Life in the Fast Lane That’s Under Construction and Riddled With Mishaps and Distractions: What I’ve Been Thinking About, But Not Getting Done — PART 1

My Blog entries came to a screeching halt a year and half ago, although it seems much longer to me. Time seems to be moving very quickly and very slowly at the same time. It seems like I have a birthday every few months, but then events that happened not very long ago seem to have happened a much longer time ago. I blame some of this on age, but I’d rather not dwell too much on that three-letter word. My body is screaming at me that I’m getting older, but my mind — for the most part — still feels like 40. My life seems to have veered into two, or maybe more, intertwined worlds. One world is a surreal visionary combination of Salvador Dali, Ingmar Bergman, and Federico Fellini with twists of Luis Buñuel and David Lynch, while the other world is intensely real — whatever that means — and riddled with the suffering indicative of being alive, while also riddled with moments of joy and clarity. Surprisingly, these seemingly different worlds occur in conjunction with one another. The last year and a half, but actually more like seven years, has been a joyful, painful, insightful, and very bizarre and surreal period of time.

In the midst of caring for one of my sons, who’s been chronically ill for 18 years and living his own version of a real—surreal, painful—joyful life, my own body’s aging issues — daily headaches, brain fog, and ongoing muscle and joint revolts, and a wide assortment of everyday life issues with home and car repairs, fighting with corporations who wrongly bill for services or goods not provided, and other issues that seem to be indicative of collapsing social systems. During this particularly intense past 18 months, I haven’t been particularly productive in terms of writing or working on other projects. I’ve started writing a book that has been gurgling along for a couple of decades. But, this project seems to have fallen into a rut in the fast lane construction zone. I’ve started a couple dozen articles and blogs, but they are backed up in long lines of bumper-to-bumper traffic. I’ve also dabbled in several photographic and multi-media projects, but most of these are still in various stages of development.

How do you like these excuses for not accomplishing anything?

But, this very question is a symptom of our real—surreal world. “Accomplishing” is like the gnawing desire to speed along in the fast lane… weaving in and out of traffic… avoiding any connection to the real people in their cars, while tail-gating and cutting them off, barely avoiding collisions, just to get where you’re going a minute or two earlier. But, it’s an adrenalin-rush… that could be deadly… but rarely resulting ins a traffic stop and speeding ticket. Yesterday, I was keeping up with the flow of most of the traffic in a 65 mph speed zone, but going 75 mph, when a state trooper drove by going at least 85 mph. He or she was just cruising by and not in pursuit. “Accomplishing” something just like trying to get somewhere faster and “better.” It’s factory work on steroids. Wanting to produce more, more, more, while desiring more, more, more money and “stuff.” While I was seemingly not “accomplishing” much over the past year and a half, I actually did quite a bit. I help my son with food, appointments, shopping, house repairs, and, I really hope, with maintaining some sense of well-being and some progress (whatever this is) in dealing with his wicked illness that most doctors just don’t understand, and don’t want to understand. I did more plumbing in his house, my other son’s. house, and my own house in the past couple of years, than I’ve done in my entire life… and, of course, I really dislike plumbing… much more than electrical, which isn’t far behind, structural, and painting. And, my aging body doesn’t like any of them any more. I hope I helped alleviate some of the intense stress for my wife in dealing with many of the same issues. However, I also managed to think about all sorts of topics and issues, I want to develop into various writing and/or multimedia projects. I have taken notes and written paragraphs, taken photos, recorded videos, and sketched out various ideas. Will I “accomplish” anything? Well, I already have. I’ve delved into many topics, read more in these areas, and hopefully learned something in the process. But, hopefully, I will produce some of this material for public consumption, but most will probably stay in my notebooks. I still love physical notebooks, but also use notebook apps on my phone and computer. But, there is something deeper, more flexible, and more aesthetically pleasing and stimulating about writing with various colored pens and pencils in real paper notebooks. Many of my notes will never move beyond the notebooks, but will always be there to ponder and expand upon. Others may make their way to documents or other types of projects. But, for me, time is running out…. it’s something I ponder more often now as age is taking on a new meaning that is both real and surreal at the same instant.

And, the idea of using AI to write blog entries and papers is somewhere beyond abhorrent, repulsive, and frightening.

Writing is a wonderful process that involves something like pulling teeth, sitting in a sauna then diving into cold water, and watching the sun rise over the ocean beach with the vibrancy of many lives waking up …. birds flying and singing, fiddler crabs looking for food, insects combing the beaches, fish jumping out of the water, and, maybe a deer or two walking along the dunes. Writing is both difficult and easy. It is cathartic, stimulating, clarifying. It points out very clearly what you don’t know. It helps you explore new crevices in your world. Writing is a set of processes of learning and growing. AI is none of these things. It’s hollow, lifeless, value-less, ….. (add your own descriptors and 4-letter words).

