[xmca] Hedegaard Article

[David Kellogg <vaughndogblack@yahoo.com>]

Achilles!
 
Sorry to change the subject line. I think it is time for these threads to start to join and transform each other. And I think that the point you make about the differentiation of lines of development in the Crisis at Seven is a strategic move in that direction.
 
Differentiation of the lines of development on the one hand, and differentiation of the lines of development from the forms of mental life which they call into being is EXACTLY the right move here. And I think this is EXACTLY what is wrong with Andy's writing on this text.  
 



if (typeof YAHOO == "undefined") {
 var YAHOO = {};
}
YAHOO.Shortcuts = YAHOO.Shortcuts || {};
YAHOO.Shortcuts.hasSensitiveText = false;
YAHOO.Shortcuts.sensitivityType = [];
YAHOO.Shortcuts.doUlt = false;
YAHOO.Shortcuts.location = "us";
YAHOO.Shortcuts.document_id = 0;
YAHOO.Shortcuts.document_type = "";
YAHOO.Shortcuts.document_title = "Re: [xmca] Microcosm and Unit";
YAHOO.Shortcuts.document_publish_date = "";
YAHOO.Shortcuts.document_author = "ablunden@mira.net";
YAHOO.Shortcuts.document_url = "";
YAHOO.Shortcuts.document_tags = "";
YAHOO.Shortcuts.document_language = "english";
YAHOO.Shortcuts.annotationSet = {
"lw_1235805707_0": {
"text": "http://marx.org/archive/vygotsky/works/comment/vygotsky-on-development.pdf";,
"extended": 0,
"startchar": 100,
"endchar": 173,
"start": 100,
"end": 173,
"extendedFrom": "",
"predictedCategory": "",
"predictionProbability": "0",
"weight": 1,
"relScore": 0,
"type": ["shortcuts:/us/instance/identifier/hyperlink/http"],
"category": ["IDENTIFIER"],
"wikiId": "",
"relatedWikiIds": [],
"relatedEntities": [],
"showOnClick": [],
"context": "http://marx.org/archive/vygotsky/works/comment/vygotsky-on-development.pdf  David Kellogg wrote: \u003e Have you got it on the web",
"metaData": {
"linkHref": "http://marx.org/archive/vygotsky/works/comment/vygotsky-on-development.pdf";,
"linkProtocol": "http",
"linkTarget": "_blank",
"visible": "true"
}
 },
"lw_1235805707_1": {
"text": "David Kellogg",
"extended": 0,
"startchar": 186,
"endchar": 198,
"start": 186,
"end": 198,
"extendedFrom": "",
"predictedCategory": "",
"predictionProbability": "0",
"weight": 0.303982,
"relScore": 5.05474,
"type": ["shortcuts:/us/tag/other/wiki"],
"category": ["WIKI"],
"wikiId": "David_Kellogg",
"relatedWikiIds": [],
"relatedEntities": [],
"showOnClick": [],
"context": "http://marx.org/archive/vygotsky/works/comment/vygotsky-on-development.pdf  David Kellogg wrote: \u003e Have you got it on the web somewhere? \u003e  At",
"metaData": {
"visible": "true"
}
 }
};
YAHOO.Shortcuts.headerID = "731b218df69ed87de46020a446714e12";

http://marx.org/archive/vygotsky/works/comment/vygotsky-on-development.pdf


I see the same problem arising in the Hedegaard article, where the five year old, Jens, is analyzed as if he were a seven year old (it's possible, but as I suggested, there are alternative interpretations that seem more consistent with the data as given). 
 
This happens because Jens WORDS and his THINKING are not sufficiently diferentiated. Compare this to Chapter Five of Thinking and Speech, where complexes and concepts are functionally identical as words but structurally and genetically different as thinking processes.
 
Every period of development discussed in Vygotsky's unfinished "Child Development" after the Crisis at One (Early Childhood, The Crisis at Three, Adolescence) is differentiated. In fact, it's differentiated in TWO ways.
 
TIME: First, there are pre-crisis, crisis, and post-crisis periods. This is true even with very SHORT crises, like birth. The pre-crisis period corresponds to an attempt by the central neoformation to seize power in the social situation of development. The crisis corresponds to the necessarily destructive (or limiting) failure of this precocious, subjectivist, ADVENTURIST attempt. And the post-crisis period corresponds to a moment of retrenchment which makes it possible for the next period of more gradual construction to resume.
 
LINE OF DEVELOPMENT: As you say, the crisis touches not one line of development but many. You suggest:
 
(a) personality and environment... (unit: perezhivanie)
(b) thinking and speech... (unit: word meaning)
(c) psychic development and physics development (...?...)

I would suggest some the following, but this reflects my rather linguistic bent:
 
a) material processes
b) verbal processes
c) mental processes
 
I think where I differ with you is that I see analysis into units as referring not to the lines of development but to the central neoformation, that is, the form of mental life that corresponds to the given developmental period.
 
That is why Vygotsky uses "word meaning": in word meaning, we find both imitation and generalization, both social interaction and thinking. These are aspects of mental life, and are not necessarily found in the material processes which are so important in earlier periods of development, which I would characterize as "pre-conscious".
 
I think that it is probably a mistake to try to use the same unit of analysis for pre-conscious and for conscious development. The two HAVE to be qualitatively different. That is where I disagree with Andy and Nikolai.
 
David Kellogg
Seoul National University of Development
 


      
_______________________________________________
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca