Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, vol. 49, no. 2,
March–April 2011, pp. 16–22.
© 2011 M.E. Sharpe, Inc. All rights reserved.
ISSN 1061–0405/2011 $9.50 + 0.00.
DOI 10.2753/RPO1061-0405490202
Jaan Valsiner and Kirill Maslov
The present article gives an analysis of the theoretical and historical background of the School for the Dialogue of Cultures, taking into account the problems of dialectics and the teaching process. It is directly based on the traditions of Bakhtin and Bibler and considers school–society–person interconnections.
A democracy is nice to live in—but difficult to understand. It is built on assumptions of equality—yet by its own processes it gives rise to different kinds of hierarchical social structures. Some of these are transitory—they vanish after they are no longer needed. Others linger on and become permanent fixtures of the social system. Others emerge in the discursive spaces between already existing social structures where power inequality remains in its place. This is especially so if its arena is a school classroom, and the power holders—the teachers, school administrators, and security personnel—set the stage for democratic governance of the act of teaching and learning (obuchenie). Yet—what kind of democratic governance is it? How can it exist in the macroenvironments of distrust of the “world outside” (Folds, 1987) or under the historical circumstances of education as a missionary activity (Valsiner, 2003)?
The issues of the Journal of Russian and East European Psychology introducing the practices of education in Russia and Ukraine to the international readership—based on the neo-Marxist philosophy of Vladimir Bibler and neo-Cohenian (Cohen 1885, 1910) literary analysis of Mikhail Bakhtin—provide an enlightened and complex stage for our inquiry into the basic problems of human development.
From where do we start our coverage? We are not “readers” here—but explicitly take the position of “theoreticians.” The latter “are primarily interested in the general laws of poetics of a particular author, genre, historical epoch, or literature as a whole. The particular is of interest to them as a variation in general” (Osetinsky, 2009, p. 70).
The poetics in which we are interested here—from our general standpoint—is that of human development within its varied contexts, ranging from those of sensory impairments (Maslov, 2010) to lives in economically and ecologically difficult external circumstances (Hecht, 1998). A school is one of those settings, in which a delicate combination of competence and (purposeful) ignorance is promoted. We have selected two domains for further investigation—the fate of Hegel’s dialectics, and the multivoicedness of the use of Bakhtin’s ideas.
Dialectics without dialectical synthesis
Hegel’s ideas have been much spoken of, but rarely understood. The dialectic system that Hegel created took its start from his dissertation on planetary orbits in 1801 (Hegel, 1998) and was followed by his observations on history, spirit, and logic, until his death in 1831. Relating to the fixed categories of Kant, Hegel turned the ontological “what is” into a duality of “what is” and “what is not (yet).”
Hegel’s reformulation of categories—from
{A or non-A}
to
{A and (tension-filled relation with) non-A}
was a major breakthrough in the understanding of the world. It overcame dualism in favor of interrelatedness within—and (by way of synthesis) beyond—duality. Tension within the dual structure leads to overcoming of the previous quality and the emergence of a new one. Dualities, not dualisms, abound. In this context, the notion of synthesis, through negation of the negation of the first opposition, becomes central to all of the dialectical framework.
Thus, reflexivity upon a contrast of parts of a system (A and non-A) is not enough.
That reflexivity takes the form of discerning a tension (contradiction) between the opposing, yet united, parts of the system, leading the system to move, and, in the case of natural systems, to transform into a new duality, which transforms into yet another one, and so on into infinity (affirmative infinity in Hegel’s terms).
Given this centrality of the notion of synthesis, it is all the more surprising that the School of the Dialogue of Cultures (SDC) movement, “wildly and genuinely” (Berlyand, 2009, p. 29) based on guidance from Bibler, explicitly rejects the notion of synthesis (Bibler, 2009; Berlyand, 2009, p. 31, n. 7; Matusov, 2009, p. 5). The social reasons may be traceable. While the Soviet system emphasized the relevance of synthesis of the “New Soviet Person” (Homo Sovieticus; see the dialogue of Matusov and Berlyand in Bibler, 2009, p. 54, n. 8), Bibler’s focus on the relevance of the cultivated person can be seen as an act of resistance to the univocal power. Such a person can cultivate one’s understanding by taking different positions, and looking at the world through those—rather than arriving at one dominant view that turns all others into a shadow or a foreign element that needs to be eliminated. Hence the preference in SDC for Bakhtin over the implications of the “absolute spirit of power” that keeps reemerging in the Kremlin through political syntheses of various kinds.
Developmental science needs the concept of synthesis
A dialectical focus in developmental psychology has been limited to a few efforts all of which quickly vanished (Basseches, 1984), and even the most consistently developmental thinker in North America, James Mark Baldwin, who tried to build a system of “developmental logic,” avoided the notion of synthesis (Valsiner, 2010, p.xliv). Yet it is needed for any consistently developmental perspective in the biological and social sciences. Of course, its Hegelian origin is to be elaborated beyond nice abstract words. Chemistry, as it emerged from alchemy into a science, has managed to accomplish this task. Would education, as a practice embedded in social institutions, equally need it? Probably not—and here we can see the Realpolitik of the SDC, as its implications are dangerous to the very system that might endorse it. Here the SDC and the traditional pedagogy it is in dialogue with would probably be in agreement—revolutionaries or terrorists attacking their own establishment are not allowed to emerge in the social system by way of its policies. In other words, social institutions are self-preserving, not suicidal.
The voices and their roots
The half-dialectical stance of the SDC maps well on the perspective of dialogicality of Mikhail Bakhtin. The dialogical understanding of culture entails considering culture as a conversation, an interaction with your own “self” as “the other.” Bibler (1991) defines dialogue as something that assumes the intercommunication of “I–You” as it occurs between ontologically different personalities who potentially have different cultures, not only different meanings and conceptions. The basis for such communication is the text. For Bibler in this case, text is always directed to the other (and is always dialogical); text has sense only in the case of inner logic (of different texts), similar language, and intelligibility of its (textual) contexts. Understanding should also be considered in terms of equal contexts of what is being described (object), who is describing (author), and how it is being understood (interpreter). All of this presupposes an active dialogical understanding. All stages of this process (perception–understanding in the context of language–understanding in the context of a given culture–and dialogical communication) make this process (of communication) difficult because it is the result of its opposite—the “improbability of communication.” First, it is improbable that one individual understands what another individual has said due to the autonomy of each individual’s consciousness. Second, it is improbable that communication engages more people than need to be involved in the concrete situation. Third, even if communication is understood, it does not mean that it will be accepted.
Thus, communication is always selective, and that is why after passing through these three filters, the communication is more improbable than possible. In order to make understanding dialogical—communication with yourself as if it were the other is needed (Bakhtin, 1979).
The social context of dialogism
Bakhtin’s ideas emerged during a time of major social upheaval. It was the era when personal communion was assumed to be commune-istic. The dramatic events of World War I , followed by the civil war in Russia brought about fundamental changes in Russian life. These changes were so deep that even the name of the country was transformed with the prefix “Soviet,” that is, Soviet Union (compare with European Union). Bibler (1991) pointed out that the influence of these political changes upon Bakhtin’s views is not fully understood. Nevertheless, he argued the importance of such a social and “civilization shift” for Russian philosophers. The main effect of these changes was the impossibility of applying old (prewar) views and conceptions (Bibler, 1991). The old world was demolished very rapidly and irrecoverably. That is why the only autonomous place in that situation was the inner world to which the interests of philosophers were redirected from the chaotic social world. This may be the way to explain why for Bakhtin the meaning of inner (whether it be dialogue, world, etc.) conceptions is so important. As Bibler (1991) remarked, the main philosophical conceptions obtained before the 1917 revolution became a phenomenon of inner clarification.
Yet the roots of the dialogical perspective go back to the time before World War I, to the small German town of Marburg. Bakhtin, even if he did not study in Marburg, was a follower of Herman Cohen. Cohen’s conceptions became very familiar due to the idea of “infinitely small,” where the main attention was focused on details, an interest in “inseparable atoms of the culture.” Thus, withdrawal into yourself (ukhod v sebia) due to a chaotic outer situation and thus the great attention to details proposed by the Marburg school (Cohen personally)—gave very fertile ground for the later conceptions of Bakhtin.
Beyond the pleasure principle
Cohen’s conceptions of aesthetic feeling very strongly influenced Bakhtin’s. First, an understanding of aesthetics is possible only in a unified (common) field of culture; second, it is necessary to neglect the principle of “pleasure–nonpleasure” (lust–nonlust) in the interpretation and explanations of aesthetic feeling; third, consciousness just means “spirituality” (odukhotvorennost’) and “soulfulness” (odushevlennost’); it means something unclear and mysterious, and, at that moment, aesthetic feeling appears (Bibler, 1991); and fourth, the final sense for aesthetically meaningful feeling is “aesthetic love,” be aware of others as you are aware of yourself. Thus, neglecting and denying the pleasure principle (which directly refers to classical Freudiansm with all of its consequences), the human being by means of mind (razum) passes into the mystery of consciousness (zagadka soznaniia, Bibler’s term), and thus, to an understanding of the other as the understanding of one’s own self.
Explaining how the pleasure principle functions, Freud clarifies that this principle (when most of our psychic processes should seek to achieve pleasure) is subject to certain impediments because it cannot proceed in a linear fashion. Freud introduces the concept of the reality principle, which, “without giving up the intention of ultimately attaining pleasure, postpones the possibilities of satisfaction and temporarily endures the displeasure on the long and circuitous road to pleasure” (Freud, 1920/1992, p. 204).
If we apply this general psychic principle to an explanation of historical processes, World War I (and the ensuing events in various parts of Europe) was the effect of this “impeded” pleasure principle. If we adopt the concept of a “Grand Dialogue,” a world war became possible because of the impossibility of dialogue, when two or more voices sound like several monologues. The events of 1917 in Russia (the revolutions) and the Civil War may be called such monologues. (Monologues, because destruction of the adversary can hardly be termed a “rejoinder in a dialogue”; it is more like a period.)
The explanation that suggests itself is that adherence to the pleasure principle (with a nod to realism) cannot be deemed to be the underlying one—it is what appears to us to be the starting point of Bakhtin’s concept (albeit possibly in a highly simplistic interpretation—K.M.). However, the impossibility of a dialogue (the reduction of the highest to the lowest, disintegration into a disjointed polyphony) is not so much the end (limit) as the starting point for a new dialogical interaction because the end of dialogue may be acknowledged only with the death of Man (the responder).
However, Bibler (1991) treated Bakhtin’s and Cohen’s views as distinct, considering them similar, but not the same in their understanding of the role of hero, dialogue, and culture as a whole. Cohen’s aesthetic image is joined with the “message” (Mitteilung), which is directed toward purification from empirical admixtures (in Bibler’s words), but for Bakhtin, dialogue is a result of communicating reason (obshchaiushchiisia razum). For Bakhtin, the being (existence) is directed toward “YOU,” to the other who answers to the self. Hence the focus on interrelated “voices,” but not on any synthesis that emerges from their relationship.
Yet here is a paradox: while the SDC perspective borrows Bakhtin, via Bibler, to emphasize the dialogical nature of education efforts, the examples given from pedagogical practice are all external—teachers and pupils in explicit dialogues in classroom activities. There is no trace of any internal dialogicality of the voices, which would be needed for the success of the SDC in the creation of a cultured person, externally and internally.
Conclusions: The SDC as a creative experiment—yet—how much farther can it go?
Historically, education, particularly school education, has always centered on the teacher’s role, with an emphasis on the person. He (as in the history of education that role was overwhelmingly male) was a resource of knowledge and wisdom to the learners. This made sense in the community context: the teacher as a person was almost the only one who was well educated in the communities of a small town or village. The role of the teacher in European contexts, including Russia before 1917, was that of a high moral authority (e.g., Zenkovsky, 1960). From such an authoritative perspective, the introduction of any innovative new social context, whether democratic or autocratic, into the classroom was possible at that time. And it could be so now, in principle. The educational system can be changed locally, in the immediate activity contexts of classrooms, as classic studies on the
classroom atmosphere (e.g., Lippitt, 1940) demonstrated long ago. But this does not automatically mean that the system as a whole would change.
However, both the social role of the teacher and the location where educational activities take place have qualitatively changed since the times that inspired Bibler’s vision of creative education. The teacher’s role is gradually becoming similar to that of a low-level manager, a civil servant of the educational system, who just provides the students with fragmented portions of information. It does not matter whether that provision is mandated by a state educational program or by feedback from the “customers” of education (e.g., ratings of teachers by students or their parents), the agency (and remuneration) of the job are diminished. Becoming a teacher is no longer a position that gives one honorable status in the local community.
For economic and political reasons, a teacher very often fails to act as a moral authority or example for others. In this new social situation a dialogue, (in Bakhtin’s, and even more in Bibler’s terms) becomes almost a game of democratic governance, rather than a tool that leads the collective construction of knowledge. If “the real dialogue” always presupposes interaction between equals in similar cultural contexts and senses—as Bibler-inspired education seems to imply—then simply guiding children to actively express their immediate opinions in a democratic way results in a powerful engine that is simply idling. It is precisely here where the rejection of
Hegel’s notion of sublation (Aufhebung) in the SDC impedes the productivity of the education system. Discussion is good if it leads to new knowledge, rather than to a pleasant feeling of “having had fun” in the classroom expressing one’s opinions.
Of course, there are examples of teachers and pedagogues who try to apply the dialogical imperative in the process of school education, and who guide their pupils’ dialogical processes toward synthesizing knowledge. We, as teachers, trace the reality of such synthesis in the descriptions of concrete teaching plans. We can trust their intuitive skills, yet it is a long way from these positive examples to turning the education system as a whole into a community of ever-democratic seekers of new knowledge. The school system remains dominant in the schooling processes—and democratic processes are subordinated to it. Dialogue among equals, where the consciousnesses of participants have equal rights to being heard and respected—is a very high pedagogical ideal. The question is: are we (teachers, scholars, parents, and educational system as a whole) prepared to achieve it in its entirety? What kind of “inner philosophy” might the new school propose: dealing more with upbringing than with education? Would it be in terms of giving fixed amounts of prescribed knowledge? Or maybe both? The SDC examples published in the Journal of Russian and East European Psychology provide local proof that some educators can succeed, but the synthesis of a new educational system as a whole is nowhere in sight. So, maybe it cannot happen, and Bibler’s rejection of the notion of synthesis is an adequate reflection of social realities.
Note
1. Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, vol. 47, no. 1 (January–February
2009) and vol. 47, no. 2 (March–April 2009).
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To order reprints, call 1-800-352-2210; outside the United States, call 717-632-3535.
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Jaan Valsiner is a cultural psychologist with a developmental axiomatic base that is brought to analyses of any psychological or social phenomena. He is the founding editor (1995) of the journal Culture and Psychology (Sage), and (since 2009) editor in chief of Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Sciences (Springer).
E-mail: jvalsiner@clarku.edu.
Kirill Maslov is a doctoral student at Tallinn University (Estonia). His scientific interests include the psychology of blindness and disability, the methodology and history of psychology, and special education.
E-mail: kirill@tlu.ee.
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