A Few Chaotic Class Notes

On Vygotsky, Orwell, Gladwell
& Love

3/4/08

Love is an interesting concept to explore because it is at once quite abstract and, at the same time, very real—it’s a concept people care “passionately” about

It is also a concept very much built upon linguistic notions—if we trace ideas of love backward in time, we can find roots of “romantic” love in literature and, of course, cultural conceptions about love can be quite distinct

Time has changed the concept of love for us

We also rarely discuss our understandings of love, so they are very much rooted in our internal thinking/inner speech

Silence is golden

No more intercultural relating

If we are going to talk about this topic, we need liquor

Love is biological—nor epinephrine—can’t be controlled; your body is effecting your sense of love

OR is love a mental state

What sort of love are we talking about?

Define love, then construct a meaning based on that definition—social cultural construct

What about cross cultural experiences

People can grow into love over time

Vygotsky p. 249—“Inner speech is to a large extent thinking in pure meanings. It is a dynamic, shifting, unstable thing, fluttering between word and thought…”

You say I love you when you mean it.

The linking of the biological and the linguistic

Use metaphors, proverbs to explain the abstract concept

Religion—love your brother

Religion as a justification for war

Holy War

Manufacture concepts by appropriating language

Consciousness is reconstructed through language

  • Could we have love without the word “love”?
  • Once we give the concept a term/name, can we understand the concept without it?
  • Can you talk about the concept “love” without using the term
  • Can you think about love without thinking about the term “love”
  • “a rose by any other name is still a rose”--Shakespeare

What are we allowed to talk about in education?

Orwell—“the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought” (p. 46)

Society vs. individual cognition—we’re always bound by context (Vygotsky says that inner speech always develops from external speech)

Zero

We are always adding connotations through language

Usage of “love” is constrained by social pressure

Overuse “muddies the water” or dulls the concept—makes it unclear

But actions are just as constrained in some ways as words—hugging or kissing

How do we teach a child what love is?

  • Stories
  • Tell narratives to represent the concept

Children don’t have the vocabulary to express what love is?

Children have what we normally call unconditional love

But they seem to have a solid grasp of love.

Does the language reshape their concept of love.

But what is love after all?

  • Is it a social construct?
  • Is it innate?
  • Is it athabascom (native American Indians of Northern Canada)
  • Nature vs. nurture

Redefine words