Re: RE: [xmca] moral life of babies

[Larry Purss <lpurss@shaw.ca>]

Mike 
In my humble opinion, I read Martin's point of view as all mothers and infants interact in reciprocal patterns but it is the cultural and institutional "imaginaries" [Charles Taylor] or cultural representations [Moscovici] that MEDIATE the foundational interactions that require engagement but NOT intentionality.  However, from the very first interactions that ARE COMMUNICATIVE in that the infants actions are not random but are in reciprocal response each culture, institutional family pattern, and each mother IMAGINES [from there cultural frameworks] what the babies responses "MEAN" 
In our cultural context we "imagine" [interpret] the infants motivation as "intentional activity" that is "representing" a "theory of mind" perspective which privileges internal explanations of the infants movements.
The transformation from movement to "activity that is intentional" is a cultural response to a particular HISTORICALLY embedded notion of activity, intentionality, and desire. [Theory of Mind] Other cultural practices interpret [imagine] this reciprocal movement [which is the foundation of all cultural interpretations of MEANING] in vastly different ways.  From the first moments these various cultural responses to reciprocal movement [which is affective and I believe biological] is transformed by how the parents imagine what the infant "intends"  However what I believe Martin and Reddy are suggesting is the centrality of the "other" and the "meaning" of the others imaginal interpretation [which seems like facts within the particular culture] in response to the infants global movement of affective communication.
The concept of "emotions" and there location is also a cultural frame and in our modern conception emotions are located inside the person [like cognitions] This is a cultural and historically constructed concept of emotions BUT the AFFECTIVE reciprocal engagement PRECEDES the "meaning" given to the movement [which becomes activity when meaning is developed culturally] and PRECEDES the conceptual labelling of the movement/meaning with "emotional terms such as anger, jealousy etc. [which are historically constructed cultural labels]
Martin, I hope I've been somewhat accurate in my reading of your position. If I've misread your position I can only give the excuse that each time I read your articles the meaning I extract is MY IMAGINAL INTERPRETATION of your intended meaning.  This is a process that runs parallel to how we "read" babies movement "AS IF" it were activities. With repeated readings of the infants movements as activities the movements BECOME activities for the infant as it incorporates the cultural meanings while interacting with the mother. My engagement with Martin's  text and the mother's engagement with the infant have similar developmental pathways to meaning. They both require "others" imaginal interpretations to tranform  movement to meaning. In this perspective OTHERS and how they "read" and give meaning to communicational acts FORMS or structures the cultural realities in which infants develop. These interpretations are culturally constrained and framed BUT open-ended and NOT DETERMINED.
 
 
That still leaves the question of institutions and there role in development. And the transformation in development as the child moves out of the family "lifeworld" into rationalized institutional contexts and the requirement culturally for the young child to adopt the rationalized conduct expected in modern schools but that's for another post.  Martin's reading of Habermas also gives guidance on how to have schools remain lifeworlds. The fifth dimension and its IMAGINAL wizard and the Golden Key schools with their IMAGINAL return to peasant cultural patterns, or Martin's Willow Run schools with their IMAGINAL ideals of "being a REAL community" are all examples of constructing imaginal lifeworlds that embody real self/other relations.  All these examples represent socially meaniningful attempts to construct lifeworlds [and develop particular kinds of persons] against the tide of the rationalized processes of modernity.
What do others think?
 
Larry
 
 
 
 

----- Original Message -----
From: mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>
Date: Wednesday, May 12, 2010 3:17 pm
Subject: Re: RE: [xmca] moral life of babies
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>

