Re: VS: [xmca] Re: Knotworking (ex: Double stimulation?)

[Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>]

Mike,
This phrase

*it is central to the IMAGINED FUTURES of valued life ways*

is one of those gaps opening within structures and systems.

Imagined futures as in-sights and visions seems to be a key aspect of
prolepsis.

Another key aspect may be recurrence, re-turn, re-reading of structures and
systems REFLEXIVELY.
Larry




On Wed, Jun 26, 2013 at 5:43 PM, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:

> If I didn't know you better, Andy, I could take your opening sentence to be
> a declaration of your adherence to idealism.
>
> That aside, for sure prolepsis is involved. It is central to the imagined
> futures of valued life ways, that are then embodied in the larger
> structures of our everyday involvement in activities. Culturally mediated
> time is non-linear. Whence our second nature.
> mike
>
> On Wed, Jun 26, 2013 at 5:15 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:
>
> > Yes greg, kinship is an ideal, a cultural construct, necessary for the
> > maintenance of certain kinds of project. In cultures where primogeniture
> > prevailed (Jane Austen's England, Japan, for example), if the eldest son
> > was a ne'er-do-well, the head of the household would adopt a young man
> from
> > another family and simply declare him eldest son. Just as today, couples
> > seek to adopt in order to realise their commitment to project their own
> > life project into future generations (prolepsis?). There are many forms.
> >
> > Andy
> >
> > Greg Thompson wrote:
> >
> >> Yes, this idea of projects works very nicely for capturing the mutual
> >> imbrications of persons in one another's lives.
> >>
> >> But I'm still caught up on "voluntary associations" vis a vis kinship.
> My
> >> "beef" here is with the idea of historical discontinuity of primitive
> vs.
> >> modern systems. I think there always were "voluntary association" as you
> >> put it, and perhaps the major difference is one of scale.
> >> Consider this passage from Marshall Sahlins on kinship:
> >>
> >> "On the Alaskan North Slope, the Iñupiat will name children and
> sometimes
> >> adults after dead persons, thus making them members of their namesakes’
> >> families.  Over a lifetime, reports Barbara Bodenhorn (2000: 137), an
> >> Iñupiat may acquire four or five such names and families, although those
> >> who bestow the names were not necessarily related before, and in any
> case
> >> they are never the birth parents. Begetters, begone: natal bonds have
> >> virtually no determining force in Iñupiat kinship. Kinship statuses are
> not
> >> set by the begetters of persons but by their namers. Indeed, it is the
> >> child who chooses the characteristics of birth, including where he or
> she
> >> will be born and of what sex.""
> >>
> >> Thus, kinship itself can be a "voluntary association" that holds
> >> different groups together. Exogamous affinal kinship relationships make
> the
> >> point still more clearly - kinship is always a "voluntary association"
> and
> >> one that holds groups together in projects by virtue of imputing a
> sameness
> >> of substance.
> >> Today it seems that the modes of establishing a sameness of substance
> are
> >> making all kinds of inter-relations possible that were previously
> >> unthinkable. Creating bonds by marital relations are rather limiting in
> >> terms of bond-forming since marriages typically involve small numbers of
> >> persons - notwithstanding polygynous and polyandrous marriages - which
> >> increase the numbers of connections only slightly. Those numbers are
> >> miniscule in comparison to the bonds that are formed by modern statehood
> >> and nationality.
> >>
> >> Benedict Anderson's book Imagined Communities provides a nice case study
> >> of the kinds of projects that you speak of, Andy, and with respect to
> the
> >> emergence of "nationality". In Anderson's narrative, states are formed
> by
> >> the process of nationalization of a language and, critically, by the
> >> creation of a national press. Collective projects (the basis for
> imagined
> >> communities such as a "state") thus are implied by collective
> >> representations of happenings in the world.
> >>
> >> But the situation has been transformed still more by recent
> developments.
> >>
> >> Today a student in Brazil can watch a video of the tazing (or
> >> pepper-spraying) of a student or bunch of students in California and
> feel a
> >> kind of shared substance - that she and I share some essential
> substance of
> >> commitment to a cause or oppression by a dominant power. It would seem
> that
> >> this creates whole new possible forms of
> kinship/nationalism/**solidarity.
> >> A step towards conditions in which workers of the world might begin to
> see
> >> their common situation?
> >> maybe that's taking things too far.
