent me back to re-read Andy's note.

Andy wrote:

You have an experience, and then you find that everyone else experienced the
same thing and that event then becomes a central focus of your collaboration
with other people.

Re-reading reinforces my intuition of the time dimension. "In the instant"
(which can fell likes hours and even be hours) it is quite localized in an
individual life. In daily life it comes to known to be shared (we had a huge
blackout here- similar sequence) and spreads out and across people. In the
longer run it comes to have a kind of "precipitated" enduring presence that
shades into collective memory.

(I know, I am prone to threes, but something like this?)
mike

On Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 9:04 PM, Tony Whitson <twhitson@udel.edu> wrote:

> What I mean by "shared experience," as something between individual and
> collective experience, is perfectly captured by how Andy characterizes
> shared experience. I experience something & find out you and I have both had
> that experience in common, and it has the power Andy describes.
>
> What I mean by collective experience is experience in which the experience
> of others participates in the experience of any one, in the course of the
> experiencing. Temporal aspects are certainly crucial for this.
>
> A single mother who has lost her job in "the great recession" and who is
> worried sick -- literally, to the point of being unable to sleep, and maybe
> even vomiting from stress-induced gastro-whatever -- is experiencing
> something somatically in a way that is particular to her own individual
> body; but, at the same time, it is not just an individual experience, like
> my experience of the shaking that I realized only after a few seconds must
> be an earthquake. That mother's experience, through and through, is her
> involvement in an experience that is irreducibly collective.
>
> Herder is relevant, but not the same -- he's more about culturally
> (nationally) accumulated shared experience.
>
> I'm wondering if there's something in the literature of social
> phenomenology (Schutz, maybe?).
>
> So, Larry, it's more or less up to people on the list what they will take
> up, and what they will pass by.
>
>
> On Mon, 19 Sep 2011, mike cole wrote:
>
>  Tony- I am unclear about how your comments point to something between
>> individual and collective experience.
>>
>> Yes, the term experience evokes misunderstandings, but have you tried
>> culture recently as a problem free alternative? :-)
>>
>> Might temporal aspects of "an experience" play a role in the
>> individual:collective
>> distinction? Would that be an avenue to distinguishing an intermediate
>> process?
>>
>> mike
>>
>> On Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 6:14 PM, Tony Whitson <twhitson@udel.edu> wrote:
>>
>>  Thanks, Andy, that is helpful.
>>>
>>> The Dewey is posted here:
>>> https://tw-curricuwiki.**wikis**paces.com/Dewey--culture%**2C+**
>>> experience<https://tw-**curricuwiki.wikispaces.com/**
>>> Dewey--culture%2C+experience<https://tw-curricuwiki.wikispaces.com/Dewey--culture%2C+experience>
>>> >
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, 20 Sep 2011, Andy Blunden wrote:
>>>
>>>  Herder, as I understand him, saw collective experience as an important
>>>
>>>> facet in the formation of the character of a people. I think part of the
>>>> problem is that "experience" has been such a contested term, Tony.
>>>> Generally
>>>> it has been co-opted by Empiricism, which is by its nature individualist
>>>> and
>>>> by definition the philosophy of experiene, but Dewey used the word in
>>>> formulating his view. But didn't he later say that he regretted using
>>>> the
>>>> word "experience" because it led to misunderstandings? Personally, I
>>>> think
>>>> /shared/ experience is the most powerful force in changing Zeitgeist and
>>>> individual mninds en masse. You have an experience, and then you find
>>>> that
>>>> everyone else experienced the same thing and that event then becomes a
>>>> central focus of your collaboration with other people. What could be
>>>> more
>>>> world-changing?
>>>>
>>>> Andy
>>>>
>>>> Tony Whitson wrote:
>>>>
>>>>  This query is prompted by a new book:
>>>>>
>>>>> Peck, Don. Pinched: How the Great Recession Has Narrowed Our Futures
>>>>> and
>>>>> What We Can Do About It. New York: Crown Pub., 2011.
>>>>>
>>>>> http://www.amazon.com/Pinched-****Great-Recession-Narrowed-**<http://www.amazon.com/Pinched-**Great-Recession-Narrowed-**>
>>>>> Futures/dp/0307886522<http://**www.amazon.com/Pinched-Great-**
>>>>> Recession-Narrowed-Futures/dp/**0307886522<http://www.amazon.com/Pinched-Great-Recession-Narrowed-Futures/dp/0307886522>
>>>>> >
>>>>>
>>>>> /
>>>>>
>>>>> in which the author looks more deeply into predictable ramifications of
>>>>> the
>>>>> current economic situation than I have seen in other recent work.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Based on historical, sociological, and other literatures and modes of
>>>>> research, the author argues that what we're dealing with now is not
>>>>> just
>>>>> a
