Bernstein, 2000, p. 172.
Monday 25 January 2010
'Gaze' and specialised knowledge
I believe 'gaze' was first introduced by Foucault in 'The Birth of the Clinic' (1973) where it referred to the 'medical gaze' which transformed the body into a positivists object. That specialised knowledge selected and constructed a particular object, on the basis of recognition and realisation procedures internal to the specialisation of that knowledge.
Bernstein, 2000, p. 172.
Bernstein, 2000, p. 172.
Saturday 23 January 2010
Abstraction and speech
Whilst the existence of inner, non-linguistic categories that enable concept formation is not denied, according to Gal’perin (1969), ‘abstractions are achieved only as a result of speech and are retained only in speech’ (p. 262)
Monday 18 January 2010
The neurons that shaped civilization
Neuroscientist Vilayanur Ramachandran outlines the fascinating functions of mirror neurons. Only recently discovered, these neurons allow us to learn complex social behaviors, some of which formed the foundations of human civilization as we know it.
Saturday 16 January 2010
Technocratic speech and technocratic consciousness
We do not speak in a spontaneous, everyday speech but in a speech that has gone through the matrix of formal education. In the past, our speech was modelled by the primary and secondary schooling (mathematics, geometry, physics, chemistry, literature, including poetry and drama). Nowadays, however, that knowledge is topped by other academic disciplines. I am thinking about science (including environmental sciences, medicine, evolutionary science), technology, the social sciences in general (especially politics), history and, since Freud, psychology.
A year ago I read 'Saturday' by Ian McEwan. The novel tells the story of two days in the life of Henry Perone, an English neurosurgeon whose life is dramatically changed in the aftermath of 9/11. I was very impressed by its narrative, although for me, a Latin American, the exercise seemed too cold at times. Aesthetically, the novel presents a world in blue, like inside a bubble that can only be constructed by an English mind, the same collective mind that created the individual mind of Charles Darwin, the mind of the collector who realises a novel truth after putting the pieces of the puzzle together. It was extraordinarily precise, but at the same time absolutely contemporary.
The narrator created Perone with an evolutionary consciousness. It obviously reflects the fact that McEwan is completely sold to Darwin and evolutionary theory. The key here is that it would be impossible for a pre-Darwinian person to truly understand that novel. You simply do not understand it in its complexity if you don't get to know the basics of Darwinian thought. Moreover, the narrator appropriates the speech of brain surgeons with no compromises. One really believes Perone is what the narrator says he is. Life and death depend upon Perone's scientific knowledge and neurosurgery skills, as every human life on this planet depends upon the mastery of language and technology, from small or large-scale ways to co-ordinate work and provide food and shelter, to systems of representations that shape our identities and motivate the way we behave.
But at the end, the novel leaves you in a moody state. Blue. Longing for another more primitive world where gods exist.
What kind of identities are being shaped by our speech? Technocratic identities where the old languages of philosophy and religion are dead? Who are we nowadays? Who can understand us apart from ourselves?
A year ago I read 'Saturday' by Ian McEwan. The novel tells the story of two days in the life of Henry Perone, an English neurosurgeon whose life is dramatically changed in the aftermath of 9/11. I was very impressed by its narrative, although for me, a Latin American, the exercise seemed too cold at times. Aesthetically, the novel presents a world in blue, like inside a bubble that can only be constructed by an English mind, the same collective mind that created the individual mind of Charles Darwin, the mind of the collector who realises a novel truth after putting the pieces of the puzzle together. It was extraordinarily precise, but at the same time absolutely contemporary.
The narrator created Perone with an evolutionary consciousness. It obviously reflects the fact that McEwan is completely sold to Darwin and evolutionary theory. The key here is that it would be impossible for a pre-Darwinian person to truly understand that novel. You simply do not understand it in its complexity if you don't get to know the basics of Darwinian thought. Moreover, the narrator appropriates the speech of brain surgeons with no compromises. One really believes Perone is what the narrator says he is. Life and death depend upon Perone's scientific knowledge and neurosurgery skills, as every human life on this planet depends upon the mastery of language and technology, from small or large-scale ways to co-ordinate work and provide food and shelter, to systems of representations that shape our identities and motivate the way we behave.
But at the end, the novel leaves you in a moody state. Blue. Longing for another more primitive world where gods exist.
What kind of identities are being shaped by our speech? Technocratic identities where the old languages of philosophy and religion are dead? Who are we nowadays? Who can understand us apart from ourselves?
Saturday 9 January 2010
Moonwalking, imitating Michael Jackson
It's quite remarkable the role of pantomime in the developing of medieval literature noticed by Bakhtin in 'The dialogic imagination'.
I am not sure how to put it but there are many converging lines to explain the emergence and development of higher (and not so higher) psychological functions in history: the role of pantomime and theatre, for once. Or pantomime as the most primitive form of drama.
I cannot but see a connection between Shakespeare and the issue of his works citing stories and other works up to the point where we believe the Bard is a bodily representation of a collective author. The fact that his English is a sort of word salad that emerged in an England open to trade, people, products and languages from all over the world (a re-run of the Roman empire in steroids), without a fixed centre (soon they will even reject the 'Vulgata latina' and the canonical normative it imposed on vernacular languages).
How could we think of politics without theatre. Does politics imitate theatre or theatre imitates politics? And when national languages were fixed in their modern version, literature then imitated literature (starting by Cervantes). In its contemporary forms, people imitate life styles depicted in films, TV series and comedy. A former Chinese student of mine learned most of her English by watching 'Friends'. Of course she wants to imitate not only the way Rachel speaks but the way she lives and I think she eventually will manage to copycut her lifestyle: live in an apartment in New York and be a successful businessperson.
I remember some political observers noticing the Soviet Union fell not only as a consequence of the struggle between economic and political forces but because Russians were watching the American series 'Dallas' and were fascinated by America's way of living (not sure about this information though).
On an even more simplistic key, one can start to see a complete shift in American society when white kids tried to moonwalk like Michael Jackson. Perhaps without that cultural change fostered by the television industry (MTV), the rise of Obama to power would have not been possible in the US.
I am not sure how to put it but there are many converging lines to explain the emergence and development of higher (and not so higher) psychological functions in history: the role of pantomime and theatre, for once. Or pantomime as the most primitive form of drama.
I cannot but see a connection between Shakespeare and the issue of his works citing stories and other works up to the point where we believe the Bard is a bodily representation of a collective author. The fact that his English is a sort of word salad that emerged in an England open to trade, people, products and languages from all over the world (a re-run of the Roman empire in steroids), without a fixed centre (soon they will even reject the 'Vulgata latina' and the canonical normative it imposed on vernacular languages).
How could we think of politics without theatre. Does politics imitate theatre or theatre imitates politics? And when national languages were fixed in their modern version, literature then imitated literature (starting by Cervantes). In its contemporary forms, people imitate life styles depicted in films, TV series and comedy. A former Chinese student of mine learned most of her English by watching 'Friends'. Of course she wants to imitate not only the way Rachel speaks but the way she lives and I think she eventually will manage to copycut her lifestyle: live in an apartment in New York and be a successful businessperson.
I remember some political observers noticing the Soviet Union fell not only as a consequence of the struggle between economic and political forces but because Russians were watching the American series 'Dallas' and were fascinated by America's way of living (not sure about this information though).
On an even more simplistic key, one can start to see a complete shift in American society when white kids tried to moonwalk like Michael Jackson. Perhaps without that cultural change fostered by the television industry (MTV), the rise of Obama to power would have not been possible in the US.
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