Re: [xmca] vygotsky and the revolution

[Robert Lake <boblake@georgiasouthern.edu>]

*Happy New Year to too Larry!*
*What book contains the Kearney/Ricoeur conversation?*
*Robert Lake*

On Tue, Jan 1, 2013 at 2:55 PM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:

> Peter
>
> I wanted to thank you for the book review by George Snow, of Alexander
> Etkind's "Eros of the Impossible The History of Psychoanalysis in Russia.
> This book'theme and the structure look like a fascinating read.
>
> I am currently reading a "conversation" between Richard Kearney [who
> studied with P. Ricoeur] and Ricouer. The question Richard asks Ricouer
> seems relevant to this thread.
>
> Richard asks:
> It appears that our modern scularized society, has abandoned the symbolic
> representations or IMAGINAIRE of tradition.  Can the creative process of
> reinterpretation operate if the narrative continuity with the past is
> broken??
>
> I could give Ricouer's answer to this question, but I will pause with
> this posing of the question. There are a multiplicity of interpretations of
> history - phenomenological, theological, psychoanalytic, structuralist,
> scientific, literary, cultural historical.  The question being explored is
> if this open-ended multiplicity of genres can be configured as a journey
> which might "ultimately" return to a "unifying CENTER" where the
> conflicting interpretations can be gathered together and reconciled, or is
> the "ideal" to embrace multiplicity or plurality [the IMAGINARE of
> TRADITIONS]
>
> It is a new year, with new horizons opening.  This question is puzzling me
> and Alexander Etkind is offering one genre of answer.
>
> Happy New Year everyone
>
> Larry
>
> On Tue, Dec 25, 2012 at 12:33 PM, Peter Smagorinsky <smago@uga.edu> wrote:
>
> > According to the review: "Etkind is unambiguous in his assertion that the
> > master architect of this Faustian bargain for Russian Freudians was Leon
> > Trotsky. The political link between the latter and Russian psychoanalysis
> > has, in Etkind's view, been consistently underestimated in Western
> > literature on the history of psychoanalysis. He thus strives to set right
> > this lack of appreciation--devoting over forty pages to Trotsky, a dozen
> of
> > which specifically deal with his intellectual enthusiasm and continued
> > political support for both psychoanalysis and its educational offshoot,
> > pedology. The latter, a unique Soviet approach stressing the
> transformation
> > of human nature through childhood, was founded by people who had gone
> > through relatively serious training in psychoanalysis (p. 5)."
> >
> > Figes makes a similar point about Soviet communism regarding its belief
> > that a Marxist society (one also influenced by Darwin) could, through the
> > establishment of an appropriate environment, evolve a new kind of person
> > (or more to the point, new kind of people). That belief was new to me,
> but
> > I see it reflected in Vygotsky's work on mediated human consciousness.
> > Under Stalin that evolution included killing off and exiling those who
> > didn't fit his vision--thinning the herd, in the Darwinian sense, through
> > repression.
> >
> > Complicated stuff. Figes argues that Soviet communism skipped a step that
> > Marx considered necessary for the evolution of socialist societies, which
> > was the rise of a capitalist class to be overthrown. I am not an
> economist
> > or much of a philosopher, so can't assert a position here. Perhaps others
> > can help, if this topic is of interest.
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
> On
> > Behalf Of Peter Smagorinsky
> > Sent: Tuesday, December 25, 2012 3:22 PM
> > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> > Subject: RE: [xmca] vygotsky and the revolution
> >
> > Reviewed at http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=3386
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
> On
> > Behalf Of Leif Strandberg
> > Sent: Tuesday, December 25, 2012 1:55 PM
> > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> > Subject: Re: [xmca] vygotsky and the revolution
> >
> > Yes, and now I found the English title: Eros of the Impossible: The
> > History of Psychoanalysis in Russia
> >
> >
> > Leif
> >
> > 25 dec 2012 kl. 12.02 skrev Peter Smagorinsky:
> >
