I see it as dynamic ( ready meaning ready to grow) because I see
subjective-object and objective-subject rather than objective or
subjective.
As diverse "who" are the obejctive-subjects the odds of changes in
the subjective-object motives go way up. We might all change enough
to survive after all. Working on diversity wasn't an accidental part
of LCHC's concern, nor was it for charity or to be nice.
It's the dynamism and hope bought by diversity that might separate me
(and probably Mike) from the Politburo :)
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*From:* Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
*To:* "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
*Sent:* Tuesday, August 20, 2013 10:48 AM
*Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: Leontyev's activities
I think your example and your way of explaining is perfect, Peg, for
the purposes of psychology and education. The "socio-cultural
motive/activity is ready." It is just this objectivist stance in
relation to the societal activities which has always been my main
problem with Leontyev. I know, of course, that you and Mike and the
others involved in 5thD designed activities which were well aligned to
widely held aims for the children's development, but where did they
come from? Speaking generally, what is the dynamic of the activities
we see around us? When surveying social and cultural life in general
it is obviously not sufficient to say "Mike and Peg designed these
activities" any more than it was sufficient to say that the Politburo
decided the targets for social production.
So it seems to me that Greg's main problem remains unsolved in your
approach, Peg. What do we mean by the "motive" of the activity?
*Whose* motive?
Andy
Peg Griffin wrote:
> I like the idea of a "well-motivated argument" as used in classical
and contemporary logic. So I say stick to motivated.
> It works so nicely with the distinction between "merely understood"
and "really effective" -- and the transition as merely understood
motive becomes really effective. The subject may engage in the
actions that are motivated by two different activity systems with two
different motives -- but say the second is merely understood by the
subject and the first is really effective for the subject. When the
human conflict-ing (Luria) mash-up happens and the person lapses into
a mosaically related but contradictory action -- poof -- the merely
understood is now the motive!
> So the child you and Leontyev describe doing homework is first
really effectively motivated by play with adult rules of
priority/timing etc. but when that child scrunches up his homework
paper and throws it in the waste basket and starts all over -- poof--
the really effective motive/activity falls apart and the merely
understood socio-cultural motive/activity is ready and willing and
takes up the slack. Having alluded to both Luria and Leontyev, I now
bring in the Beatles -- it's a long and winding road. Not a one-time
enlightenment! But praxis makes possible.
>
> When we at LCHC, ages ago, were running the after-school school we
called "Field College" (pun and polysemy intended), a funding program
officer (Marge Martus) commented that she hadn't seen a single child
off task in two hours. And believe me they were not school or adult
governed children! It was because Field College was strewn with
motives that virtually begged for children to engage but also to
transition from really effective to merely understood and hence to
"grow" into a new activity. It would be, I told Marge, like being in
a rainstorm and trying to avoid the raindrops if a child were
off-all-the available operating tasks!
> We had "center table" rituals and "fifth dimension" constitutions
that exposed the merely understood motives. And we had participant
structures, tasks, procedures, a lot of bells and whistles that fit in
dual activity systems/motives, some combonation of which elicited the
child's voluntary engagement in a really effective way.
> Peg