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RE: [xmca] Any work on the development of egoism in the child(ren)

Andy:
This is a marxist postion. Very interesting. Egoism has it genesis in individualism, as an economic situacion and a cultural situatuin, and a political situation.. As Gramsci said, economic, political and ideological factors are a complex situation which mediate one on another
Armando

________________________________________
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Andy Blunden [ablunden@mira.net]
Sent: Sunday, November 14, 2010 3:43 AM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] Any work on the development of egoism in the child(ren)

Ulvi, I take egoism as individualism in ethics, sometimes called
narcissism, yes? Surely it is widely agreed that the roots of
individualism lie in bourgeois society (i.e., the economic activity of
capitalist society outside both state and family). Even Hegel referred
to the "business class" (both employees and employers) as "the
individual class" before Marx went further into the institutional roots
of individualism. The current state of bourgeois society in countries
where the population is saturated with advertising and a constant stream
of propaganda telling people "you deserve it" etc., etc., etc., together
with political systems based on individual voting in large geographical
electorates and individualised consumption of still more or less
centralised means of communicaiton, build on the foundation of commodity
exchange and the fragmentation of all forms of collaboration.

Andy

ulvi icil wrote:
> Mike, David:
> Sorry for not being clear. I did not mean egocentrism of the child nor
> his/her egocentric speech.
> What I meant was the defective characteristic that some human beings gain in
> the process of being adults: Egoism. And I meant the process of how the
> chilld, on his/her lifetime, becomes an egoistic adult, I mean the thinking,
> speech, language of the human society which carries egoism into the child
> and in this sense the process how the child internalizes egoism from his/her
> social relations etc.
> Ulvi
>
>
>
> 2010/11/13 David Kellogg <vaughndogblack@yahoo.com>
>
>
>> Ulvi:
>>
>> I think Vygotsky doesn't accept Piaget's idea that children are egocentric
>> in their thinking, and if you read how he uses "egocentric speech" you will
>> see that he guts it of all of its "egocentric" comment; he simply means
>> speech that is meant for the child's own ears rather than those of someone
>> else. So Vygotsky essentially rejects the whole idea of child egotism and
>> even child egocentrism.
>>
>> Even Piaget eventually decided that the word "ego" was misplaced. In his
>> later work he describes the child's thinking as "non-decentrated" or
>> "centrated". What he means is that the child lives in a kind of
>> pre-Copernican universe (although of course our idea that there is only one
>> universe may also be a vestige of centration!).
>>
>> Vygotsky uses the term "egocentric speech" the way that a thieving magpie
>> uses a stolen spoon to build a nest. It doesn't really fit his construction
>> very well, because Vygotsky thinks that the child really HAS no ego until
>> quite late.
>>
>> Functionally, the child begins to act like an ego from the moment (the
>> Crisis at Age Three, according to Vygotsky's Collected Works Volume Five)
>> that the child seizes that great and powerful word "No!" from his
>> environment. But as Vygotsky points out, the child often uses this word even
>> when the child wants to say yes.
>>
>> I remember promising my little neice-lette at five that I would take her to
>> Seoul-Land if she finished copying seven Chinese characters. She dawdled a
>> long time, but finally did it. So I asked her if she still wanted to go, and
>> she said "No!" although she visibly did want to go, and she cried when we
>> didn't.
>>
>> So we can say that at this stage the child has an ego "for others" but not
>> for herself; it is a purely reactive, interactional, functional ego and not
>> a conscious, volitional, controllable one. (We certainly CANNOT say that the
>> child has difficulty in detaching her own point of view from that of others;
>> she is very conscious that "No!" suggests a fundamental difference in stance
>> from those in her circumstance.)
>>
>> We can't really say that she has an ego for herself, because she is not
>> able to control her will and her ego. She is able to differentiate an "I"
>> from what Vygotsky calls "Ur-wir" (The proto-We, or as I like to think of
>> it, the "Royal We").
>>
>> But she does this only in action and reaction, and not in thought and
>> reflection. It's easier done than said, one of those things that is all very
>> well in practice, but it doesn't quite work out in theory.
>>
>> When does "I" become "ego", that is, when do children seize conscious
>> awareness of the separateness of "I" from "we"?  It seems to me this must
>> happen about the time that children develop invisible friends, hero-worship,
>> and become highly interested in role-playing games. Which strikes me as
>> non-coincidental.
>>
>> David Kellogg
>> Seoul National University of Education
>>
>>
>> --- On Fri, 11/12/10, ulvi icil <ulvi.icil@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>> From: ulvi icil <ulvi.icil@gmail.com>
>> Subject: [xmca] Any work on the development of egoism in the child(ren)
>> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
>> Date: Friday, November 12, 2010, 3:03 AM
>>
>>
>> Dear all,
>>
>> Did anybody meet any work on the development of egoism in the child(ren)? (
>> Surely, from the Vygotskian perspective)
>> Thanks
>> Ulvi
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*Andy Blunden*
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