> > > http://www.project-syndicate.org/contributor/alexander-etkind
> > > I assume that this is the same Etkind?
> > >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-
> > > bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Leif Strandberg
> > > Sent: Tuesday, December 25, 2012 5:21 AM
> > > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> > > Subject: Re: [xmca] vygotsky and the revolution
> > >
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > I learned a lot of the intellectual context in USSR, 1920-1936 when
> > > reading Nadezjda Mandelsjtam's Stalins Miracle (where she mentions
> > > Vygotskij!), and Aleksandr Etkind's An Impossible Passion (I don not
> > > know the correct English title), where you can read how the
> > > Pedalogy- Movement was interrelated to the political life (e.g.
> > > Krupskaja, Kalinin, Vysinskij)... very interesting (and scary).
> > > Boris Pasternak's (a friend of LSV) Doctor Zjivago also provides a
> > > feeling of the context and the situation for the intellectuals during
> > > those years.
> > >
> > > Yes, USSR/Russia was/is an Ocean... and what happens in Moscow can be
> > > very different from what takes place in Samarkand (and that was
> > > problematic in Luria's Uzbeki-journey)
> > >
> > > Leif
> > > Sweden
> > > 24 dec 2012 kl. 20.05 skrev Peter Smagorinsky:
> > >
> > >> Well, it took me about 6 months, but I finally finished reading
> > >> Figes'
> > >> 824-page tour de force, A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution
> > >> 1991-1924 (ending with Lenin's death and Stalin's ascendance). I am
> > >> glad I read it, even though I was actively discouraged from doing so
> > >> by some xmca subscribers, both on and off list. I would say that his
> > >> general perspective does not favor the Bolsheviks, which may account
> > >> for the efforts to dissuade my reading. I hope that I do have some
> > >> powers of discernment that enable me to identify and read through a
> > >> historian's perspective, however. (n.b. I am also aware that the US
> > >> has its own history that is amenable to multiple perspectives, many
> > >> of them unfavorable, so I hope I do not appear chauvinistic in
> > >> finding the USSR
> > >> problematic.) (full disclosure: my Jewish grandparents and two of my
> > >> uncles fled Gomel in 1913 and 1916 to escape pogroms, leaving from
> > >> Finland and landing in New York.)
> > >>
> > >> Figes does provide, in at times numbing detail, the complexities of
> > >> the transition from Tsar to USSR, which took place more or less
> > >> between 1905 and the early 1920s after the two Russian revolutions
> > >> (1905, 1917) brought down the Tsar; and after the civil war that
> > >> followed and produced an internecine military battle for control of
> > >> the Russian territories in the power vacuum. I must say that the
> > >> whole affair is far more complex than I'd ever imagined, which no
> > >> doubt speaks to my ignorance about most everything that's happened on
> > >> this earth, in spite of my ongoing efforts to learn it. I imagine
> > >> that there are many and contradictory points of view on the period
> > >> and its winners and losers; and I've read but one, at least in
> > >> detail. It's a history worth learning about, I'd say.
> > >>
> > >> My purpose here is not to debate the merits of Lenin, Stalin, and
> > >> Trotsky, or Marx and Engels, or any of the many lesser-known figures
> > >> from the revolutions (and there were several). I partly undertook
> > >> this reading to get a better understanding of the context of
> > >> Vygotsky's life and how his experiences mediated his construction of
> > >> a theory of human development. I've read a lot of brief summaries of
> > >> his life, but now must wonder how the incredible period of death and
> > >> destruction that surrounded his life contributed to his beliefs about
> > >> cultural difference and mediation (a major issue in his writing about
> > >> defectology). He was born in
> > >> 1896 in the Pale of Settlement, the Byelorussian territory to which
> > >> Tsarist Russia restricted Jews, leaving them subject to death via
> > >> pogroms. In 1905, with LSV at age 9, Russia lost a war to Japan,
> > >> bringing about the first revolution, which was quelled. Then in
