Dear Ana--
Now, after reading Steve's analysis, I see where you might come from. I agree with Steve and you that the title of the critque is unnecessary sarcastic that indeed communicates negativity and agressivity.
As to to the issue of "upbrining new Soveit men", I'm not sure how much Vygotsky and Luria committed to this political agenda if at all (I'd like to hear from Mike what was cut from Luria's book). I could not find any place in Vygotsky-Luria work suggesting this political agenda. It is important to remember, that Stalinist propaganda machine severely criticized Luria-Vygotsky study. Someone could use their study for this politcal purpose, but nobody seemed to do.
I think a discussion between psychological tools mediating higher psychological functions and material tools meditating subject-object relations can interesting...
Eugene
----- Original Message -----
From: Ana
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Sent: Monday, April 19, 2004 12:34 AM
Subject: Re: Does no one read [between] Vygotsky's words?
Dear Eugene,
Thank you a lot for the careful reading. I must admit that I did not read their text so carefully and that I reacted more to what seemed to me a s a very negative tone. The reason I "heard" their tone as negative was maybe subjective, or maybe I was very tired from the trip to the conference... I also brought only one point into the picture -- and that was the way how to characterize Vygotky/Luria's research in Uzbekistan and Khirgizia. I absolutely agree with Margaret and Carol that the
the study was a golden opportunity
to test the long-standing and widespread debate among
ethnopsychologists, sociologists, and others as to whether categories
of thinking are universal (the Gestalt view) or whether
primitive and advanced technological cultures produced different
levels of intellectual development (see Luria, 1979; van
der Veer & Valsiner, 1991).
But at the time -- I thought that although this indeed was a golden opportunity to study the change in the intellectual development, it still was a part of the Soviet plan to create a "new citizen".
Anyway, I am very glad that when you found out that I was not right, you also explicitly said that you still love me. It makes it so much easier to reexamine my thoughts and say -- oops!! I was wrong.
In fact -- Margaret's and Carol's article have some very interesting points. One of them the "fact" that it was not Vygotsky who introduced "activity theory", but it were
"Vygotsky's disciples [who]
turned his theory into an activity theory after his death, replacing
the psychological tool as a mediator between objects of
action and mental functions with material activity as the mediator,
and careless scholars attribute activity theory to Vygotsky."
To me it would be interesting to discuss whether people (on this list) today see "activity" as a mediator between "subject" and "object". Or is "activity" something else?
What do you think??
Ana
Eugene Matusov wrote:
Dear Ana and everybody-
I read/reread both articles and found that I agree with much of Margaret
Gredler and Carol Shields' criticism of Michael Glassman. Here are points of
my agreement with Margaret Gredler and Carol Shields (just from their first
page):
1. Michael Glassman wrote, "Dewey would applaud Vygotsky's emphasis on
everyday culture
as the lynchpin of the educational process." (p.4)
Margaret Gredler and Carol Shields disagreed, "... contrary to Glassman's
(2001, p. 3) statements, Vygotsky did not advocate bringing everyday
activities into the classroom or the ways that human activity serves as an
impetus to learning." (p.21)
I agree with Margaret Gredler and Carol Shields. Unlike Dewey, Vygotsky was
rather critical about everyday culture/activities/concepts. I do not know
any place in his writings where Vygotsky argued that "everyday culture" (I'm
not sure I know what Michael Glassman meant by this term - I never read
about it before, not in Vygotsky definitely) is the lynchpin of the
educational process. Did I miss something in Vygotsky?
2. Michael Glassman wrote, "Vygotsky suggests that it is the ability to
develop cooperative activity through complex social relationships that
separates mature humans from all other animals (Vygotsky & Luria, 1993)."
(p.5)
Margaret Gredler and Carol Shields disagreed, "... neither Vygotsky and
Luria (1930/1993) nor Vygotsky's other writings state that cooperative
activity separates humans from all other animals as Glassman (2001, p. 5)
asserts. Instead, "the absence of at least the beginnings of speech . . .
the lack of ability to make a sign or to introduce some auxiliary
psychological means [in problem solving] . . . draws the line between the
ape and the most primitive human being" (Vygotsky & Luria, 1930/1993, p.
73). In another work, Vygotsky (1931/1997f) identifies "signification, that
is, the creation and use of signs" as the unique human behavior that
differentiates humans from animals (p. 55)." (p. 21)
Further in his article, Michael Glassman talked about "tools and symbols" as
being very important for Vygotsky but I agree with Margaret Gredler and
Carol Shields that Michael Glassman's writing is very confusing and even
misleading at times on this issue.