> >>
> >> -greg
> >>
> >>
> >> On Wed, Jun 26, 2013 at 7:16 AM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net<mailto:
> >> ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:
> >>
> >>     And as Mike sketched a few days ago, what an amazing little
> >>     country Finland is!!
> >>
> >>     The point is that in order to understand an object (such as the
> >>     unique nature of Finland, or the upsurge in Brazil) - complex,
> >>     dynamic entities - we need *units* which are themselves processes
> >>     of development. For example, I don't believe we can understand a
> >>     nation state as a collection of *social groups* (eg ethnic, or
> >>     economic, etc.), but rather as a process made up of many other
> >>     distinct processes of development, i.e., projects, which interact
> >>     with one another.
> >>
> >>     Formally speaking, the "systems of activity" which Yrjo introduced
> >>     are indeed processes of development; but "project" is much more
> >>     explicitly so. Further, we individuals apprehend these units (be
> >>     they "systems of activity" or "projects") as *concepts*, and the
> >>     rules, norms, community, division of labour, etc. etc., *flow from
> >>     the concept* as does the *ever-changing conception of the
> >>     *object*. If objects (and community, norms, etc.), pre-exist an
> >>     activity, then we don't have Activity Theory at all, we have some
> >>     variety of structuralism of functionalism.
> >>
> >>     So it is important to begin from the project, each of which is a
> >>     particular instance of a concept, and all the elements (norms,
> >>     tools, etc.) of the project flow from its concept and the
> >>     conditions in which it is developing.
> >>
> >>     So for example, I don't think it is appropriate to conceive the
> >>     social movements, voluntary associations, protests, political
> >>     conflicts and alliances of 20th century Finland as "systems" or
> >>     "institutions." They are projects, projects which constructed
> >>     modern Finland, and which indeed, one day, become "systems", but
> >>     never irreversibly. The institutions which are the products of
> >>     social movements, protests, and so on (projects) are never
> >>     irreversibly reified as "fields" or "figured worlds" or
> >>     "pratico-inerts" or "structures" or any of the other renderings of
> >>     the social fabric as composed of dead and lacking in teleological
> >>     content.
> >>
> >>     Andy
> >>
> >>
> >>     Rauno Huttunen wrote:
> >>
> >>         Hello,
> >>
> >>         Similar things happened in Finland too. See article by
> >>         professor Martti Siisiäinen: Social Movements, Voluntary
> >>         Associations and Cycles of Protest in Finland 1905-91
> >>         (Scandinavian Political Studies, Bind 15, 1992).
> >>
> >>         https://tidsskrift.dk/index.**php/scandinavian_political_**
> >> studies/article/view/13149/**25059<
> https://tidsskrift.dk/index.php/scandinavian_political_studies/article/view/13149/25059
> >
> >>
> >>         Rauno
> >>
> >>         ______________________________**__________
> >>         Lähettäjä: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
> >>         <mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.**ucsd.edu<
> xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu>
> >> >
> >>         [xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
> >>         <mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.**ucsd.edu<
> xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu>>]
> >> k&#228;ytt&#228;j&#228;n
> >>         Andy Blunden [ablunden@mira.net <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>]
> >>
> >>         puolesta
> >>         Lähetetty: 26. kesäkuuta 2013 3:30
> >>         Kopio: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> >>         Aihe: Re: [xmca] Re: Knotworking (ex: Double stimulation?)
> >>
> >>         But to make a distinction is not necessarily to set up a
> >>         dichotomy.
> >>
> >>         In Australian social history the appearance of voluntary
> >>         associations n
> >>         the 19th century (mostly trade union-type organisations, but
> >>         also sports
> >>         and recreation, mutual-aid of various kinds, and later
> >>         political parties
> >>         and groups) was a significant development, which meant people
> >>         regularly
> >>         travelling long distances to stitch together the fabric of the
> >>         emerging
> >>         nation. In the US, the parallel role was played, I believe, to
> >>         a great
> >>         extent, also by Protestant sects, who pioneered the building
> >>         of new
> >>         bonds of sociability and trust across great distances.
> >>
> >>         These New World projects constructed a new kind of civil
> >>         society and the