>>>>> wave in a recurring cycle. He predicts lasting changes that he expects
>>>>> to
>>>>> deeply impact different generational cohorts for decades to come.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> His argument is plausible, at least, to me. But it prompts me to wonder
>>>>> about experience that is really collective experience, as opposed to
>>>>> individual experience.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Exposing my ignorance, I realize that I can't think of literature on
>>>>> the
>>>>> nature and structure of collective experience. It seems like there must
>>>>> be a
>>>>> lot; but I can't think of it. It also seems like xmca is a likely place
>>>>> to
>>>>> find people who would be interested, and would know about such
>>>>> literature
>>>>> (although it's not on-topic in the current threads).
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm thinking of my first earthquake experience last month as an example
>>>>> of
>>>>> an individual experience. It was totally unlike anything I'd ever
>>>>> experienced before, and it took me a few seconds to even recognize that
>>>>> an
>>>>> earthquake is what was happening (we don't have those in Delaware). I
>>>>> was
>>>>> at
>>>>> my desk, at home, by myself when it happened.
>>>>> Of course, the experience was mediated after the fact from my
>>>>> sociocultural
>>>>> awareness of earthquakes. Still, I think it was an individual
>>>>> experience
>>>>> in
>>>>> the moment, compared with the collective experience that Don Peck is
>>>>> writing
>>>>> about -- an experience of events and developments over time, in which
>>>>> the
>>>>> experience of others participates, throughout, in the experience of any
>>>>> one.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> I am thinking that there might be something else that could be called
>>>>> "shared experience," intermediate between individual and collective
>>>>> experience.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Does this make any sense? Is this question of interest to anyone? Or am
>>>>> I
>>>>> naïvely wondering about things that have been well developed in the
>>>>>
>>>>> literature?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> I would be interested if anyone has ideas or references to share on
>>>>> this.
>>>>>
>>>>> ______________________________****____________
>>>>> _____
>>>>> xmca mailing list
>>>>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>>>>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/****listinfo/xmca<http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/**listinfo/xmca>
>>>>> <http://dss.ucsd.**edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca<http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca>
>>>>> >
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>  --
>>>> ------------------------------****----------------------------**--**
>>>> ------------
>>>> *Andy Blunden*
>>>> Joint Editor MCA: http://www.informaworld.com/**
>>>> smpp/title~db=all~content=****g932564744<http://www.**
>>>> informaworld.com/smpp/title%**7Edb=all%7Econtent=g932564744<http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title%7Edb=all%7Econtent=g932564744>
>>>> >
>>>>
>>>> Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
>>>> Book: http://www.brill.nl/default.****aspx?partid=227&pid=34857<http://www.brill.nl/default.**aspx?partid=227&pid=34857>
>>>> <http**://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?**partid=227&pid=34857<http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=227&pid=34857>
>>>> >
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ______________________________****____________
>>>> _____
>>>> xmca mailing list
>>>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>>>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/****listinfo/xmca<http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/**listinfo/xmca>
>>>> <http://dss.ucsd.**edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca<http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca>
>>>> >
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>  Tony Whitson
>>> UD School of Education
>>> NEWARK  DE  19716
>>>
>>> twhitson@udel.edu
>>> ______________________________****_
>>>
>>> "those who fail to reread
>>>  are obliged to read the same story everywhere"
>>>                 -- Roland Barthes, S/Z (1970)
>>> ______________________________**____________
>>> _____
>>> xmca mailing list
>>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/**listinfo/xmca<http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca>
>>>
>>>
>>>  ______________________________**____________
>> _____
>> xmca mailing list
>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/**listinfo/xmca<http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca>
>>
>>
> Tony Whitson
> UD School of Education
> NEWARK  DE  19716
>
> twhitson@udel.edu
> ______________________________**_
>
> "those who fail to reread
>  are obliged to read the same story everywhere"
>                  -- Roland Barthes, S/Z (1970)
>
__________________________________________
_____
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca