The more I think about this, the more interesting and significant it seems to be. As further examples of collective experience vs. shared experience, I think of live participation in a Grateful Dead concert, which is not just "shared experience" as Andy describes, but experience that is "irreducibly collective," in the sense that the exprience itself is constituted in the collectivity of the experience.
Or -- the experience of working-class people in Wisconsin resisting the Republican Party's actions to annihilate the rights of working people (apologies to list members outside the US -- you get the idea, but you can't appreciate it fully without joining in the collective experience).
I expect there's a collective experience of college-aged Californians being financially squeezed out of Higher Education in that state. The experience is _collective_, not just _shared_.
The difference: It's not just "Yeah! That happened to me, too." It's a matter of the _what_ has happened to all of us being something that we only recognize in the collectivity of the happening.
On Mon, 19 Sep 2011, mike cole wrote:
That helps, tony. It sent me back to re-read Andy's note. Andy wrote: You have an experience, and then you find that everyone else experienced the same thing and that event then becomes a central focus of your collaboration with other people. Re-reading reinforces my intuition of the time dimension. "In the instant" (which can fell likes hours and even be hours) it is quite localized in an individual life. In daily life it comes to known to be shared (we had a huge blackout here- similar sequence) and spreads out and across people. In the longer run it comes to have a kind of "precipitated" enduring presence that shades into collective memory. (I know, I am prone to threes, but something like this?) mike On Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 9:04 PM, Tony Whitson <twhitson@udel.edu> wrote:What I mean by "shared experience," as something between individual and collective experience, is perfectly captured by how Andy characterizes shared experience. I experience something & find out you and I have both had that experience in common, and it has the power Andy describes. What I mean by collective experience is experience in which the experience of others participates in the experience of any one, in the course of the experiencing. Temporal aspects are certainly crucial for this. A single mother who has lost her job in "the great recession" and who is worried sick -- literally, to the point of being unable to sleep, and maybe even vomiting from stress-induced gastro-whatever -- is experiencing something somatically in a way that is particular to her own individual body; but, at the same time, it is not just an individual experience, like my experience of the shaking that I realized only after a few seconds must be an earthquake. That mother's experience, through and through, is her involvement in an experience that is irreducibly collective. Herder is relevant, but not the same -- he's more about culturally (nationally) accumulated shared experience. I'm wondering if there's something in the literature of social phenomenology (Schutz, maybe?). So, Larry, it's more or less up to people on the list what they will take up, and what they will pass by. On Mon, 19 Sep 2011, mike cole wrote: Tony- I am unclear about how your comments point to something betweenindividual and collective experience. Yes, the term experience evokes misunderstandings, but have you tried culture recently as a problem free alternative? :-) Might temporal aspects of "an experience" play a role in the individual:collective distinction? Would that be an avenue to distinguishing an intermediate process? mike On Mon, Sep 19, 2011 at 6:14 PM, Tony Whitson <twhitson@udel.edu> wrote: Thanks, Andy, that is helpful.The Dewey is posted here: https://tw-curricuwiki.**wikis**paces.com/Dewey--culture%**2C+** experience<https://tw-**curricuwiki.wikispaces.com/** Dewey--culture%2C+experience<https://tw-curricuwiki.wikispaces.com/Dewey--culture%2C+experience>On Tue, 20 Sep 2011, Andy Blunden wrote: Herder, as I understand him, saw collective experience as an importantfacet in the formation of the character of a people. I think part of the problem is that "experience" has been such a contested term, Tony. Generally it has been co-opted by Empiricism, which is by its nature individualist and by definition the philosophy of experiene, but Dewey used the word in formulating his view. But didn't he later say that he regretted using the word "experience" because it led to misunderstandings? Personally, I think /shared/ experience is the most powerful force in changing Zeitgeist and individual mninds en masse. You have an experience, and then you find that everyone else experienced the same thing and that event then becomes a central focus of your collaboration with other people. What could be more world-changing? Andy Tony Whitson wrote: This query is prompted by a new book:Peck, Don. Pinched: How the Great Recession Has Narrowed