Re: [xmca] Notions of suffering, enduring, undergoing

[Robert Lake <boblake@georgiasouthern.edu>]

Andy,
You MIGHT appreciate this book from the John Dewey Lecture Series,



"Philip Jackson ushers his readers into a vibrant conversation with John
Dewey and, at once, with Jackson himself. Not only are we made privy to the
doing of philosophy as an ongoing quest, but also are asked to view both
Dewey and Jackson as seekers and solvers among problems never entirely
settled, conclusions thrillingly incomplete."
—*Maxine Greene*, William F. Russell Professor in the Foundations of
Education (emerita) and professor of philosophy and education (emerita),
Teachers College, Columbia University

In what may be Philip Jackson's best work yet, readers are taken on a
fascinating journey into the mind of John Dewey. By analyzing Dewey's
attempts to revise the introduction to one of his most important books,
Experience and Nature, Jackson explores Dewey's efforts (both
intellectually and emotionally) to explain the all-important relationship
between philosophy and human affairs. This story of Dewey's life-long
struggle with a complex philosophical question (one that continues to
challenge philosophers today) is also the story of Jackson's own struggle
to understand Dewey's quest. Written for anyone interested in philosophy or
the writings of Dewey, this engaging book is essential reading for
understanding the philosophic method and the philosopher's task of inquiry.


On Sat, Nov 5, 2011 at 11:20 AM, Tony Whitson <twhitson@udel.edu> wrote:

