Sass (1992, p. 10) explores “one of the great ironies of modern thought: the madness of schizophrenia -- so often imagined as being antithetical to the modern malaise, even as offering a potential escape from its dilemmas of hyperconsciousness and self-control -- may, in fact be an extreme manifestation of what is in essence a very similar condition.” What evidence there is suggests that schizophrenic illness did not even appear, at least in any significant quantity, before the end of the 18th or beginning of the nineteenth...Catatonia was not described until after Even more telling is the absence or extreme rarity of descriptions of clear instances of individual cases of schizophrenia, at least of the chronic, autistic form, in either medical books or general literature prior to the 19th century. The first clinical descriptions are those of Haslam and Pinel in 1809; the first literary descriptions that definitely qualify are those of the main characters in George Buccaneer’s story “Lenz” and Honore de Balzac’s “Louis Lambert,” both written in the 1830s. Despite the striking clinical picture that schizophrenia presents (at least in its acute and florid forms), one can find no account of it in these or any earlier works. (ibid, pp ). Even Eugen Bleuler, who coined the term schizophrenia in 1908, described a “specific type of alteration of thinking, feeling, and relation to the external world which appears nowhere else in this particular fashion” (ibid., p. 14). “It is not because one is ill that one is alienated, but insofar as one is alienated that one ill” (Foucault, 1987, p. xxvi).

Psychology as A Cultural System Psychological Phenomenon/Behavior Education Political Economy Family Cultural System

Bilingualism as A Concrete Cultural Factor Kui + Oriya Work rules & opportunities Family language Social status of languages Text books Govt. recognition Medium of instruction in school

Hindi + English Work rules & opportunities Family language Social status of languages Text books Govt. recognition Medium of instruction in school Family language

Social Agency Cultural System Cultural System Deena Teacher

Objective & Subjective Consciousness Hegel called this "the cunning of reason" in his Philosophy of History (1956, p. 33). He said, "in a simple act, something farther may be implicated than lies in the intention and consciousness of the agent" (ibid, p. 28). "Those manifestations of vitality on the part of individuals and peoples, in which they seek and satisfy their own purposes, are, at the same time, the means and instruments of a higher and broader purpose of which they know nothing" (ibid., p. 25). Leontiev touched on this as a problem of consciousness in class society. “A consequence of the `alienation’ of human life that has occurred is the emergent disparity between the objective result of man’s activity on the one hand, and its motive on the other. In other words, the objective content of the activity is becoming discrepant with its subjective content…That imparts special psychological features to his consciousness.” (Leontiev, 1981, p. 252). Leontiev goes on to say that this alienation between objective and subjective consciousness is the concrete historical form that meaning and sense take. Vygotsky defined meaning as objective social meaning while sense is a personal accent that is different from meaning (see Levitin, 1982, p. 81). Bhaskar (1989, p. 35) “people in their conscious activity unconsciously reproduce (and occasionally transform) the structures governing their substantive activities of production. Thus, people do not marry to reproduce the nuclear family or work to sustain the capitalist economy. Yet it is nevertheless the unintended consequence (and inexorable result) of, as it is also a necessary condition for, their activity…The problem of how people reproduce any particular society belongs to a linking science of ‘socio-psychology.’”

Potter (2003, pp ) “Discourse work is not designed to answer questions of the kind, `What is the influence of X on Y’ (of social class on education success, and so on). Discourse work typically asks questions of the form, `How is X done?’ How does a speaker use an identity ascription [intelligent, prejudiced, irrational] to disqualify a rival’s version of events…How are notions of remembering and forgetting used to manage blame in political hearings?”

Sociohistorical Definitions of Culture Vygotsky “social environment is class-based in its very structure.” "We must be profoundly historical and must always present man's behavior in relation to the class situation at the given moment." “Class membership defines man’s psychology and man’s behavior” (1997a, pp ). “Every epoch has its own form of education" because educational activity has always corresponded to "those particular economic and social structures of society that defined the whole history of the epoch" (ibid., pp. 55, 56). In contrast to animal groups where behavior is directly determined by instincts of feeding, protection, aggression, and reproduction, “in mankind, these instincts led to the formation and appearance of economic activity, which underlies all of historical development” (ibid, p. 211).

Abstract Definitions of Culture Kroeber & Kluckhohn’s (1952) “Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit, of and for behavior acquired and transmitted by symbols, continuing the distinctive achievements of human groups, including their embodiment in artifacts.” Lompscher’s (2006, p. 36) definition from the perspective of cultural-historical activity theory. “People as societal beings exist as they themselves create the re-create the conditions of their own life…Activity is the fundamental, specifically human form of relationships between human beings and the world, the content of which is the goal-oriented modification and transformation of the world on the basis of culture as it is appropriated and further developed by people…” “Activity is a unity of subject-object (person-world) and subject-subject relations…Activity is characterized by transformation, cognition, communication, value orientation, and development.” “Activity has a macrostructure consisting of subjects interacting with objects (and each other), executing certain actions and operations under concrete conditions, using certain means in order to put into practice their goals and satisfy their needs and motives…”

N. Chomsky, Reflections on Language, 1975 As Harry Bracken has emphasized, “The empiricist/rational debates of the 17 th century and of today are debates between different value systems or ideologies. Hence the heat which characterizes these discussions.” (p. 127). The doctrine that the human mind is initially unstructured and plastic and that human nature is entirely a social product has often been associated with progressive and even revolutionary social thinking…But a deeper look will show that the concept of the ‘empty organism’, plastic and unstructured, apart from being false, also serves naturally as the support for the most reactionary social doctrines. If people are malleable and plastic beings with no essential psychological nature, then why should they not be controlled and coerced by those who claim authority…? The principle that human nature, in its psychological aspects, is nothing more than a product of history and given social relations removes all barriers to coercion and manipulation by the powerful. It is reasonable to suppose that just as intrinsic structures of mind underlie the development of cognitive structures, so a ‘species character’ provides the framework for the growth of moral consciousness, cultural achievement, and even participation in a free and just community. The conclusion that human needs and capacities will find their fullest expression in a society of free and creative producers, working in a system of free association…draws from the empiricist commitment to progress and enlightenment, [but] I think it finds deeper roots in rationalist efforts to establish a theory of human freedom. (pp ).

Treichler, et al. (1984, pp ) power is negotiated within the context of face-to-face interaction…Power becomes the negotiated product of a mutually constituted and mutually administered interaction system.

"It is the forum aspect of a culture [in which meanings are negotiated and re-negotiated] that gives its participants a role in constantly making and remaking the culture -- their active role as participants rather than as performing spectators who play out canonical roles according to rule when the appropriate cues occur" (Bruner, 1982, p. 839) “The prime source for the root models of scientific explanations in the domain of social phenomena is the conversation” (Harre, 2009, p. 140). “Structural concepts in human sciences are heuristic models only—there are no structures” (p. 138). “Human beings can come to realise that they are people and so active agents trying to realise their projects with others. As such they can come to realise that the constraints that society seems to place upon their pursuit of worth are grammatical, in the sense that Ludwig Wittgenstein gave to that term. The story-lines and conventions in accordance with which people live could be different and new grammars can be created and adopted. All we have to do is to show people that they are trapped in the silken but fragile shrouds of a pattern of discourse conventions.” (p. 142). “Where is the place for political action, activities which are aimed at such social goods as the emancipation of some category of persons, the relief of the tyranny of bureaucracies, and so on? If social life is constituted grammatically then it must be transformed grammatically…Should anyone want to make changes in a form of life, the focus of their efforts must be on rendering implicit grammars explicit” (p. 140).

Gergen & Gergen (2002, p. 51) There is no particular configuration of words or phrases that is uniquely matched to what it is we call either the world "out there" or "in here." We may wish to agree that "something exists," but whatever "is" makes no demands on the configuration of phonemes or phrases used by humans in communicating about it. Thus, we remove the privilege of any person or group to claim superior knowledge of what there is. With respect to truth (a match of word and world) or reason (the arrangement of words themselves), no science, religion, philosophy, political party or other group can claim ultimate superiority. More positively, the world does not control what we make of it.

the individual does not simply “stand” before a certain “window” displaying meanings among which he has but to make a choice, that these meanings - representations, concepts, ideas - do not passively wait for his choice but energetically dig themselves into his connections with people forming the circle of his real contacts. Leontiev, A.N. (1978). Activity, consciousness, and personality. New York: Prentice Hall.

Abstract & Concrete Levels Schooling Abstract Level School system 1 School system 2 School System 3 Schooling School system 1 School system 2 School System 3 Concrete Level