Hi Eric-- I see nothing inappropriate about displaying emotion in posting
to xmca or living life in general. It was the form that your message took
that worried me because I thought you might be discouraging participation
of someone who was taking a change and trying out a thought-- a form of
participation which I personally highly value.
I am curious about your comment on Vygotsky criticizing Luria. Luria
began his career heavily involved with psychoanalysis and when the
revolution came along, did what many other attempted to do, which was to
reconcile marx and freud. In so far as I understand "Crisis" Vygotsky
was deeply sceptical about this sort of move, which many others were making.
Why shouldn't he make critical comments? Should he have left them to voloshinov?
And to what aspect of the times do you ascribe this behavior? I would call
your attention to a quite different critical interchange-- that between
brian street and jack goody. Goody, who was Street's mentor, has been roundly
and repeatedly criticized by his former student in a manner that I find has
both merit and problems in it. Should
Street have refrained from being critical? Do we want to attribute his
criticism to the times? To British academic discourse? To the actual ideas
that each held? To the relative merits (from our perspectives) to their
arguments.
Maybe its my age (I got a senior discount when having my car washed today)
but the older I get, the more I want to stop and pause and look around
before jumping to conclusions. "Don't just do something, sit there" said
Budha, is a saying I often reflect on. Being an ahistorical impetuous
American its tough advice to follow, even when appropriate.
As I write, hundreds of thousands of refugees are fadcing starvation between
Afghanastan and Pakistan, two countries that weren't very well off before
the latest round of conflict. Somehow, that situation is more on my mind
than academic one-up-person-ship these days.
mike
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