Re: [xmca] Historical transformations, the body, and feeling whole (again?)

[Christine Schweighart <schweighartc@gmail.com>]

Hi Larry,
For some time I have had the notion that expression appears first , within
dialogue- and significance and later meaning coalesce around  situated
gestures - after. I think this leaves open an account which encompasses the
really unexpected events that can happen in workshops - or seminar settings
- especially when modelling is part of the activity. Modelling for
understanding, rather than explanation.
 Best, Christine.

On Sun, Jan 29, 2012 at 5:59 PM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:

> Greg
> The question of "feeling whole"  or "grounded" seems intimately connected
> to historical ways of orienting to emotions. Bahktin's insights that words,
> language, and feelings are only half ours is a fundamental re-orientation
> of perspective to how we see emotions NOT as PREVIOUS to expression
> but rather  embodiment WITHIN  expression.
> Philosophical hermeneutics is also engaging with this dialogical
> re-orientation which explores this alternative perspective that
> "expression IS feeling" rather than "expression OF feeling" as if feeling
> is an entity or essence or some "thing"  which exists prior TO expression.
>
> Science, as orienting to PREVIOUS causes [as reasons for] has a bias to
> search for "causes" prior to expression. This bias searches for "causes" of
> "behavior" while hermeneutical descriptions explore "conduct" as
> expressions that are half ours and half others.  Conduct from this
> perspective requires RESPONSE which is NOT DETERMINED IN ADVANCE
> [antecedent determination is a behavior interpretation] but rather response
> is the expressive moment or "creative act" developed within the "gaps"
> existing BETWEEN others expressions and our response [as conduct]
> I would also draw attention to the centrality of "gestures" to ongoing
> feelings within communication.  It has been stated that approximately one
> third of our brain is devoted to "facial recognition" [see Mike Cole's
> article on saccadic eye movements].  Facial recognition therefore must be
> central to ongoing "primary" intersubjectivity prior to language
> acquisition.  Images are FORMED within the gaps of saccadic eye movements
> prior to language acquisition.  Language use within ontogenetic
> development constitutes "hybrid" personalities which  develop
>  within biological and cultural processes and imaginal processes transform
> as language is aquired.  However, the dialogical "conduct" ["creative acts"
> expressed within conduct] remain dialogical.  Science as one "type" of
> conduct develops more "distanciation" and therefore the ability for
> elaborate "re-presentations" of previously expressed emotionally vital
> conduct [half ours and half others] and therefore allows for "types" of
> self-mastery and self-assertion. However re-presentation is NOT reality
> [res= things] and mistaking re-presentation and labelling it "behavior" is
> a category mistake that confuses "actuality as conduct" with "behavior as
> re-presentation" and then EXPLAINS this "behavior" in antecedent terms.
>
> Greg, as I understand your thread, we are at a turning point in our
> "devotion to scientism" [as theory and models; not as techne]
> David K reminds me of the central "good" of science in understanding our
> place in the world.  I fully agree that science "as techne" is central to
> development.  However, I'm suggesting that when science as
> techne colonizes theory and practical wisdom then the models or metaphors
> which generate imaginal ways of understanding our sociality become
> one-sided. Particular personality or character stances in the world which
> negate our primary dialogical embeddedness with others lead to notions of
> "behavior" as expressions OF our pre-existing  individual feelings rather
> than feelings as emerging and coming INTO existence as "creative acts".
>
> Larry
> On Sun, Jan 29, 2012 at 8:26 AM, Greg Thompson <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com
> >wrote:
>
> > Yes, your post suggests a further direction that I didn't adequately
> attend
> > to in my previous post. Applying Bakhtin's insights about words and
> > language to the study of feelings, we could say that our feelings are
> only
> > half ours; they are shot through with the intentions of others (i.e.
> > peoples and times and places).
> >
> > -greg
> >
> > On Sun, Jan 29, 2012 at 1:04 AM, Elinami Swai <swaiev@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Hi Greg.
> > >
> > > I read your post with interest because for many years I have been
> > thinking
> > > about feeling and how we have come to interpret it, or how someone else
> > can
> > > interpret another’s feeling. Especially now, feeling has come to be
> > linked
> > > with one’s gender, race, class, or age, and therefore, has become
> > > subjective, not real. We have come to isolate ourselves from feeling,
> and
> > > if one feels at all, should find some expert to interpret it, not the
> > > ‘object’ of that feeling (which can be anything from oppression,
> illness
> > to
> > > death) but the feeling itself. So, I agree, we have reduced feeling to
> a
> > > symptom of something else. We shun from feeling. I have not read
> Illich,
> > > but I have always struggled to understand why we have failed to relate
> > the
> > > feeling with its ‘object (s).’ This failure, I tend to think, impedes
> us
> > > from understanding or trying to make sense of, or discourse about many
