Re: [xmca] Development of development

[Larry Purss <lpurss@shaw.ca>]

Andy
I've been reading J.M.Bernstein [Recovering the Ethical Life: Jurgen Habermas and the Future of Critical Theory] (1995)
Bernstein explains rationalization processes as focussed on proceduralism. A move from judgements to formal procedures advance rationality because it works against arbritariness.  Insofar as anything is only individual or unique it is mere contingency, and from the perspective of rationality is arbitrary.
The ideal of  instrumental rationality 
How this looks in schools is the institutional requirement to organize our activity through rules that apply universally to all the "members" or "students".  Any unique person can be SUBSTITUTED for another unique person and the rationalization process will implicate the persons as both alike as "students".
In a lifeworld [as I interpret it] one's unique subjectivity is recognized by another unique subjectivity and the resulting intersubjective engagement is open-ended and part of a lifeworld of lived experience. 
The traditional notion of institutionalized rationality includes the economic rationality of the marketplace and the political rationality of the state.  Martin's description of how The Federal government and the state government imposed rationalized structural changes at Willow Run are an example of privileging rational "procedures" of school change in opposition to the development of local unique changes that supported the teachers and community maintaining a dialogical pattern of interaction.
Andy, when I read the Fleer and Hedegaard article their school setting [in Australia] has so many similarities to the schools I work in [in Canada].  The concept of rationalization as proceduralism that constructs settings that are ALIKE  in places as far apart as Australia and Canada [and negates the unique particularism of each situation] is the hallmark of schools as systems.
Now they view development as a revolutionary process as children become "students" who are expected to follow specific procedures and maintain a good "attitude". The transformation in moving from the family "lifeworld" where all the participants are intimately implicated in each others experience as they constantly move throughout the house, into rationalized schools bursts the lifeworld. The resulting "kind of person" that develops in these rationalized contexts acquires an attitude that is "flexible" and "self-contained" and "independent".
Now the question I ask is it possible to mitigate these rationalized procedural ways to structure institutions [and develops rationalized kinds of persons] by supporting relational connections among the persons who are living in these school structures.
There are individual teachers who do create more intimate relational classroom environments, [lifeworlds] but there are also many classrooms where rational proceduralism dominates the relations among the students.
I don't view these various structural ways of relating as only the "background circumstances" in which individuals navigate their individual paths through the school setting.
Rationalized structures create institutions that create particular types of developmental pathways which develop particular "kind of persons".  This may not be the meaning that Habermas tried to articulate, but it is my "reading" as I respond to Martin's use of Habermas's term "lifeworld".
Another term that is relevant to Weber's notion of rationalized procedures is his recognition of "disenchanting the world"  {Berman has written a fascinating book "The Re-enchantment of the World" that is a history of this process} 
Re-enchanting the world is re-recognizing the centrality of the imaginal in lifeworlds and the devaluing the imaginal in rationalized institutions.  Wolfgang Isser {who Martin recommended reading} describes "knowing" as a triangle with the "imaginal" and the "real" being MEDIATED by the FICTIONAL that transforms the imaginal to the real. [Isser was a student of Gadamer]
Andy, I am not well grounded in these traditions [such as hermeneutics] but when I read Martin's linking cultural historical notions with writers such as Isser, H. Whyte, and Gadamer its an area I want to explore further.
 
Larry

----- Original Message -----
From: Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
Date: Friday, May 14, 2010 5:49 pm
Subject: Re: [xmca] Development of development
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>