> Rod and Larry -- Finally arriving home after two weeks of 
> hithering and
> dithering.
> 
> Yes, Alan Fogel is very relevant.
> Yes, all of this is central to understanding human communication.
> Question: The pattern Martin describes with Sarah and Jenny 
> (hmmm, i once
> had a little one named Jenny) appears very wide spread among
> American middle class mothers. It appears virtually absent in a 
> lot of
> cultures (Kaluli, Yucatec Maya........). Seems doubtful that the 
> Kaluli or
> the Maya lack imagination or communication. What might be the 
> functionalequivalents?
> mike
> 
> On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 1:02 AM, Rod Parker-Rees <
> R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk> wrote:
> 
> > Hi Larry,
> >
> > I think Reddy's 2nd person model of interaction highlights the 
> fact that we
> > have been distracted by a focus on the thinking aspects of 
> communication so
> > that the feeling aspects have been downplayed or even 
> overlooked altogether.
> > For me 'imagination' has primarily 'thinky' associations but I 
> suspect that
> > it would be a more valuable concept if it was expanded to 
> include the full
> > scope of intuitive, pre-conscious 'gut-feelings' as well as 
> the 'mental
> > imagery' to which it is often reduced (I suspect that you, 
> too, would want a
> > richer meaning for imagination).
> >
> > Another person whose ideas I have found really powerful is 
> Alan Fogel,
> > whose 1993 book 'Developing through relationships: origins of 
> communication,> self and culture' introduced the term 'co-
> regulation' to describe the
> > continuous reciprocity which informs nearly all forms of 
> communication. In
> > adult-baby interactions the adult clearly takes a bigger role in
> > co-regulation but in later forms of communication (e.g. 
> writing a letter or
> > sending a message to a discussion group) the co-regulating 
> partner/s may be
> > imagined or internalised models of how other people might be 
> imagined to
> > react/respond. You are never alone with a culture.
> >
> > All the best,
> >
> > Rod
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-
> bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On
> > Behalf Of Larry Purss
> > Sent: 11 May 2010 17:56
> > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> > Subject: Re: RE: [xmca] moral life of babies
> >
> > Hi  Rod, and Martin.
> >
> > Martin, can you give us more details on when your new book 
> will be
> > published.?
> > Mike Cole mentioned he has a lot of sympathy about the notions of
> > "reciprocity" and Martin's 2 articles definitely put 
> reciprocity at the
> > center of development.
> > Martin asked us "What do you think? and my answer is that this 
> topic is
> > foundational for understanding "communication" and our notions 
> of what that
> > term "means"
> > I want to respond to a specific point in Martin's masters 
> thesis [1983]  On
> > page 28 he describes an interaction between Jenny and Sarah 
> [mother] and
> > their interaction of smiling and sticking out their tongues. 
> Martin says
> > several aspects of this interaction stand out as striking.
> > 1)Sarah TAKES Jenny's actions AS IF they are manifesting 
> "intentions"> though this clearly goes BEYOND Jenny's actual 
> capabilities to form
> > intentions.[interpretive]
> > 2) Sarah talks AS THOUGH Jenny is issuing an invitation to "play"
> > [interpretive] though this is a CONCEPT Jenny cannot yet possess.
> > 3)Sarah TAKES subsequent tonguings AS THOUGH they are part of 
> A DIALOGUE
> > [interpretive]
> > 4) Two of Sarah's comments to Jenny make SENSE IF ONE IMAGINES an
> > intervening reply by Jenny [To me the term "imagine" is 
> central to Martin's
> > notion of communication.
> >
> > At the heart of what Martin is trying to explicate is the 
> centrality of
> > IMAGINATION to the process of interpretation within a 
> RECIPROCAL INTER
> > actional pattern of activity [could it also be called 
> "motivation"]  It
> > depends on how you differentiate motivation from activity.
> > The other central notion being pointed out by Martin is that this
> > communicational pattern is ALWAYS OPEN-ENDED and that 
> "motivation/intention"> is ALWAYS being reciprocally NEGOTIATED 
> in patterns of ENGAGEMENT [response
> > and withdrawal]
> >
> > Rod I believe Reddy's dialogical 2nd person account of reciprocal
> > communication is narrating an account of communication that 
> has many
> > parallels with Martin's reciprocal account of the foundations of
> > communication.
> > Martin, that's what I think at the moment
> >
> > Larry
> >
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: Rod Parker-Rees <R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk>
> > Date: Tuesday, May 11, 2010 1:09 am
> > Subject: RE: [xmca] moral life of babies
> > To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> >
> > > Thanks for this Martin,
> > >
> > > The image that came to mind reading your last sentence was of
> > > surfing - the child is caught by the wave of an existing culture
> > > and swept along with the cultural practices going on around her
> > > but it doesn't take long before she is kneeling on her board and
> > > then standing up and then carving the wave (I have no personal
> > > experience of surfing on actual water!). What may be missing
> > > from this analogy, however, is the active concern by certain,
> > > local, familiar parts of the wave to keep her afloat.
> > >
> > > All the best,
> > >
> > > Rod
> > >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-
> > > bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Martin Packer
> > > Sent: 08 May 2010 21:16
> > > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> > > Subject: Re: [xmca] moral life of babies
> > >
> > > Mike has added several names to the list of infancy researchers
> > > whose work we need to consider, and I haven't even finished yet
> > > with Jean Mandler! Then there are my messages to David about T&L
> > > that still need to be completed. So I need to play for time, and
> > > to do so I'm attaching yet another 'young' publication, the
> > > longitudinal case-study of infant-mother interaction that was
> > > accepted as a masters thesis by UCBerkeley, on the condition
> > > that I considered it to be officially a failure.
> > >
> > > It's written with youthful arrogance (especially the title!),
> > > and with too phenomenological a turn of phrase at times. But
> > > perhaps people on the list can get their teeth into it and tear
> > > off the bits that have little value, and we'll see what's left.
> > > Without having read a word of Vygotsky at the time I proposed
> > > that "It is possible, perhaps even likely, that it is by
> > > observing the effects on others of our utterances that we
> > > discover our own intentions, make them conscious, and hence are
> > > able to act more deliberately in the future." And I 
> suggested that:
> > >
> > > "There is a level of shared meanings that is constantly referred
> > > to, and constantly developed; and so the infant's schemes will
> > > inevitably take a form that depends not only on her bodily
> > > structure (the basis of knowledge for Piaget) but which also
> > > reflects the norms, values, expectations, and roles - in short,
> > > the practices - of the society she is born into. These social
> > > meanings are at first not represented, but simply lived; the
> > > infant's bodily dispositions will reflect and express them 
> in an
> > > unreflective, preconscious fashion. The 'task', so to speak, for
> > > the adults who interact with the infant is to make available to
> > > her the shared meanings of their society by making them relevant
> > > to her own interests and needs, at the same time redirecting
> > > those interests into more mature forms. The child is 
> involved in
> > > communication from birth. Her task is not to learn how to begin
> > > to communicate, but to learn how to gain mastery of what she is
> > > doing already."
> > >
> > > What do you think?
> > >
> > > Martin
> > > _______________________________________________
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