A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF SOME OF MY THOUGHTS & PONDERINGS OVER THE PAST 18-MONTHS

BOOK — LEARNING & EPISTEMOLOGY — BUT WITH A MUCH CATCHIER & CREATIVE TITLE

Girls playing around with science. ©2012 Jeffrey W. Bloom

Sounds boring and lifeless, but I’ve been trying to bring this project to life. I want to push away from the jargon and stifled writing styles of academia — styles of writing that are mindless, but formulaic and easy to do. What I’m trying to do in this book is look at learning as a fundamental set of processes that are descriptive of all living things. This perspective tries to stretch our understandings of shared experiences, but also our understandings of diverse and wonderfully complex differences. “Epistemology” is used, from the perspective of Gregory Bateson, to describe how we and all living things organize our own personal and socially-shared knowledge. I’m hoping this book will be of interested and helpful to teachers, future teachers, parents, and researchers, if they can stand reading a less formally and academically written book.

PROBLEMS WITH DIFFERENT FORMS OF GOVERNMENT

Washington,DC, Vietnam War Moratorium. © 1970/2023 by Jeffrey W. Bloom

This is not at all in my area of expertise, but has become a growing and increasingly important issue to ponder. We’re now in the midst of crumbling political, economic, and social systems…. and not just here in the United States, but in countries around the world. Democracy seems to be completely unstable, with no viable ways of self-correcting. Autocracies are gnawing at the bit and threatening democratic forms of governments from both the inside and outside, like internal and external parasites. But, those autocracies that do exist are not doing well either. The entire set of nations is wobbling out of control. Our futures are more uncertain than ever before. And, all of this uncertainty and crumbling of social and political “structures” are occurring in a world of dwindling resources, a population that is completely unsustainable, and a growing divisiveness among people within nations and between nations. There is no ONE solution… and even MANY solutions may not be enough. So many intertwined and interdependent patterns of being and living and believing and thinking and desiring … And, to make it all work again is seemingly out of reach. Change can’t be forced upon others. Change happens whether we like it or not. And, all of humanity is unable to control the change. It seems that all we can hope for is to somehow find a way to get along with each other and to develop the flexibility to adjust to the changes occurring throughout the biosphere. Empathy and a sense of humor may be very helpful in this regard.

LEARNING & THE FEAR OF LEARNING PARADOX

I continue to be flummoxed by the fear of learning that appears to be ubiquitous within the United States, and many other countries. I can understand, but do not like or support, governments that intentionally dumb down children and adult students, so that they pose very little threat to the perpetuation of the power elite. But, people’s fears of learning is baffling to me. We have the capability of learning all kinds of things, but what we learn doesn’t necessarily have to threaten our personal or culture beliefs or our ways of being. We are quite capable of learning about autocrats without becoming an autocrat, or learning about psychopathology without becoming a psychopath, or learning about all religions without believing in one or any of them. Of course, this paradoxical situation is much more complex and is a situation I continue to explore.

THE DISCONNECTS & SCHISMOGENESIS BETWEEN SCIENCE & THE GENERAL POPULATION — OR — MISUNDERSTANDINGS OF SCIENCE AS PROPAGATED BY SCIENTISTS, SCIENCE TEACHERS, THE MEDIA, & POLITICIANS

Very little attention is paid to how scientists and the institutions of science have perpetuated and continue to perpetuate certain misrepresentations of science, barriers to understanding science as a process, and barriers to understanding scientific concepts. Scientists, as well as teachers, the media, and politicians exacerbate these disconnects, misrepresentations, and barriers to varying degrees. In addition, the institution of science and its members often portray themselves as intellectual elites and use ways of communicating that prevent even the educated public from understanding almost anything that is communicated. Science teachers pass on the same misrepresentations, since the vast majority have learned from the very scientists who perpetuate the somewhat misleading nature of science and scientists. The media and politicians can and often do twist everything about science even further out of whack. People are left confused, misled, and in a very mucky muddle of misunderstandings. No wonder people don’t trust scientists and doctors and are drifting into “anti-science” stance.

A 10-year old’s drawing of a scientist.

