Hey, finally someone posts things more provocative then I do. So I'll show
some comradely. Seriously, however, I think that Humberto's post address
the core of Vygotsky's theory.
Humberto discusses how social theory changes social life. Basically, there
are two approaches. Approach one is very logical, very anti-Vygostskian,
and consequently very wrong. I think that this approach is not worth
discussing or mentioning. The second approach is very different. It looks
on theories as tools and asks the question of who may need this tool and
what goals can this tool makes possible to achieve. It is hard to argue
that women becoming a workforce have brought with them lower wages. From
this point of view feminism is really a tool to lower wages. I think
Humberto's point has value. Interestingly though, that this view says
nothing about how true, moral, good, right, whatever, feminism is
(unfortunately, this distances me from Humberto because I hear value
statements in his manifesto). A tool is very different from the material it
works on; consequently, a theory doesn't have to be true to the social
world. Look at psychoanalysis or behaviorism (come to my presentation at
SRAD in NY to discuss it further) as perfect examples how two crazy
theories reformed social life.
PS. For those who are still interested. The first approach… An example. A
well known researcher (like M. Cole) bought a computer and found a strong
correlation between level of pollution in a child's hometown and college
grades and suggested, basing in this finding, to supply all daycares with
older cars so they keep their engines running the whole days. The basic
assumption in this example is that, the theory, knowledge (the correlation)
is real and relationship is direct. A running engine in a daycare room does
cure the problem of clean air.
Matvey Sokolovsky
_____________________________________________
NetZero - Defenders of the Free World
Click here for FREE Internet Access and Email
http://www.netzero.net/download/index.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jun 01 2000 - 01:01:11 PDT