> Larry, it has long been my view that for Habermas, 
> "lifeworld" functions as a kind of background or resource 
> for the individual actor. Obviously this is not the way 
> Vygotsky sees the situation. I have argued this point here:
> 
> http://home.mira.net/~andy/works/critical-theory-and-psychology.htm
> 
> And perhaps you could explain simply what you mean by 
> "bursting of the capacity of the lifeworld" or should we be 
> asking Martin, or Latour?
> 
> Andy
> 
> 
> Larry Purss wrote:
> > Hi Andy
> > I think I get the difference but as you point out we can 
> engage in a conversation on the characteristics of lifeworlds.
> > Eric
> > Yes this topic goes back to Weber, but it still seems to have 
> relevance to the current article being discussed .
> > 
> > Larry
> > 
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org
> > Date: Friday, May 14, 2010 8:16 am
> > Subject: Re: [xmca] Development of development
> > To: ablunden@mira.net, "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" 
> <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>> 
> >> Hello Larry:
> >>
> >> Thank you for reintroducing this topic, it has a long life 
> and 
> >> glad to see 
> >> it continue.  I can't really comment greatly on 
> Habermas, 
> >> lifeworlds or 
> >> the like.
> >>
> >> Martin:
> >>
> >> the reason for this post is to inquire about the dialectic in 
> >> Habermas' 
> >> writing.  I have just briefly read a few critiques and 
> am 
> >> seeing 
> >> dichotomies between social and individual and am lacking 
> enough 
> >> knowledge 
> >> about Habermas to find the dialectic.  Could you perhaps 
> >> enlighten me on 
> >> this for I have read enough of your writing to know you value 
> >> the 
> >> dialectic.
> >>
> >> Just want to mention this has been a bountiful year of morels 
> >> and wild 
> >> asparagas;  yum!
> >>
> >> eric
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
> >> Sent by: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
> >> 05/14/2010 10:09 AM
> >> Please respond to ablunden; Please respond to "eXtended Mind, 
> >> Culture, 
> >> Activity"
> >>
> >>  
> >>         
> >> To:     "eXtended Mind, Culture, 
> Activity" 
> >> 
> <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>        cc: 
> >>         
> >> Subject:        Re: [xmca] 
> >> Development of development
> >>
> >>
> >> Larry,
> >>
> >> This doubtless seems exceptionally pedantic, but in my view 
> >> "socially situated development" is something quite different 
> >> from "the social situation of development."
> >>
> >> As I see it, when Vygotsky emphasises the importance of 
> >> identifying and understanding the *situation* which drives 
> >> development he is requiring us to form a concept of the 
> >> situation, whatever it may be in a given case. He makes a 
> >> contrast between this approach and a description of the (let 
> >> us say for the sake of contrast) the context or environment 
> >> in which the child happens to find themself. This context or 
> >> environment is characterized in terms of its various 
> >> attributes, such as the ethnic background of parents, 
> >> socioeconomic status, values, and so on. This way of 
> >> characterising the relation is really complexive (to use 
> >> Vygotsky's word) and not conceptual as such.
> >>
> >> You correctly point out the need for a conceptual grasp of 
> >> the lifeworld's character, but I think "situation" is 
> >> different from situating something, Larry. Do you see what I 
> >> mean? If we have the characteristics of the surrounding 
> >> world on one hand and the development on the other, then we 
> >> have situated the development but we don't know the situation.
> >>
> >> Andy
> >>
> >> Larry Purss wrote:
> >>> Hi everyone
> >>> I thought I would log on and reflect on social situations of 
> >> development 
> >> [Fleer and Hedegaard article.]
> >>> I want to bring in Martin's ideas from his edited book 
> >> "Cultural and 
> >> Critical Perspectives on Human Development" (2001)  On 
> page 
> >> 142, 143 he 
> >> elaborates on Habermas's notion of the "lifeworld" to explore 
> >> the 
> >> development of development [innovations in the institutions 
> that 
> >> define 
> >> specific developmental pathways]
> >>> Martin, following Habermas, contrasts lifeworlds with 
> >> RATIONALIZED 
> >> SYSTEMS [institutional structures that develop particular 
> "kinds 
> >> of 
> >> persons". I believe this distinction of institutions as 
> existing 
> >> within a 
> >> tension between different ways to structure relational 
> practices 
> >> is 
> >> critical to our reflection on socially situated development.
> >>> Martin offers a key insight when he states "The 
> >> rationalization efforts 
> >> depended for their effect on the CONTINUED OPERATION OF THE 
> >> LIFEWORLD of 
> >> the school, without having an adequately CONCEPTUAL grasp of 
> the 
> >> lifeworlds character.
> >>> As we go forward in describing socially situated development 
> I 
> >> believe 
> >> this recognition of the foundational requirement for 
> >> implementing 
> >> rationalized systems depends on maintaining lifeworlds.
> >>> However the contradictions involved in this statement are 
> >> obvious as the 
> >> more "successful" the implementation of rationalized systems 
> of 
> >> institutional practices, the more fragmented the lifeworlds become.
> >>> The "project" [Andy's term] that I see Fleer & Hedegaard 
> >> engaged in in 
> >> their explication of socially situated development can be 
> >> enriched by 
> >> including the notion of the lifeworld's character [and the 
> >> VALUES this 
> >> notion implies]. 
> >>> Martin also brings in Latour's notion of classrooms and 
> >> families 
> >> existing as institutions as NODES within a wide ranging 
> NETWORK 
> >> of distal 
> >> rationalized SYSTEMS that exert "a relationist ontology" 
> >> (Latour, 1997 as 
> >> cited in Packer p. 143) that threatens the "bursting of the 
> >> capacity of 
> >> the lifeworld" Habermas (as cited in Packer p.143).
> >>> The development of development  trajectory of our 
> current 
> >> institutional 
> >> structures needs to explore the historically continuing 
> >> destruction  of 
> >> schools as lifeworlds.  The 5th dimension, and Golden 
> key 
> >> schools are 
> >> particular examples of responding to this rationalizing 
> process 
> >> but 
> >> philosophically I believe we need to engage in asking how we 
> can 
> >> maintain 
> >> lifeworlds within our current public schools.
> >>> Larry
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> xmca mailing list
> >>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> >>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >>>
> >>>
> >> -- 
> >> --------------------------------------------------------------
> ---
> >> -------
> >> Andy Blunden http://home.mira.net/~andy/ +61 3 9380 9435 
> >> Skype andy.blunden
> >> An Interdisciplinary Theory of Activity: 
> >> http://www.brill.nl/scss
> >>
> >>
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> >>
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> 
> -- 
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> -------
> Andy Blunden http://home.mira.net/~andy/ +61 3 9380 9435 
> Skype andy.blunden
> An Interdisciplinary Theory of Activity: 
> http://www.brill.nl/scss
> 
> 
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