> >>         basis for modernity. According to Hegel for example, modernity
> is
> >>         characterised by the eclipse of family as the chief bond and
> >>         political
> >>         force in a state, by voluntary associations, such as
> professional
> >>         associations or regional community organisations, where people
> of
> >>         differing traditions construct new modern conditions of
> >>         collaboration.
> >>         But of course, the family and the state both remain in place!
> >>
> >>         Andy
> >>
> >>         Greg Thompson wrote:
> >>
> >>             Yes, Andy, I think the anthropological notion of kinship
> >>             captures your
> >>             point that not all biological relatives are "kin".
> >>             Anthropologist
> >>             David Schneider, for example, points out how kinship is
> >>             really just
> >>             the Aristotelian notion of "identity", and that "kinship" is
> >>             fundamentally a matter of sameness of substance. Thus,
> >>             political and
> >>             religious affiliations are, in his view, systems of kinship.
> >>
> >>             Seems like the same would be true of so-called "voluntary
> >>             association"
> >>             (scare quotes because of skepticism of notions of
> >>             voluntary and the
> >>             assumptions it makes about us as subjects). Any voluntary
> >>             association
> >>             worth its salt will surely have this sense of shared
> >>             substance (and
> >>             with regard to the making of this shared substance,
> >>             Durkheim is
> >>             essential - but that's a different story for a different
> >>             time!). And
> >>             don't most of these organizations have some sense of
> >>             kinship built
> >>             into their relational terms, whether "brother" or
> >>             "brotherhood" or
> >>             "family" or whatever?
> >>
> >>             -greg
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>             On Mon, Jun 24, 2013 at 6:47 PM, Andy Blunden
> >>             <ablunden@mira.net <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>
> >>             <mailto:ablunden@mira.net <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>>>
> wrote:
> >>
> >>                 Yes, there is no doubt that the commitment many people
> >>             have to
> >>                 continuing the work of their parents and even
> >>             ancestors, and their
> >>                 investment in their children, evidences a project, an
> >>             archetypal
> >>                 project in fact. "Voluntary associations" are
> >>             historically a
> >>                 relatively recent invention, prior to which kinship
> >>             was possibly
> >>                 the most significant project in human life. Of course,
> >>             it is not
> >>                 always the case that a kinship relation always
> >>             indicates the
> >>                 relevance of the concept of "project" - I have cousins
> >>             whom I have
> >>                 never met and to whom I have no commitment whatsoever.
> >>
> >>                 Andy
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>         ______________________________**____________
> >>         _____
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> >>         http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/**listinfo/xmca<
> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>     --
> ------------------------------**------------------------------
> >> **------------
> >>     *Andy Blunden*
> >>     Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/ <
> http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy/
> >> **>
> >>     Book: http://www.brill.nl/concepts
> >>     http://marxists.academia.edu/**AndyBlunden<
> http://marxists.academia.edu/AndyBlunden>
> >>
> >>
> >>     ______________________________**____________
> >>     _____
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> >>
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> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
> >> Visiting Assistant Professor
> >> Department of Anthropology
> >> 883 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
> >> Brigham Young University
> >> Provo, UT 84602
> >> http://byu.academia.edu/**GregoryThompson<
> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson>
> >>
> >
> > --
> > ------------------------------**------------------------------**
> > ------------
> >
> > *Andy Blunden*
> > Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
> > Book: http://www.brill.nl/concepts
> > http://marxists.academia.edu/**AndyBlunden<
> http://marxists.academia.edu/AndyBlunden>
> >
> >
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