3. Margaret Gredler and Carol Shields wrote, "In addition, Glassman's (2001)
assertions that Vygotsky considered tools as "the means for specific,
culturally approved consequences" (p. 5), believing that "tools and symbols
are used in the service of culturally defined goals" (p. 6),3 and "free
inquiry is . . . eclipsed by culturally significant and appropriate inquiry"
(p. 6) are inaccurate. Vygotsky did not discuss inquiry, and he described
psychological tools as "the means of which we direct and realize the
psychological operations (e.g., memorizing, comparing, selecting) necessary
for the solution of the problem" (Vygotsky, 1997i, p. 86)." (p. 21)
Again, in my view, Margaret and Carol are right.
I can go on and on and on... Actually, I could not find place in Margaret
Gredler and Carol Shields' critique of Michael Glassman that I did not
agree... Did you? Did I miss something?
I did not find Margaret Gredler and Carol Shields' tone angry or aggressive
or negative. They disagreed with Michael Glassman about almost everything (I
actually can add more disagreements with Michael). So what? I did not find
anything disrespectful in their tone. Did I miss something in their tone? (I
like to disagree with people, maybe this is why I do not see anything
offensive in their critical article). Does disagreement mean "negative"? For
me, "negative" means not constructive but I found Margaret Gredler and Carol
Shields being very constructive. I feel that Margaret Gredler and Carol
Shields are respectful to all community, including Michael Glassman, by
bringing supports for their claims and grounding their claims in Michael's
text. What else are they supposed to write? In this message, for example, I
disagree with Ana, but I do not feel to be negative to her, angry with her,
or aggressive to her. I love Ana and respect her a lot and I'd love to hear
what she and the others may say in response even if she and the other people
completely disagree with me. I know that I can be wrong, she can we wrong,
we both can wrong, and so on... But, we work together. I think that Michael
made an interesting attempt to bring Vygotsky and Dewey together. He made
his shot but Margaret and Carol (and I) rejected it by providing their
critique. He may choose to rebuff us and show us wrong - I do not know as
Margaret and Carol, but I'll be happy to admit that I'm wrong if Michael
brings his convincing counter-arguments. It is not necessarily pleasant to
read a critical review, in which the authors completely disagree with you.
But, hey, this is part of our profession: other colleagues can judge our
work as completely right, partially right, or completely wrong. If it is the
latter, although it is unpleasant, I do not find anything negative, angry,
or aggressive in it per se. Again, I may miss something and I'd like what
other people see that makes Margaret Gredler and Carol Shields' (and maybe
even my?) tone objectable.
What do you think?
Eugene
-----Original Message-----
From: ana@zmajcenter.org [mailto:ana@zmajcenter.org]
Sent: Friday, April 16, 2004 8:43 AM
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: Re: Does no one read [between] Vygotsky's words?
Dear Eugene,
I absolutely agree with you. It is dangerous to make conclusions based on
little evidence
and several quotes. I am not sure what was Glassman's point, but to me it
did not seem
contradictory to Luria and Vygotsky's research in the the ways that a
cultural historical
change produce changes in psychological processes. The "golden
opportunity" to study
these processes in a "natural experiment" was, at the same time, enabled
in part by the
Stalinist politics of forcefull collectivisation terror. Does that mean
that you can
automatically align the researchers with the Stalinist political agenda?
No.
However, I was reactineg more to the tone of their debate than to the fine
points they were
making. On the whole, they did not like Glassman's hypothesis that
Vygotsky's ideas can be
related to Dewey's in the way that Glassman did. And they criticised
different aspects of
that comparison in Glassman's work in very forceful language.
Ana
-----Original Message-----
From: Eugene Matusov [mailto:ematusov@udel.edu]
Sent: Friday, April 16, 2004 06:06 AM
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: RE: Does no one read [between] Vygotsky's words?
Dear Ana-
I did not have time to read Gredler and Shields' article (I'm still in
San
Diego) but the quotes that you nicely put together make me agree with
the
authors. It seems to me (and I can be wrong) that one of the issues is a
POLITICAL Soviet context. The rhetoric about "upbringing the New Soviet
person" (ridiculed later by dissidents as "homo Soveticus") was used in
the
early 1930s by Stalinist propaganda. It seems to me that Glassman
dangerously aligned Vygotsky and Luria with the Stalinist propaganda
machine. I'm personally much more comfortable with Gredler and Shields'
formulation (as presented in your quote) than with Glassman's one.
Although
it is well-documented (see Rogoff, 1990) that Luria overlooked the
political
context of his Uzbekistan experiments (i.e., Stalinist collectivization
terror), there is no evidence that Vygotsky and Luria accepted the
Stalinist
call for "upbringing the New Soviet person" as Glassman seems to
suggest.
