Re: [xmca] A.A. Leontiev on his father

[mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>]

As you have seen from Anton, Peter. It must all be a pack of lies.

Having seen copies of LSV's work with the title page cut out in the Lenin
library
all I can conclude is that his admirers were also so smitten they had to
have his
portrait!

The truth shall set us free..... right?
:-)
mike

On Mon, Jun 24, 2013 at 10:39 AM, Peter Smagorinsky <smago@uga.edu> wrote:

> I've had an opportunity to read the attached historical account that Haydi
> sent a week or so ago (re-attached here). It's quite fascinating, too long
> to reduce easily to a listserv post, but I'll try.
>
> The essay helps to complicate some issues that I have oversimplified in
> the past. One of the main points of the account is to challenge the belief
> that Leontiev and LSV had a severe break when Leontiev left for Kharkov.
> The narrative I've always accepted is that Leontiev shifted away from the
> ideal and toward activity, and in so doing shifted away from LSV both
> professionally (and geographically) and personally. AA Leontiev's account
> of his father's relationship with Vygotsky sees their departure as lacking
> the hostility generally attributed to it, and also sees Vygotsky's work
> involving the seeds of activity as a unit of analysis, thus challenging the
> idea of a complete professional break. I think that Michael Roth tried to
> persuade me that their differences were not so great, and this essay would
> support that view. It's worth reading if you have interest in the
> disposition of their relationship shortly before Vygotsky's death.
>
> The second area I found interesting (and tragic) is the idea that
> Vygotsky's depression over the impending pedology decree (which rendered
> his own work anti-Marxist and incorrect) led him to bring on his own death.
> Mike Cole mentioned to me a few years ago that he thought Vygotsky allowed
> himself to die rather than face the inevitable destruction of his life and
> career in the Stalinist crackdown of the 1930s. This account fully supports
> that perspective, with evidence of LSV's careless health habits toward the
> end in spite of his delicate bodily functions (he began smoking, stopped
> shielding himself from the Russian winters, lived in unhealthy environments
> without concern for health effects). Very sad and lamentable.
>
> The essay concludes with the post-Vygotskian repression of his followers
> and their shattered careers in the face of accusations of anti-Marxism and
> accompanying arrests, dismissals, and deaths.
>
> Thanks for sharing. I'm the richer for having read it, even as my brief
> summary here does the essay insufficient justice. p
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On
> Behalf Of Haydi Zulfei
> Sent: Tuesday, June 18, 2013 6:05 AM
> To: "ablunden@mira.net"; "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity"
> Subject: Fw: Fw: Re: [xmca] Double Stimulation?
>
>
>
> Excuse me . I forgot to attach a son's defense of his father . Haydi
> ----- Forwarded Message -----
> From: Haydi Zulfei <haydizulfei@rocketmail.com>
> To: "ablunden@mira.net" <ablunden@mira.net>; "eXtended Mind, Culture,
> Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Sent: Tuesday, 18 June 2013, 14:23:38
> Subject: Re: Fw: Re: [xmca] Double Stimulation?
>
>
>
> Dear Michael Cole
> If I may , and if I might be able to have a very little talk to your
> supreme greatness , and if I'm not to be reproached to have decided to
> write in a foreign language , then to your benevolent permission will I
> dare to tell you : I do know I'm not the one who can discuss such matters
> with you but as everybody has reasons for their claims , I'm willing to
> relate : USSR was gone and you were relieved of many monstrous maladies
> there , not just of Stalinism , the destruction of which and whom is the
> unique slogan of the whole world , but also of Leninism , Marxism (to which
> Vygotsky credited his time and energy) , ... , and especially of the dark
> terrible atmosphere in which you , of your own decision and care and desire
> , with wife and children or child , could gaspingly and suffocatedly