> > > sources that create misery in human life.
> > >
> > >
> > > Elinami
> > >
> > >
> > > On Sun, Jan 29, 2012 at 8:43 AM, Greg Thompson <
> > greg.a.thompson@gmail.com
> > > >wrote:
> > >
> > > > So I came across this interesting little bit about writing history in
> > an
> > > > essay by Ivan Illich:
> > > >
> > > > "The art of the historian consists in the interpretation of traces
> and
> > > > texts of those long dead. In
> > > > the course of my life as a medieval historian, something has
> > > fundamentally
> > > > changed in this task.
> > > > Before a recent radical transformation - roughly, in actio and
> passio -
> > > it
> > > > was possible for the
> > > > exegete to relate substantives and verbs to activities and things
> that
> > > lie
> > > > within the circumference of
> > > > his own sensed experience. After this radical transformation, that
> > > capacity
> > > > is lost. This watershed,
> > > > separating the historian from his object, becomes particularly clear
> > when
> > > > the experienced body is
> > > > the subject of historical writing. Dr. Barbara Duden presents this
> > > > convincingly in reference to body
> > > > history of the experience of pregnancy. I myself am made dizzy. How
> > > deeply
> > > > the ways of speaking
> > > > and experiencing have been altered in the last two decades!"
> > > > (from Illich's "Health as one's own responsibility. No!").
> > > >
> > > > I thought that this touches interestingly on recent questions about
> > > > historical transformations, mediation, and ties them to matters of
> the
> > > body
> > > > and feeling. This transformation that he seems to be talking about
> is a
> > > > transformation into a hyper scientific-rational (someone, please, a
> > > better
> > > > term?!) way of understanding the world, and, of course, one's body
> as a
> > > > part of that world. I took a look at what I could find of Duden's
> 1993
> > > > book, Disembodying Women: Perspectives on Pregnancy and the Unborn,
> and
> > > > found it a fascinating premise - that women experience pregnancy
> > > > differently (and more distantly) now then they used to.
> > > >
> > > > I wonder if Illich's timeline may be off by a little, two decades
> > hardly
> > > > seems like enough time for such a transformation, but maybe as part
> of
> > > > something larger and on a longer timescale.
> > > >
> > > > Anyway, Illich's main point is that the current discourse of health
> (as
> > > of
> > > > 1994, but surely true today) alienates people from their bodies, from
> > > > death, and thus from life itself. And I happen to be reading a short
> > > story
> > > > right now about the Death of the other Ivan Illych (by Leo Tolstoy)
> and
> > > it
> > > > seems that this is also precisely Tolstoy's point - that Illych is
> > faced
> > > > with thinking about life and the possibility that his life, which had
> > > been
> > > > lived "*comme il faut,*" may not have been the proper way to live
> when
> > > one
> > > > truly confronts the reality of death. But whenever his thoughts turn
> to
> > > > this possibility, Illych avoids it by focusing his efforts on the ill
> > > > performing organ, possibly a floating kidney. His doctors also treat
> > him
> > > > primarily as an organism, as a puzzle, and not at all as a man that
> is
> > > > going to die.
> > > >
> > > > I won't tell you how it ends, but I do wonder about the problem of
> > > > *feeling*and what all this means for discourses of
> > > > *feeling*. have we (i.e., the social sciences) lost feeling to
> > scientific
> > > > discourses such that our feelings are no longer experienced as *felt*
> > but
> > > > rather as mere "symptoms" of some underlying (i.e. "more real")
> > physical
> > > > reality ("I'm sad today - must be because my dopamine levels are
> low").
> > > >
> > > > How to take feelings back from reductionist science and make
> ourselves
> > > > whole once more?
> > > >
> > > > -greg
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
> > > > Sanford I. Berman Post-Doctoral Scholar
> > > > Department of Communication
> > > > University of California, San Diego
> > > > __________________________________________
> > > > _____
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> > > > xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
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> > > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > Dr. Elinami Swai
> > > Senior Lecturer,
> > > School of Curriculum and Teacher Education
> > > College of Education
> > > University of Dodoma
> > > P.O.Box 523
> > > Dodoma
> > > Tel: 225-26-2310002
> > > Fax: 255-26-2310005
> > > Cell: (255) 065-322-8353; (255) 076-722-8353; (255) 078-722-8353
> > >
> > >
> >
> http://www.odyssey360.com/books/beyond-womens-empowerment-africa-elinami-veraeli-swai--exploring-dislocation-books/9780230102484
> > >        ...this faith will still deliver
> > >        If you live it first to last
> > >        Not everything which blooms must
> > >        wither.
> > >        Not all that was is past
> > > __________________________________________
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> > >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
> > Sanford I. Berman Post-Doctoral Scholar
> > Department of Communication
> > University of California, San Diego
> > __________________________________________
> > _____
> > xmca mailing list
> > xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> > http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >
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