> Nate, can you unpack for the illiterate/ignorant what makes consciousness
> false (as if there were a 'true' state of consciousness)? I understand
the
> struggle over appropriating/not appropriating bourgeois tools; I can get
> worried about losing a desire to work against the institutional grain.
But I
> can't get worried about losing consciousness, since I can't imagine
either
> not being conscious or not being blinded by rationality. I think that has
> hindered my take-up of Marxism generally.
>
I was using "false consciousness" somewhat inappropriately, but
intentionally. I understand the Marxian idea of false consciousness, but
was referring to how in the literature or reasoning the "true
consciousness" seems to be middleclass. So, implicitly or explicitly the
true consciousness is a middle class one. Our notion of normal, eternal,
universal tends to be one that is middleclass and therefore the end point
of development or rationality.
I don't think, I, nor the illiterate/ignorant has a false consciousness,
but implicitly or explicitly this seems to be the assumption not only in
the Marxian sense but the bourgeois one. I think what Paul points to is
important,
"It would seem that children's experiences of class distinctions and
formation of a concept of these would constitute
an interesting space to study internalization. Since Vygotsky clearly
intended that cognition and motivation be treated as parts of holistic
(grin) mental development it seems that these issues might have surfaced
somewhere in the studies of child development."
The question for me being how that internalization would be thought about.
It seems such an approach from one whose subjectivity is middleclass would
be very different than one coming from a working class subjectivity. It is
here I find Walkerdine so very useful, an approach to research and
subjectivity in which the left; Marxism, cultural studies etc. thought it
was their business to save. Her critique of the left could be seen very
easily as a subjectivity of false consciousness and maybe it is in some
ways. Yet, I find the notion of a false consciousness very dangerous (again
not only the Marxian notion).
My reference to losing consciouness was cryptic I suppose, but a
questioning of progressive assumptions about education. The child's
interests and needs serving to mystify middle class "consciousness" through
talk of constructing, child centeredness etc. Like critiques of "civil
society" it can be a very deceptive approach to education where those
outside the middleclass .
ideal are normalized.
We seem to be willing to discuss the multiplicity of ethnicity and culture
with some materiality in CHAT perspectives, but are less likely to
incorporate class into this perspective. One example, in a class awhile
back we were talking about ebonics and their seemed to be a consensus that
a child's home language, discourse, dialect should be valued but they also
need access to the language of power. Class got brought into the
discussion and the whole dynamics changed. Should we approach the dialect
of the southern student or the rural student in the same way. Is there
something differnt involved here. Can "working class" be seen in a
cultural way as in having community, needs, dreams etc. or is it solely
"false", "negative" or in opposition to the middleclass. Is "working class"
simply an identity without content a product or construction of "civil
society" or is there something more.
Nate