> I may be worth noting that the American Civil War was 1861-1865.
> Holmes was born in 1841; Dewey was born in 1859.
>
> On Sun, 6 Nov 2011, Andy Blunden wrote:
>
>  That's an interesting observation, Robert. I have been trying to
>> summarise in what way Dewey did not quite get to where Vygotsky got to. Up
>> till today I had written that "Pragmatism could explain ideas as means of
>> adaptation to the world, but not why people were prepared to die for them;
>> it could explain how people pursued goals, but was less effective in
>> understanding how people formed their goals." But then I read the excellent
>> article "Experience is Pedagogical" where he has an exposition on interest,
>> which fits well with Leontyev's ideas about how children develop an
>> interest in something. He is very strong on the question of the primacy of
>> interest. And he certainly agrees that everything depends on motivation,
>> will and teleology. Menand's wonderful book, "The Metaphysical Club" placed
>> the emergence of Pragmatism as a reaction to the disastrous Civil War, and
>> what they saw as reckless pursuit of Big Ideas. So this seemed to tally.
>> The Pragmatists could not understand why the Abolitionists and Confederates
>> were prepared to enter a national holocaust on a principle.
>> Dewey says that "the chief characteristic trait of the pragmatic notion
>> of reality is precisely that no theory of Reality in general, /überhaupt/,
>> is possible or needed." Holmes' theory of law rests on the same conviction.
>> I still feel that there is something missing in when they rule out the role
>> of abstractions in motivating human beings. And that is what lies at the
>> root of Tragedy, isn't it? I suspect Dewey well knew tragedy, but dedicated
>> his life trying to eliminate it!
>>
>> Andy
>>
>> Robert Lake wrote:
>>
>>> Andy,
>>> That is an astute observation about the notion of "happy".
>>> Maxine Greene owes much of her view of aesthetics to Dewey's "Art as
>>> experience"
>>> yet her main critique of Dewey was that "he had no sense of the tragic".
>>> Unlike Vygotsky whose personal perezhivanie  was marked by the tragic
>>> and perhaps
>>> as Kozulin speculates, was one reason he was fascinated with Hamlet.
>>> Robert Lake
>>>
>>> On Sat, Nov 5, 2011 at 9:25 AM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net <mailto:
>>> ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:
>>>
>>>    In this same essay, Dewey is insistent that an experience is not
>>>    composed of components which are respectively practical, emotional
>>>    and intellectual, but these adjectives (he says) only arise in
>>>    subsequent discourse about experience, when we interpret
>>>    experience. An experience is essentially an irreducibly all of
>>>    these things, and in his view any attempt to seaprate out an
>>>    emotional component will destory the unity of the experience.
>>>
>>>    And I liked it when Vygotsky said, in Educational Psychology:
>>>    "People with great passions, people who accomplish great deeds,
>>>    people who possess strong feelings, even people with great minds
>>>    and a strong personality, rarely come out of good little boys and
>>>    girls."
>>>
>>>    I think the same goes for "happy little boys and girls."
>>>
>>>    Andy
>>>    Rod Parker-Rees wrote:
>>>
>>>        Hi Larry,
>>>
>>>        I certainly didn't want to suggest that children are (or even
>>>        should be) care-free, only to note that not ALL of their
>>>        experiences (or ours) are  best described as suffering. Your
>>>        post clearly helps to explain why we tend to focus more on
>>>        distressing experiences, since it is these, more than more
>>>        positive ones, which call others into sympathetic action so
>>>        they are more note-worthy. An unusually happy child is not
>>>        likely to have a teaching assistant allocated to provide
>>>        special support, nor to be seen by an educational psychologist
>>>        but this does not mean that we should understand experience as
>>>        suffering.
>>>
>>>        There is another can of worms around the relationships between
>>>        emotions and the development of individualised identity but
>>>        that may be for another thread!
>>>
>>>        All the best,
>>>
>>>        Rod
>>>
>>>        -----Original Message-----
>>>        From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
>>>        <mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.**ucsd.edu<xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu>
>>> >
>>>        [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.**ucsd.edu<xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu>
>>>        <mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.**ucsd.edu<xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu>>]
>>> On Behalf Of Larry Purss
>>>        Sent: 05 November 2011 12:46
>>>        To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
>>>        Subject: [xmca] Notions of suffering, enduring, undergoing
>>>
>>>        Hi Rod and Andy
>>>
>>>        Andy
>>>        Thank you for the article on Dewey.  I thougt that article
>>>        should remain the focus of that thread, but the question of
>>>        the centrality of suffering to experience is also worth exploring.
>>>
>>>        Rod, you wrote
>>>
>>>         I am intrigued by the focus here, as in many of the postings
>>>        on perezhivanie, on experience as 'suffering'. The etymology
>>>        of 'suffer' (from 'sub' - under and 'ferre' - to bear) makes
>>>        it a close cousin of 'undergo'
>>>        and it is, I think, interesting that both terms have been used
>>>        in ways which have moved their meaning towards the dark side.
>>>
>>>        Rod, you caution us not to impose our care-worn adult
>>>        sufferings onto the experience of children who are more "care
>>>        free".
>>>
>>>        In my work in schools I am called to respond to children who
>>>        are experiencing what I will call "foul frustration" as an
>>>        experience of what is not working.  This experience is often
>>>        expressed as anger that is a passionate response to what is
>>>        not working.  Infants also seem to express e-motions that may
>>>        be understood as frustration for what is not working.
>>>
>>>        A developmental psychologist in Vancouver [Gordon Neufeld]
>>>        sees development as biological and innate. Though his origin
>>>        narrative I don't agree with, he does have an interesting
>>>        perspective on how to respond to a childs foul frustration for
>>>        what is not working.
>>>
>>>        He believes that a person must come to a place of "rest"
>>>        before going in a new direction.  What is sometimes needed to
>>>        move frustration from anger to experiencing saddness are for
>>>        what is not working are "tears of futility".
>>>        He suggests that these tears of futility are expressed within
>>>        particular types of relational configurations that are safe,
>>>        secure, and "attached".
>>>
>>>        When the tears of futility are met and "held" by the other
>>>        this releases the frustration for what is not working and the
>>>        child can lean into the other person and come to rest.  Often
>>>        the child at this point is exhausted.  However, after coming
>>>        to rest the child is now moved to exploration of the world and
>>>        is care free and open to new experiences.
>>>
>>>        This idea of expressing "tears of futility" for what is not
>>>        working [foul frustration] within intersubjective forms of
>>>        caring and "holding" gives me a way to respond to expressions
>>>        of "anger".  Suffering or enduring or undergoing can sometimes
>>>        be an experienceof stuckness in patterns that are not working.
>>>
>>>        In summary
>>>
>>>        The ideal is for children to be care free but frustration is
>>>        an inevitable aspect of becoming and e*motion.  If not met and
>>>        "held" by others this frustration can lead to a stuckness that
>>>        must be endured, and undergone.
>>>        It is others who are central in channeling the path of
>>>        frustration for what is not working.  Now I want to emphasize
>>>        it is not "merely" intersubjective as the artifactual "worlds"
>>>         mediating experience are the conditions which lead to
>>>        frustration or being care free. Focusing on changing the
>>>        conditions that lead to the frustration is also a central
>>>        project but frustration is inevitable and unavoidable. When
>>>        undergoing foul frustration how one is met within this
>>>        experience is vital for how the child goes on.
>>>
>>>
>>>        Larry
>>>        Larry
>>>        ______________________________**____________
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>>>
>>>
>>>    -- ------------------------------**------------------------------**
>>> ------------
>>>    *Andy Blunden*
>>>    Joint Editor MCA: http://www.tandfonline.com/**toc/hmca20/18/1<http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/hmca20/18/1>
>>>    Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/ <http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy/
>>> **>
>>>    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>
>>> >
>>>
>>>    ______________________________**____________
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>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> *Robert Lake  Ed.D.
>>> *Assistant Professor
>>> Social Foundations of Education
>>> Dept. of Curriculum, Foundations, and Reading
>>> Georgia Southern University
>>> P. O. Box 8144
>>> Phone: (912) 478-5125
>>> Fax: (912) 478-5382
>>> Statesboro, GA  30460
>>>
>>>  /Democracy must be born anew in every generation, and education is its
>>> midwife./
>>> /-/John Dewey.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> -- ------------------------------**------------------------------**
>> ------------
>> *Andy Blunden*
>> Joint Editor MCA: http://www.tandfonline.com/**toc/hmca20/18/1<http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/hmca20/18/1>
>> 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>
>>
>> ______________________________**____________
>> _____
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>>
>>
> 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)
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-- 
*Robert Lake  Ed.D.
*Assistant Professor
Social Foundations of Education
Dept. of Curriculum, Foundations, and Reading
Georgia Southern University
P. O. Box 8144
Phone: (912) 478-5125
Fax: (912) 478-5382
Statesboro, GA  30460

 *Democracy must be born anew in every generation, and education is its
midwife.*
*-*John Dewey.
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