Our Futures and What We Can Do About It. New York: Crown Pub., 2011. http://www.amazon.com/Pinched-****Great-Recession-Narrowed-**<http://www.amazon.com/Pinched-**Great-Recession-Narrowed-**> Futures/dp/0307886522<http://**www.amazon.com/Pinched-Great-** Recession-Narrowed-Futures/dp/**0307886522<http://www.amazon.com/Pinched-Great-Recession-Narrowed-Futures/dp/0307886522>/ in which the author looks more deeply into predictable ramifications of the current economic situation than I have seen in other recent work. Based on historical, sociological, and other literatures and modes of research, the author argues that what we're dealing with now is not just a wave in a recurring cycle. He predicts lasting changes that he expects to deeply impact different generational cohorts for decades to come. His argument is plausible, at least, to me. But it prompts me to wonder about experience that is really collective experience, as opposed to individual experience. Exposing my ignorance, I realize that I can't think of literature on the nature and structure of collective experience. It seems like there must be a lot; but I can't think of it. It also seems like xmca is a likely place to find people who would be interested, and would know about such literature (although it's not on-topic in the current threads). I'm thinking of my first earthquake experience last month as an example of an individual experience. It was totally unlike anything I'd ever experienced before, and it took me a few seconds to even recognize that an earthquake is what was happening (we don't have those in Delaware). I was at my desk, at home, by myself when it happened. Of course, the experience was mediated after the fact from my sociocultural awareness of earthquakes. Still, I think it was an individual experience in the moment, compared with the collective experience that Don Peck is writing about -- an experience of events and developments over time, in which the experience of others participates, throughout, in the experience of any one. I am thinking that there might be something else that could be called "shared experience," intermediate between individual and collective experience. Does this make any sense? Is this question of interest to anyone? Or am I naïvely wondering about things that have been well developed in the literature? I would be interested if anyone has ideas or references to share on this. ______________________________****____________ _____ xmca mailing list xmca@weber.ucsd.edu http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/****listinfo/xmca<http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/**listinfo/xmca> <http://dss.ucsd.**edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca<http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca>--------------------------------****----------------------------**--** ------------ *Andy Blunden* Joint Editor MCA: http://www.informaworld.com/** smpp/title~db=all~content=****g932564744<http://www.** informaworld.com/smpp/title%**7Edb=all%7Econtent=g932564744<http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title%7Edb=all%7Econtent=g932564744>Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/ Book: http://www.brill.nl/default.****aspx?partid=227&pid=34857<http://www.brill.nl/default.**aspx?partid=227&pid=34857> <http**://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?**partid=227&pid=34857<http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=227&pid=34857>______________________________****____________ _____ xmca mailing list xmca@weber.ucsd.edu http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/****listinfo/xmca<http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/**listinfo/xmca> <http://dss.ucsd.**edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca<http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca>Tony WhitsonUD School of Education NEWARK DE 19716 twhitson@udel.edu ______________________________****_ "those who fail to reread are obliged to read the same story everywhere" -- Roland Barthes, S/Z (1970) ______________________________**____________ _____ xmca mailing list xmca@weber.ucsd.edu http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/**listinfo/xmca<http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca> ______________________________**_________________ xmca mailing list xmca@weber.ucsd.edu http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/**listinfo/xmca<http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca>Tony Whitson UD School of Education NEWARK DE 19716 twhitson@udel.edu ______________________________**_ "those who fail to reread are obliged to read the same story everywhere" -- Roland Barthes, S/Z (1970)
Tony Whitson
UD School of Education
NEWARK DE 19716
twhitson@udel.edu
_______________________________
"those who fail to reread
are obliged to read the same story everywhere"
-- Roland Barthes, S/Z (1970)__________________________________________ _____ xmca mailing list xmca@weber.ucsd.edu http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca