Re: [xmca] Vygotsky on Identity? - LSV never wrote on Identity :)

Carol Says
Actually, men are compelled to marry, so they said up marriages with people
?(ancestors) that are dead. It's really freaky. I think the average Chinese
people would find this more acceptable tham homosexuality. Men are
providers, but they are expected to be married to *women*.

On 22/11/2007, Paul Dillon <phd_crit_think@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> Tony,
>
> Your comments on the changes in China caught my attention. I have
> wondered how the single child+preference for male children will play itself
> out.
>
> The Washington Post reported:
>
> "The policy has also contributed to an imbalanced sex ratio; allowed only
> one child, many couples choose to abort female fetuses, in keeping with the
> traditional preference of the Chinese for boys. According to the population
> report, there are 118 boys for every 100 girls, and the gap is expected to
> grow. By 2020, if the current birthrate remains stable, marriage-age men
> will outnumber women by 30 million, a "serious hidden danger which may lead
> to social disorder," the report said.. "
>
> In addition to the sex-ratio imbalance and a lot of men who con't have
> mates, taking into account what one might call "the single-child syndrome"
> , how all that testerone will express itself. Legitimation of
> homosexuality?
>
> Any thoughts?
>
> Paul
>
>
> Tony Whitson <twhitson@UDel.Edu> wrote:
> While I don't know enough about the LSV tradition to add anything in that
> regard, this question has brought to my mind some thoughts that may be
> relevant.
>
> It seems to me that individual identity is a peculiarly Western concern.
> When I went to Taibei in 1973 to teach English as a foreign language, I
> surveyed a lot of short stories and plays that could be used with people
> who had been studying English from textbooks for many years. One text I
> chose was Miller's DEATH OF A SALESMAN. This was partly because the
> language was authentically colloquial without a lot of
> time-and-place-specific slang, jargon, or dialect (which is perhaps
> surprisingly hard to find), but also because I thought the themes would
> dramatize a preoccupation of young Americans with working out their
> personal identities, a preoccupation that I thought would be uncommon in
> important respects for Taiwanese and Taiwan Chinese of the same age. This
> was generally born out by my experience in teaching the text there. (I
> felt my choice was vindicated in some way when Miller's play was chosen a
> few years later for the first to be performed across the mainland in one
> of the first US-PRC cultural exchanges.)
>
> When I think of literature by my own favorite 20th Century Chinese
> writers, such as Lu Xun and Ba Jin, I don't recall the same kind of
> thematizing personal identity struggles and crises that are common in US
> literature. This is changing now with radical cultural discontinuities in
> China today.
>
> I think Erik Erikson (he of the "Identity Crisis") saw Martin Luther as
> important in this regard. How, by comparison, does the individual figure
> within Russion Orthodoxy?
>
> We can think of the Bildungsroman genre in Europe. Does some of
> Dostoievski's work belong squarely in that genre? or is D more "in
> dialogue" with that genre? And is D representative of Russian culture, in
> that respect?
>
> These are questions that are beyond what I'm qualified to discuss; but
> others might find them relevant. Bakhtin would seem to provide a helpful
> perspective on this.
>
>
> On Thu, 22 Nov 2007, Mike Cole wrote:
>
> > Eric-- This is not a case where premature demise is particularly
> relevant.
> > Anton and Andy seem
> > to point to more fruitful lines of research in my view. I find the idea
> of a
> > "unified superego" pretty
> > scary, ditto cult of personality to which I think it is related. But it
> is
> > an interesting idea.
> >
> > Jaan was an Estonian, not a Russian, which may also be relevant here.
> >
> > In recent years there has been a lot of attention in Russian psychology
> to
> > "the subject" or subjectivity.
> > Perhaps that would be a fruitful line of investigation.
> > mike
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Nov 22, 2007 9:01 AM, wrote:
> >
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Andy:
> >>
> >> I would point out that Vygotsky sadly died before his vision came to
> >> fruition and Leontiev and Luria forwarded his work but not necessarily
> how
> >> Vygotsky would have invisioned. Valsiner writes a great deal on
> identity
> >> formation. For that same reason when I read articles in the CHAT
> >> tradition
> >> he is rarely cited. He doesn't fit the collective shall we say.
> >>
> >> I too am greatly interested in reading what the current Russian
> scholars
> >> have to say.
> >>
> >> eric
> >>
> >> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity"
> >> cc:
> >> bcc:
