“It seems surprising that the science of psychology has avoided the idea that many mental processes are social and historical in origin, or that important manifestations of human consciousness have been directly shaped by the basic practices of human activity and the actual forms of culture.”
—Vygotsky’s colleague Alexander Luria 1
Prevailing ideas hold that human psychology originates in the isolated individual. Whether determined by genes, stimulus-response conditioning, or computer-like data processing modules, the dominant schools of psychology assume a historically static, lone individual as the starting point for investigation. From the hardwired “caveman brain” of evolutionary psychology, to the manipulative “reward and punish” tactics of pop behaviorism, these psychological doctrines are generally pessimistic about the possibility of progressive human change and transformation.
Fortunately, there is a scientific alternative that progressives can advance. The past few decades have seen a renewed interest in the life and work of Soviet psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1896–1934). Aspects of his work, most notably the “zone of proximal development” (ZPD), are now frequently taught within psychology, education, and special education programs (although applied only sporadically within today’s test-driven public schools). Although Vygotskian theory was conspicuously absent from my school psychology training program, when Vygotsky is taught, it is typically in piecemeal fashion, completely divorced from its revolutionary political roots. It would seem the Left has much to gain from examining and reestablishing this connection.
It is no exaggeration to say that Vygotsky was a genius. Through more than five decades in science I never again met a person who even approached his clearness of mind, his ability to lay bare the essential structure of complex problems, his breadth of knowledge in many fields, and his ability to foresee the future development of his science.
We met early in I924 at the Second Psychoneurological Congress in Leningrad. This gathering was the most important forum at that time for Soviet scientists who worked in the general area of psychology. Kornilov brought along from the Institute of Psychology several of his younger colleagues, among whom I was included.
When Vygotsky got up to deliver his speech, he had no printed text from which to read, not even notes. Yet he spoke fluently, never seeming to stop and search his memory for the next idea. Even had the content of his speech been pedestrian, his performance would have been notable for the persuasiveness of his style. But his speech was by no means pedestrian. Instead of choosing a minor theme, as might befit a young man of twenty-eight speaking for the first time to a gathering of the graybeards of his profession, Vygotsky chose the difficult theme of the relation between conditioned reflexes and man’s conscious behavior.