> breathe , live , learn , get skilled and ... become the Global Figure
> (Yasnitsky in LiveJournal) mostly because of the knowledge and wit and
> wisdom (professionally) you
>  got there of the [Marxian] [Materialistic] [Vygotskian] [School] and the
> much-appreciated works you did later in THIS respect . You were not with
> the common people ; you were with the [Great Scholars] of that time WITHIN
> THE SOVIET UNION , no need to mention the Names , as for one of them the
> Poor Bratus you denounced shortly recently .
> The knowledge accumulated within the body or psyche of , or , as you like
> to say , the 'spirit' or the soul of these renown scholars came ONLY from
> their MOTHERS and from the Uteros thereof ? or from the Tsar ? After all ,
> you always refer to the one experiment according to which 'culture'
> accumulates and then exits through the Uterus . Just one question remains :
> why tolerate so much toiling and troubles going there ? The Land of Ghosts
> and Man-Eater Dragons ? Are not great figures products of their time and
> environment (Revolution meant) ? Mourning is still on for the Huge Losses
> but this is just one side of the coin !
> Now , very shortly , you are Ok with all your assertions and beliefs . Why
> so much focusing on the Dead and not on the Living ?? What is your
> PRESCRIPTION for the unprecedented huge numerous incalculable
> inhumanitarian soul-exterminatig vicious maladies , vices , and
> beast-natured acts of the American Adminstration and their profiteering
> Mother-and-Daughter CORPORATIONS all over the world (apologies to great
> American people) , MONOPOLIES , COHORTS , BEN-LADIN BEARING OCTOPUSES ,
> ETC. ETC. ETC.
> WE ARE JUST VICTIMS TO SANCTIONS IMPOSED ON 'PEOPLE' NOT ADMINISTRATION .
> WE ARE BEING SANDWICHED AND STAMPED UNDER TERROR , CRUELTY AND THE
> OTHERNESS?-  MEDDLING WITH OUR OWN AFFAIRS ; WE JUST SHOWED OUR WILL , WAY
> AND FATE BUT GRANDPA? IS ALIEN AND KILLER TO HOMO SAPIENS GENUS , LET ALONE
> , WISE CONSCIOUS DIGNIFIED PEACEFUL CREATURES .
> It's the same with people of Egypt , Jordon , Libya , Turkey , Iraq ,
> Afghanistan , etc. From the American Administration perspective , what
> might partially ? be a Spring Time is within the Arabian Peninsula . There
> , too , heads go off the air with a sword so that extra cheap oil can
> overflow within the storage huge bankers of the U.S.  Better handle nearby
> Problems !!
> Best
> Haydi
>
> Request : no naming of nationales , thanks !
>
>
> ________________________________
>  From: Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
> To: lchcmike@gmail.com; "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <
> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Sent: Tuesday, 18 June 2013, 9:59:46
> Subject: Re: Fw: Re: [xmca] Double Stimulation?
>
>
>
> Just on the question of Luria, Mike. I am not all that familiar with
> Luria's distinct contribution, for which I have only myself plus having
> only one lifetime to blame. But if he is famous for the use of the
> *idiographic* methodology, then as I see it that is indeed something which
> dates from Goethe, and I have never particularly highlighted that in my own
> work. The Urphaenomen is another aspect of Romantic Science. So these are
> different things, closely related and having the same roots. Maybe it is
> time for me to use the great Luria On-line Library you have created to
> educate myself about Luria.
>
>
> Andy
>
>
> mike cole wrote:
>
> > I fear this does not help me a whole lot, Andy.
>
> > Sorry I cannot grasp the method of Goethe properly. I guess Luria
> probably failed
>
> > as well. Or maybe he succeeded and I have misunderstood him? Entirely
> possible.
>
> >
>
> > I did not ask what what is  at odds. I asked for what the empirical
> consequences of the the distinctions you are making are. I cannot follow
> the path to reforming all of the educational system of the USSR or Russia,
> which, so far as I know, neither
>
> > Vygotsky nor anyone else associated with Activity Theory every
> accomplished. Nore have I ever seen claims that they have. (The Finns
> appear to have done well recently using an approach, the relationship to