Knowing Soviet history, Glassman's statements cited below about Vygotsky
and
Luria make me VERY uncomfortable. In contrast, I'm very comfortable with
Gredler and Shields' statement that
Particularly important is that the study was a golden opportunity
to test the long-standing and widespread debate among
ethnopsychologists, sociologists, and others as to whether categories
of thinking are universal (the Gestalt view) or whether
primitive and advanced technological cultures produced different
levels of intellectual development (see Luria, 1979; van
der Veer & Valsiner, 1991).
Sorry if my comments do not make sense because I did not read the
articles
but react only to the short quotes.
What do you think?
Eugene
-----Original Message-----
From: Ana [mailto:ana@zmajcenter.org]
Sent: Thursday, April 15, 2004 3:54 PM
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: Re: Does no one read [between] Vygotsky's words?
Peter, Bill
I went and read the article. One thing is that it is definitively
writen
in a very negative tone, almost angry and very agressive.
The other thing is that they give a lot of referrences one would have
to
check in order to figure out if they have a point they claim to have.
However, in one instance at least, I could see that they don't seem to
understand exactly what they are criticizing. This is the case of the
famous Luria/Vygtsky research on changes introduced by soviet literacy
programs. Here is a quote from their article
****
Glassman (2001, p. 6) cites Vygotsky and Luria (1930/1993) as
the source for his statements that (a) Vygotsky would agree with
Dewey that society has "a vested interest in the development and
maintenance of these [psychological] tools" and (b) Vygotsky
wanted "to use the educational process to teach new members
of the social community how to 'use' important, culturally developed
tools in an effective manner (a top-down/determinate
approach)." In contrast, Vygotsky and Luria (1930/1993) neither
stated nor alluded to such an agenda. The text, which addresses
cognitive development, discusses important landmarks
in the three different paths that account for human behavior-
evolutionary (phylogenetic), historical, and ontogenetic (p. 36).
For example, numeric operations and other early psychological
tools transformed the memory and thinking of primitive peoples.
Also discussed were the authors' experiments on the development
of children's cognitive processes and the cognitive development
of mentally retarded, physically impaired, and gifted
children.
Glassman (2001) then states that the cross-cultural research of
Luria and Vygotsky "hypothesized that the introduction of new
tools by a strong social organization (i.e., the Soviet Union)
would lead to the development of a 'new' type of citizen" (p. 6).
Instead, the hypothesis the researchers actually tested was that
"the structure of psychological processes changes as a function of
history; consciousness does not have a constant, unchanging
structure" [italics added] (Luria, 1971, p. 160). More specifi-
cally, Luria (1976) clearly stated,
We hypothesized that people with a primarily graphic/functional
reflection of reality would show a different mental process from
people with a system of predominantly abstract, verbal, and logical
approach to reality. (p. 18)
Particularly important is that the study was a golden opportunity
to test the long-standing and widespread debate among
ethnopsychologists, sociologists, and others as to whether categories
of thinking are universal (the Gestalt view) or whether
primitive and advanced technological cultures produced different
levels of intellectual development (see Luria, 1979; van
der Veer & Valsiner, 1991).5 Conducted in the remote parts of
the Soviet Union (villages in Uzbekistan and Kirghizia) that
were undergoing rapid socioeconomic change, the study included
two isolated and illiterate groups and three groups with
varying literacy levels and some exposure to technological
change. The 600 interview protocols (van der Veer & Valsiner,
1991, p. 248) indicated that practical activity and concrete
situations
dominated the perception, classification, and reasoning
skills of the nonliterate subjects whereas the others engaged
in categorical, abstract thinking (Luria, 1976, pp. 117-134;
***
It seems to me that what they criticize is something that is not at
all
opposed to what they say "researchers actually tested [...]". And,
that
was their hypothesis that:
"the structure of psychological processes changes as a function of
history; consciousness does not have a constant, unchanging
structure" .
Either they don't understand that the Soviet Imposed literacy program
is
at the same time a historical, social process" or I don't know what
they
want to say.
That is my first impression. No doubt that the article was written in
a
hostile tone, and I am surprised that it was published as such in the
educatinal researcher. Good game is a game where we all build upon
each
other's thinking and research instead of bashing each other. If they
had
very important fine points about the differences between Dewey and
Vygotsky, why not just point that out in a friendly manner??
And of course, I agree with Bill: No one's thinking ought to become a
dogma - Einsten's, Vygotsky's or anyone elses. The point is to keep
moving ahead.
Ana
Bill Barowy wrote:
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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