Wow. Thanks Peter for provoking my interest in this article. I had noted it
when it arrived, but I'll make sure to read it asap.
I have to say that i am uncomfortable with the kind of thinking and writing
that you described. For example, while Vygotsky could be held as the kind of
genius Einstein was, one does not find folks saying so much they know what
Einstein "said and believed" to the condescension of others. Quite to the
contrary, it is expected to go beyond Einstein in our understanding -- he may
have been a genius, but he was still only a human. And there are now better
reformulations of Einstein's core ideas than what Einstein developed. We can
and do still admire Einstein for his contributions.
But so, is this kind of publication the result of making Vygotsky into such an
untouchable icon? Are we suffering the slings and arrows of a codeveloping
hegemonic discourse that attribute legitimacy more to replicating exactly an
individual's ideas than to the problems and the work? If so, it is such a
strange and ironic twist for activity theory research.
bb
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