On the one hand, yes, there is something quite wonderful and revolutionary
about the dialectical, or just dynamical notion that to study something you
have to do more than just observe it, you have to ...
and here the nuance seems to matter a lot, so consider some alternative
formulations:
... manipulate it = the classical experimental method
... interact with it = the new ontology-epistemology of post-quantum science
... co-participate with it in larger scale activities = the social science
version of 'interact with it'
... work to change it for the better = the modernist progressivist ideal
but as Diane notes, this last one, which is shared by Marx and Levin, Dewey
and Vygotsky, does still have a lot in common with the first one, which is
subject to the critique that it represents the Faustian extreme in
modernism ... i.e. a sort of patriarchal, control-oriented,
invade-dominate-manipulate view that is dangerous enough when directed
toward inanimate matter (historically it was largely driven by weapons
development of one sort or another), contrary to a lot of moral principles
when directed toward "humans like me" (but not when it's toward "humans not
like me and so in need of improvement"), yet strangely morally imperative
in modernism when directed with good intentions toward social systems
(pro-social engineering), and most recently determined to be dangerous
again when directed toward complex ecosystems that we (a) don't understand
well enough to safely manipulate, and/or (b) have no right to manipulate in
our narrow species interest (with -a- and -b- interdependent in rather
interesting ways).
So there is perhaps good reason to pause and reflect on the fine
distinction between the Faustian side of progressivism, with its
invader-dominator mentality, vs. the inevitability of interactionism (or
relationalism in the social sphere) with its moral potential for taking
responsibility for the problems of systems we participate in and cannot
help but change or not change depending on our choices.
On the epistemological side, we can safely say, I think, that we learn
about our relationships to people and things through our co-participation
with them in activity. But is it also necessary, or even necessarily
desirable that we take an initiating or active-agentive role in this
participation in order to learn? that we push and probe? at this point I
think I detect a definite cultural bias, and within it perhaps a gender
bias, that goes beyond an inevitable fact about learning (i.e.
co-participation).
On the moral side, accepting responsibility for our participation also
seems safe, but I have always thought that the moral condition for more
active agency (i.e. pursuing an agenda) is at least vulnerability to the
consequences of our actions. When we seek to act so that "it" or "the
other" is changed, but we are not, we are both deluded (because we cannot
act on something/one but only act within some system/relation that joins us
together), and also morally ill-intending because we seek to escape
vulnerability and therefore to come to a position of being able to control
without limit, without risk or hindrance by consequences ... i.e. to
achieve an absolute position of power which corrupts absolutely.
Perhaps in some such terms as these we can re-examine not only the various
versions (in context) of what Marx, Levin, Dewey, Vygotsky, or Mao said and
did, but what we ourselves do ... as educators, as researchers, as social
activists, as parents, etc ....
JAY.
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JAY L. LEMKE
PROFESSOR OF EDUCATION
CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
JLLBC who-is-at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
<http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/education/jlemke/index.htm>
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