> activity theory I have no knowledge of, but perhaps our Finnish colleagues
> do).
>
> >
>
> > Here is what would help me, and I suspect others on XMCA. Take an
> already published piece of work that uses the expanded triangle Yrjo
> proposes in Learning by Expanding. Say, the work on cleaners in the early
> work. Tell us about the mistaken conclusions that arise because of
> misunderstandings that confusion of the triangle for "activity" (no
> modifiers) causes. Suggest how we might improve our
>
> > understanding. Or tell us why that example works, but some other example
> (teachers in schools, nurses and doctors in a hospital, etc.) does not.
>
> >
>
> > Or suggest an entirely different way of looking at matters so that when
> we go into
>
> > classrooms, housing projects, work places, we can more effectively
> understand what is going on and be of more help to those with whom we work
> that publishing another article in MCA.
>
> >
>
> > I guess I am asking that you rise to the concrete here, keeping the
> object of analysis constant.
>
> >
>
> > My apologies if this seems unreasonable. Perhaps it is approaching
> senility, but
>
> > I am failing to track you.
>
> >
>
> > mike
>
> >
>
> >
>
> > Lost in the words here.
>
> > mike
>
> >
>
> > On Sun, Jun 16, 2013 at 6:57 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net<mailto:
> ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:
>
> >
>
> >     Yes, in Yjro's (1986) words, it is a "root model". (The derivation
>
> >     of it is a beautiful piece of work, too, close to Hegel's early
>
> >     "System of Ethical Life". Deserves to remain in print).
>
> >
>
> >     But modelling a complex process is not the same as the method of
>
> >     Goethe, Hegel, Marx and Vygotsky. As you know, Mike, in order to
>
> >     understand this approach, which Luria called Romantic Science, I
>
> >     had to go back to its origins c. 1787 when Goethe was doing his
>
> >     Journey in Italy, studying all the plant life, and its variation
>
> >     by altitude, latittude, nearness to the sea, etc., and in
>
> >     conversation with J G Herder, arrived a his conception of
>
> >     Urphaenomen. The Urphaenomen is not a model.
>
> >
>
> >     It is an abstraction, true. And yes, the understanding of a
>
> >     complex process by the "romantic" method is indeed, the rising to
>
> >     the concrete, the logical-historical reconstruction of the whole
>
> >     process from this abstract germ.
>
> >
>
> >     As I remarked (somewhere) I find Yrjo's work over the past couple
>
> >     of years, which focuses more on the germ cell than the triangle,
>
> >     closer to what I am trying to do. The germ cell is not a model
> either.
>
> >
>
> >     What is at odds here is whether a real, complex situation (such as
>
> >     reforming the education system in a nation in Africa, rather than
>
> >     in the USSR or Finland) can be based on a conception which
>
> >     isolates a "system of activity", whilst dozens of different
>
> >      ethnic groups, NGOs, government(s), trade unions and so on, are
>
> >     all contesting the aims and benefits of "education." Every person
>
> >     in such a situation is committed to more than one project, and
>
> >     deploys concepts (institutionalised projects) frequently at odds
>
> >     with one another. What is needed is a process whose basic units
>
> >     are (1) units and not systems, and (2) processes of development,
>
> >     processes in which people are struggling to realise ideas,
>
> >     processes of formation. And we need the algebra through which such
>
> >     units interact with one another, rather than declaring any single
>
> >     such interaction to be an entire new "unit" - i.e. coupled systems.
>
> >
>
> >     Andy
>
> >     mike cole wrote:
>
> >
>
> >         Isn't the trangle a "model, " Andy? A model of the root
>
> >         metaphor. Still an abstraction... waiting to see if it can
>
> >         rise to the concrete? Perhaps?
>
> >
>
> >         Empirically speaking, what is at odds here? For whom?
>
> >
>
> >         mike
>
> >
>
>
>
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