> >> Subject: Re: [xmca] Vygotsky on Identity? - LSV never wrote on
> >> Identity :)
> >> Andy Blunden
> >> Sent by: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
> >> 11/22/2007 09:16 PM ZE11
> >> Please respond to "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" >> size=-1>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>> From my very superficial search it does seem that we have work by
> >> "westerners" using basic ideas of cultural-historical activity theory
> to
> >> develop a theory of identity construction, and to my eyes this work
> seems
> >> to be quite valid so far I can see, but it does seem that Anton is
> right.
> >> Could I proffer a suggestion that is somewhat in line with Bella's
> >> suggestion: in the conditions of late 1920s/early 1930s Soviet Union
> where
> >> Vygotsky worked, and Vygotsky's social position dedicated to his role
> in
> >> the preparation of the conditions for the construction of the socialist
> >> future and the new type of human being, there was really no difference
> >> between growing up to become a citizen of the Soviet Union of good
> >> character and personality and what we in the late-capitalist world call
> >> identity? It is the absence of a unitary super-ego and the multiplicity
> of
> >> available visions of the good, and conflicting claims upon our loyalty
> >> which makes the problem of identity-construction such a central problem
> >> for
> >> our psychology. There just was no such problem for Vygotsky. The work
> that
> >> Eric pointed to about "Defectology" certain gave some hints in the
> >> direction of a theory of identity and shows Vygotsky's interest in
> efforts
> >> to appropriate Adler's individual psychology, but I think I can only
> see
> >> hints here, not an actual concept of identity as such.
> >>
> >> Does that make sense. Can our Russian comrades tell me that I am quite
> >> mistaken?
> >>
> >> Andy
> >> At 10:47 AM 21/11/2007 +0200, you wrote:
> >>> You are right, Anton- there is no exact word in Russian, but there are
> >>> related terms and themas. When he speaks about the role of
> >>> national/international culture in upbringing and education is it
> related
> >> to
> >>> identity formation?
> >>> Bella Kotik-Friedgut
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On 11/21/07, Anton Yasnitsky wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> I would argue Vygotsky never wrote on Identity :) --
> >>>>
> >>>> unless anybody points out what Identity might stand for in Vygotsky's
> >> -
> >>>> preferably original - texts.
> >>>>
> >>>> AY.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> --- Andy Blunden wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> Can anyone point me to where I should look in Vygotsky for his ideas
> >> on
> >>>>> Identity and Identity formation?
> >>>>> I have the LSV Collected Works.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Andy
> >>>>>
> >>>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>>> xmca mailing list
> >>>>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> >>>>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >>>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> Be smarter than spam. See how smart SpamGuard is at giving junk
> >> email
> >>>> the boot with the All-new Yahoo! Mail. Click on Options in Mail and
> >> switch
> >>>> to New Mail today or register for free at http://mail.yahoo.ca
> >>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>> xmca mailing list
> >>>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> >>>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> Sincerely yours Bella Kotik-Friedgut
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> xmca mailing list
> >>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> >>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >>
> >> Andy Blunden : http://home.mira.net/~andy/ tel (H) +61 3 9380 9435,
> >> mobile 0409 358 651
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> xmca mailing list
> >> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> >> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> xmca mailing list
> >> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> >> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >>
> > _______________________________________________
> > xmca mailing list
> > xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> > 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)
> _______________________________________________
> xmca mailing list
> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------
> Get easy, one-click access to your favorites. Make Yahoo! your homepage.
> _______________________________________________
> xmca mailing list
> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>

-- 
"Pax Te Cum"
6 Andover Road
Westdene
2092 Johannesburg
011 673 9265  082 562 1050
_______________________________________________
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca