Jay Lemke: Socialism

“The role of discourse in society is active; it not only re-confirms and re-enacts existing social relationships and patterns of behavior, it also renegotiates social relationships and introduces new meanings and new behaviors.”

Jay Lemke

Source: Textual politics: Discourse and social dynamics, 1995, p. 2

Behavior

“We will document a single instance of a widespread and increasingly dominant political strategy in modern society: the transformation of discourses of expert knowledge into discourses of social policy.”

Jay Lemke

Source: Textual politics: Discourse and social dynamics, 1995, p. 48

Knowledge

“Minds are formed by our social interactions in a community and a culture.”

Jay Lemke

Source: Textual politics: Discourse and social dynamics, 1995, p. 16

Communication

“The basic point-of-view is that science is a social process.”

Jay Lemke

Source: Talking Science: Language, Learning, and Values. 1990, p. xi

Science

“When I speak about discourse in general, I will usually mean the social activity of making meanings with language and other symbolic systems in some particular kind of situation or setting.”

Jay Lemke

Source: Textual politics: Discourse and social dynamics, 1995, p. 6

“Many people have been taught a social habit, a discourse, for speaking about meaning, which considers only the role of the individual organism, or the individual mind, in the process of making meanings… Mentalistic discourses, by creating a separate realm and locating meanings there, are not useful for understanding the material and social aspects of meaning-making. Mentalistic discourses depend on a common sense view of the separation of mind from body, and individual from society, which has ideological functions in our society. Particular aspects of these discourses deflect attention away from the social, cultural, historical and political dimensions of the meanings we make.”

Jay Lemke

Source: Textual politics: Discourse and social dynamics, 1995, p. 9

People , Understanding , Sense , Dependency

“The biological organism and the social persona are profoundly different social constructions. The different systems of social practices, including discourse practices, through which these two notions are constituted, have their meanings, and are made use of, are radically incommensurable. The biological notion of a human organism as an identifiable individual unit of analysis depends on the specific scientific practices we use to construct the identity, the boundedness, the integrity, and the continuity across interactions of this unit. The criteria we use to do so: DNA signatures, neural micro-anatomy, organism-environment boundaries, internal physiological interdependence of subsystems, external physical probes of identification at distinct moments of physical time -- all depend on social practices and discourses profoundly different from those in terms of which we define the social person.
The social-biographical person is also an individual insofar as we construct its identity, boundedness, integrity, and continuity. But the social practices and discourses we deploy in these constructions are quite different. We define the social person in terms of social interactions, social roles, socially and culturally meaningful behavior patterns. We construct from these notions of the personal identity of an individual the separateness and independence of that individual from the social environment with which it transacts, the internal unity or integrity of the individual as a consistent persona, and the continuity of that persona across social interactions.”

Jay Lemke

Source: Textual politics: Discourse and social dynamics, 1995, p. 68

Behavior , Time , Dependency , Personality

“We need a social theory that sees all social phenomena, including itself, as being partly the product of how people in a community deploy semiotic resources: how we mean, and what we mean, by every meaningful act.”

Jay Lemke

Source: Textual politics: Discourse and social dynamics, 1995, p. 15

People , Communication

“It is dangerous to society to have students leave school believing that science is a perfect means to absolute, objective truths, discovered by people of superhuman intelligence. Apart form the danger that scientific “findings” could be used to justify wrong social polices, an impersonal, inhuman view of science alienates many students from the subject. If we are to encourage students of all kinds to take in interest in science, and use it for their own purposes, we need to show it as it really is.”

Jay Lemke

Source: Talking Science: Language, Learning, and Values. 1990, p. 175

People , Truth , School , Intelligence

“Instead of talking about meaning making as something that is done by minds, I prefer to talk about it as a social practice in a community. It is a kind of doing that is done in ways that are characteristic of a community, and its occurrence is part of what binds the community together and helps to constitute it as a community.”

Jay Lemke

Source: Textual politics: Discourse and social dynamics, 1995, p. 9

Way , Communication , Help , Parting