> > >> 1914 World War 1 broke out, although hardly in a vacuum; it embodied
> > >> many extant conflicts. At about this time Vygotsky began the work
> > >> that resulted in The Psychology of Art, which he wrote mostly from a
> > >> sickbed during a lengthy bout with tuberculosis over a period of
> > >> about
> > >> 6 years, a time that encompassed the whole of WWI and then in 1917
> > >> the Russian Revolution that brought down the Tsar- according to
> > >> Figes, the Tsar's haughty lifestyle in conjunction with the people's
> > >> dissatisfaction with Russia's involvement with the war (particularly
> > >> their struggles against Germany) served as the tipping point in their
> > >> willingness to live as his subjects.
> > >>
> > >> It's quite striking that as the world raged and burned around him,
> > >> LSV focused intensely on trying to figure out the role of art,
> > >> particularly drama and literature, in the development of human
> > >> consciousness; and in the version I read (MIT Press translation),
> > >> there's no mention of revolution or politics. By the time he was done
> > >> the Tsar was overthrown but the civil war between Reds and White (an
> > >> affiliation of various anti-Bolsheviks, often loyal to the Tsar) was
> > >> in full stride, with the two sides contending to replace him and
> > >> thousands being killed in the process. Yet LSV biographies have him
> > >> teaching during this time, and ultimately landing in Moscow as a
> > >> psychologist, as if there were no disturbances in the environment.
> > >> His
> > >> career in Moscow is often described as beginning in about 1924, the
> > >> year of Lenin's death and Stalin's rise, and according to documents
> > >> recently unearthed, LSV was a devoted communist, even as Jews
> > >> continued to be suppressed in the new regime (as testified to by no
> > >> less a Bolshevik than Trotsky). So, Vygotsky's career as a Moscow
> > >> psychologist took place in the 10 years between Stalin's ascendance
> > >> to power and Hitler's rise in Germany-two extraordinary rulerships of
> > >> modern history, both highly repressive, parochial, nationalistic,
> > >> violent, and anti- Semitic-that get elided in accounts of his career,
> > >> at least those I've read.
> > >>
> > >> One thing I learned from Figes is that Stalin's crackdowns included
> > >> repression of the arts; and Vygotsky never returned to his early
> > >> considerations of the theater with nearly the focus that produced The
> > >> Psychology of Art. I imagine that the repressive environment had
> > >> something to do with that, but I'm only guessing from my historical
> > >> vantage point. I have to believe that LSV was not doing psychology in
> > >> a vacuum. So how did the tumult surrounding his career contribute to
> > >> his thinking? If mediation is central to development, it seems to me
> > >> that it has to matter.
> > >>
> > >> One thing about the revolutions that I have yet to figure out is how
> > >> extensive they were. Most of the action seems centered in the east,
> > >> where Moscow and St. Petersburg/Petrograd/Leningrad/ Stalingrad are
> > >> located, and thus the locus of power and resources.
> > >> But Russia spans 13 time zones, stretches to the Pacific and Bering
> > >> Straits, and includes 17,075,200 sq km (6,592,800 sq mi), giving it
> > >> more than one-ninth of the world's land area. Luria's Uzbekistan
> > >> study suggests that the revolutions barely touched remote areas, even
> > >> in the western region. So I can't figure out how the whole of the
> > >> nation was affected by the revolutions, except perhaps for Siberia's
> > >> service as place of exile.
> > >>
> > >> Well, too much perhaps, but those are some thoughts following my
> > >> reading of this interesting history. Any help with contextualizing
> > >> LSV's career in light of these events is greatly appreciated. Thx,p
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-- 
*Robert Lake  Ed.D.
*Associate Professor
Social Foundations of Education
Dept. of Curriculum, Foundations, and Reading
Georgia Southern University
P. O. Box 8144
Phone: (912) 478-0355
Fax: (912) 478-5382
Statesboro, GA  30460

 *Democracy must be born anew in every generation, and education is its
midwife.*
*-*John Dewey.
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