PANDEMIC OF DISTRUST

For millennia, distrust seems to have been a staple of leaders… from family clans and tribes to nation. But, in the everyday lives of people, trust was a necessary ingredient of relationships with others. Of course, the whole notion of “trust” has issues. Putting total trust in someone else, even in oneself, can be risky. There is a long history of a trusted leader turning around and killing his or her “trusted” advisor. Personally, I trusted my Doberman Pinscher more than I’ve trusted just about any person. And, I suspect she trusted me more than any other person, but I’ll never know. As for trusting oneself, I keep a little slogan by my desk and try to remember to repeat it to myself often: “Don’t believe everything you think.” My own thoughts can certain turn around and bite my butt, poison me, or lead me astray. However, relationships that depend on a fair degree of trust are beginning to fall apart as that trust is being destroyed. We see this collapse between doctors and patients, journalists and readers, parents and children, teachers and children, law enforcement and citizens, politicians and voters, priests—rabbis—pastors—mullahs—gurus—other-spiritual-leaders and their followers, and so on. What happens when such relationships fall apart? We’ve seen some of the consequences, but how have you experienced this collapse in trust? Although the demise of trust can have huge effects on large groups of people, such loss of trust can have very deep and devastating effects at a very personal level.

THE POLITICS OF HEALTHCARE & THE PROPAGATION OF LYING & DISTRUST: THE PATHOLOGIES OF DOCTOR—PATIENT RELATIONSHIPS

Photo of an Ivory Skull. From the Wellcome Collectoin.

As politicians, the judicial system, and law enforcement systems take more and more control over healthcare, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and other healthcare workers are being caught up in incredibly awful double binds. They have to dispense medications according to some randomly formulated algorithm that has no relationship to the complexity of and variability among individual patients. Doctors can have their licenses revoked or end up in prison for caring about his or her patients and for making informed decisions about their care. Patients can end up in prison or psychiatric wards for trying to deal with their health issues when doctors can’t take the types of steps that need to be taken. And, then there is a public uproar about sick people committing suicide or becoming addicted to some street drug, when the care they need isn’t and can’t be provided. And, it’s the rare health professional who has some understanding about what “addiction” is and is NOT. Certainly, politicians, media pundits, and media commentators are clueless. Addiction is a deeply transcontextual or multi-contextual issue. While the “object” of addiction, such as oxycodone or morphine, is always blamed as the great evil monster, the object is only a part of the complete story. Addiction always involves the context of one’s own cognitive contexts. We are very good at making up stories and justifications for our actions, and justifying the taking of a particular drug is just one of many rationales for any kind of addiction. But, there are always one or more other contexts involved in addiction, as well. Someone, who is under incredible stress in the workplace or living in a dysfunctional family or trying to cope with being stuck in poverty or whatever, can often be driven to finding some way to cope with all these intense situations through addiction. Addiction is a way of learning to cope. It may not be a very healthy way of learning, but it is nevertheless a way of learning. And, most of us are addicted to one or more “things,” though we probably don’t want to admit it. Some common “objects” of addiction may include, Facebook, texting, Fox “News(????),” electronic games, gambling, TV, shopping, chocolates, anger, sexual gratification, hate, guns, aggression, our own ideas of who we are, and on and on. — And, here we are in the middle of a dangerous muddle of double binds, fear, anger, desperation, confusion, agony, despair, and nowhere to go, no one to trust, and seemingly helpless to make a difference.

THE DYNAMICS OF RELATIONSHIPS, IDENTITIES, & PERSONAL FEELINGS ACROSS GROUPS AND COMMUNITIES — THE STICKINESS, STUCKNESS, SUCKINESS, BUT HOPEFULNESS OF PEOPLE IN GROUPS

More and more frequently, I find myself pondering how humans almost always find ways to make things very difficult, painful, stressful, and confusing for themselves. I don’t think bacteria, fungi, plants, or any other kind of animal is quite as adept of creating such bizarre situations for themselves. Pondering such contrasts seems to lead back to the question of “what is intelligence?” Somehow one’s ability to survive as both an individual and as a group or species should be a characteristic result or process of intelligence. If that is the case, bacteria, fungi, many plants, and many animals seems to be much more intelligent than us. At the same time, there are glimmers of hope, when people’s courage, creativity, empathy and compassion, insight, and selflessness shine through and illuminate, even if just for a moment, our lives as humans. The processes involved in these contrasting tendencies are fascinating and complexly intertwined in ways that are often quite befuddling. But, maybe this befuddling quality is where human creativity and hope lie… if we can just figure out how to manifest this creative befuddlement in ways that will help humanity survive.


I’ll post Part 2 of this list of ideas I’ve been pondering as soon as I can. Please stop back, leave comments &/or questions, and share your thoughts and experiences.

The Problems With Scale and Scalability

The notion of scale can provide a powerful perspective to understanding. However, “scale” also can create greater confusion and deeply entangled, nasty problems.

