Re: [xmca] such a great find

Thanks, Eric. This chapter is the introduction to a book Mark Tappan and I
edited, "Cultural and Critical Perspectives on Human Development," published
by SUNY Press in 2001. It's still available. In fact on Amazon a used copy
can be had for 86c!

<http://www.amazon.com/Cultural-Critical-Perspectives-Human-Development/dp/0
791451801/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204726685&sr=8-1>

Marti

On 3/3/08 3:25 PM, "ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org" <ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org> wrote:

>
> I thought I would share with all who are interested in culture and its
> impact upon human development.
>
> http://compsci.duq.edu/~packer/Pubs/PDFs/2001%20Packer&T.pdf
>
> great summary!
>
> eric
>
>
>
> Martin Packer
> <packer@duq.edu> To: "eXtended Mind,
> Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Sent by: cc:
> xmca-bounces@web Subject: Re: [xmca] If all
> hopes are lost for establishing a more workable
> er.ucsd.edu social system , then
> please tell me where A.N.Leontyev has gone wrong with
> his definition of
> "Personal Meaning"
>
> 03/01/2008 05:16
> PM
> Please respond
> to "eXtended
> Mind, Culture,
> Activity"
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 3/1/08 2:37 PM, "Mike Cole" <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> If there
>> is cultural evolution, or progress in history, how does one adopt a
> cultural
>> historical, activity perspective that declares thinking to be functional
>> systems that include the accumulated
>> artifacts of the community without concluding that thinking in, say, a
> small
>> agricultural village high in the Andes just to pick up on Paul's current
>> environment, is less complex because
>> the range of activities seems limited, the mediational means limited,
>> etc.?
>
> I think this is a central conundrum, and I'm trying to sort out my
> thoughts.
>
> First, I keep having to remind myself that progress is not a characteristic
> that history possesses in itself. Progress is a story we tell about
> history.
> At best, it's told by the survivors. At worst, by the victors. There's a
> wonderful, horrifying book that offers a people's history, documenting the
> 'rise' of American civilization on the backs of the indigenous and the
> poor... (I've lost the title.)
>
> Second, I think Marx's own account of history was complex and probably
> contradictory. (I need to check Hayden White's Metahisory for his reading
> of
> Marx's narratives.) For example, capitalism develops workers' capacities,
> albieit in a lop-sided manner, while it exploits them. Capitalism leads to
> socialism, indeed it's a necessary step. but in large part this is because
> it generates the greatest misery for masses of people, who finally can take
> no more. No simple progress here.
>
> Third, it's interesting to compare the chapters in Ape, Primitive, Child
> written by Vygotsy with those written by Luria. The former seem to me more
> nuanced. Vygotsky writes very evocatively and sensitively about the
> psychology of 'primitive' peoples. The richness of their vocabulary, for
> example, is lost when their language becomes more abstract.
>
> And according to the notes I was taking when reading this book, "Even in
> Luria¹s writing about his expedition [to Uzbekistan] two voices can be
> discerned, two distinct and competing conceptualizations of the changes he
> observed. Let us begin there." My notes, sadly, stop there! And the book is
> not here.
>
> Third, when there are qualitative reognizations, judgments of progress are
> no easy matter. Kuhn taught us that paradigms are 'incommensurate': there
> is
> no common measure to judge them by, because each of the criteria is
> internal
> to a paradigm.
>
> I guess that just as physicists have become accustomed to the need to make
> assessments such as 'faster' or 'slower' always relative to a frame of
> reference, we have to do the same. History may have been progress judged
> from the frame of some anglo-saxon white males, but... and the cognition of
> a mountain villager may be assessed as embodying important forms of wisdom
> from the perspective of people searching for a way to stop damaging the
> planet.
>
> Martin
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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Received on Wed Mar 5 06:23 PST 2008