2nd Opinion--What they think

Posted by Oba Ernesto Pichardo on November 18, 1999 at 15:32:26:

Jean Piaget's Cognitive Theory.

Cognition---the act or process of knowing. Cognition involves how we go about representing, organizing, treating, and transforming information as we devise our behavior. It encompasses such phenomena as sensation, perception, imagery, retention, recall, problem solving, reasoning, and thinking.

Cognitive Stages in development---sequential periods in the growth or maturiing of an individual's ability to think--to gain knowledge and awareness of one's self and the environment.

Schemes is the term Piaget used for cognitive structures that people evolve for dealing with specific kind of situations in their environment.

As Piaget viewed adaptation, it involves two processes: assimilation and accommodation.

Assimilation is the process of taking in new information and interpreting it in such a manner that the information conforms to a currently held model of the world.

Accommodation is the process of changing a scheme to make it a better match to the world of reality.

Assimilation, then, is the fitting of new experiences to old ones; accommodation is the fitting of old experiences to new ones.

Please remember these definitions. I will be using them to point at what the author is doing and trying to accomplish.

The author cannot be viewed in terms of a single, subjective article, with the intent of convincing the reader to agree with him. The entire or group of articles must be reviewed, and it is there, that it begins to reveal the author intent. The abvious appear's. The author has taken the existing "scheme" and intend's to capture the reader's imagination and cause changes in the thinking processes. Therefore, the author uses a combined writing strategy centered on accomodation and assimilation.

The choosen subjects targeted by the author appears to establish compelling facts, making a comparison between Yoruba proper and Lukumi of Cuba.

The terminology used throughout all of the articles are consistant--- The Lukumi are called "sincreticos del nuevo mundo"; syncretics from the New World. The Yoruba proper are called "religion yoruba tradicional"; Traditional Yoruba Religion, and also uses "autenticos"-- the authentic's. This form of speech is "authentically used by cuban academics, in Cuba."

The author focuses on issues that are old and presents them as new observations and more logical in thinking or more consistant with present reality of the world. Although the writer seems to be going out of the way to be diplomatic in use of language, the Lukumi is the target and the Yoruba of Ile Ife --- Ife-centric are the authentic. The author in whole, revisit's points of contradition that I encountered in the 70's when in contact with the Yoruba proper of Ile Ife. Attempts are made in the writing to authenticate the African American Movement-- as Afrocentric. This is a decade old governmental interest of the Cuban State. In fact many of the popular Yoruba scholar's, including some focused on traditional religion are socialist or marxist. Even some who are very close to the Ooni of Ile Ife were partly educated in Russian Universities. This is not to say that all of these scholars'are and I'm not saying that the Afrocentric's are socialist or marxist. The common point used to create alliances is "race" related issues, social & economic inequity. However, the author comparison's to Nigeria are limited to "religious authenticity" and evades religious contradictions among the Yoruba proper. In other words, a perfect scenario is presented leading the reader to believe the Yoruba tradtional Religion as expressed by Ile Ife, is a uniform, universal, belief and practice system free from lineal contradictions. This is contrary to past and present truth among the Yoruba. A simple example is that the rank order of the 16 meji odu's in Ile Ife differ from Oyo and at least five other regions as well. All have their contradiction's, none are identical in form or practice.

In this context, the author fails to acknowledge that the predominant belief and practice form of the Lukumi in Cuba does not eminate from Ile Ife. Yet, the attempt made here is in direct contradiction because the used or proposed "model" for comparison is not adecuate. Therefore, the author attempts to force an "assimilation" on the reader. In trying to accomplish this goal, the writer is forced to 'authenticate" one group, and in effect, causing a degrading or the humiliation of the secondary group. No matter how diplomatic the author wants to be, the end results of the collective articles' would sum up to be Anti-Lukumi.

To Be continued.........