Developing an understanding of the scale of the Solar System can be eye-opening. But, if not done appropriately can result in even greater confusion. In textbooks, the solar system may show the Sun and planets in scale according to size, but it is physically impossible to show the arrangement and distances to the same scale in a textbook. And, then there is a third dimension that is almost never represented or discussed, and that is time. To do a truly representative scale model of the Solar System, one has to find a do-able scale for size and distance. With my students, I’ve used a 1 to 20 billion scale. However, to do so makes replicating the size difficult, but the distances are pretty reasonable to scale down. We made the Sun and planets out of modeling clay, with the Sun at 6.95 cm and the Earth at about 0.6 mm (which was difficult to do and when done, was easy to lose). With each object constructed, we walked out the distances, which extended over 2.5 American football fields in length. When we included Pluto (it will always be a “planet” to me), Pluto averaged about 290 meters from the Sun, but Pluto’s orbit is elliptical and extends from inside the orbital path of Neptune to about an equal distance beyond the 290 meter scaled distance. To include the time dimension, we would need to scale down the orbital speeds by the same ratio. You can then add scaled down rotational speeds, as well. But, even doing all of this scaling down, we still misrepresent the actual solar system. And, this problem goes back to Korzybsky’s notion that the “map is not the territory.” Our representations, whether in our minds or with objects, can never completely represent the actual “thing” we are trying to represent. But, we can get close, and working towards accurate scale models can help us to refine our cognitive models.

Physical and mechanical systems are easier to scale, but not without issues. Physical and mechanical systems, such as cars, computers, etc., may be very complicated, but they are not complex. Complex systems are living systems. Such systems are unpredictable, self-regulating, and self-maintaining. Mechanical and physical systems are more predictable, but not entirely. Climate and weather systems are more unpredictable than other physical systems, such as planetary motion. And, this unpredictable quality is due to the interdependencies between climate systems and ecological systems. With mechanical systems, we may scale up some transportation system, say from bicycle to motorcycle to car to semi to ship to train to airplane. At each level of scale and change in context of use, the devices become more complicated. At each level, the variables that affect and are affected by the increase in complicated-ness make it more difficult to fully predict. And, then when we add the human component to the system, the complicated mechanical system becomes a merging of complicated and complex systems, which adds even greater uncertainty to the functioning of the complicated—complex transportation system.

Another application of scale that can be interesting, but which can become problematic involves working across levels of scale. Let’s say we identify some pattern in the dynamics of a relationship between two people or between a person and a dog. Maybe this pattern involves a lopsided control issue. One person tries to control the other or, in the case of the person and dog, the person or dog may be the one trying to control the other (I’ve seen both of these patterns of human—dog relationships). Then, say, you see two nations behaving in a similar way, where one nation is trying to control the other. This comparison across levels of scale can be insightful, but not without issues. The specifics of this more general pattern of relationship are not scalable. The danger is that we may get stuck assuming that there are more similarities to the dynamics than there really are. Within the general pattern of lopsidedness control, there are all sorts of other patterns occurring that are specific to the contexts involved. The dog—person contexts are completely different from the person—person and the nation—nation contexts. So, more generalized patterns may be interesting and informative to compare across levels of scale, while the more contextually specific patterns are much more difficult to compare.

Another version of “scalability” that is problematic from the start involves applying some strategy or approach that works well at a small scale and then trying to apply that same approach at a larger scale. The minute we try to “scale up” some approach that in any way involves living or social systems, all sorts of unexpected problems pop up. We may try to scale up the idea of community gardens then lose sight of the contexts that allowed one community garden to be successful. Every community has different characteristics, dynamics, issues, needs, and so forth. And, every community is comprised of distinctively different people. And, communities exist among diverse types of ecosystems, from deserts to rain forests. The “idea” of scaling up some great approach in one context seems wonderful, but that “idea” does not account for the complexity of each individual context or set of contexts, and especially in terms of the exponential increase in complexity encountered when “scaling up.” Even naturally increasing sizes of “things” creates tremendous difficulties. When a democratic form of government was first established in the the United States shortly after getting its independence, the designers of the system were dealing with a population of about 2,000,000 non-slaves and non-indigenous people. And, of people who could vote, that population was about half that size (women could not vote). The contexts that were at play involved a history of colonization, of a dependence on slavery, of women as of lesser status than men, of the natural and physical environments in which people lived, of the technology of the time, and so on. Even from the beginning, the democratic process was bumpy. And, much of this bumpiness arose from the unpredictability of complex social systems. As contexts change, the entire political system can crumble or, at least, face huge challenges in maintaining its stability and functionality. And, as the population increases — a naturally occurring scaling up — the difficulties of maintaining the original system increase exponentially. These “created” complex social systems never seem to address ways of adjusting to major shifts in contexts, major challenges to the viability of the system, and so forth. In the U.S., we seem to be at just this point of near collapse of the original system, where scalability fails.

Pondering Courage and More

Just pondering a recent Facebook post….


Some people hate. I’ve had people tell me to hate some one, some group, or some thing. I can’t muster up the energy to do that. Some people lash out with toxic aggression (seems to be a trait of the United States “mindset.” And, then there are people who can remain calm in the midst of turmoil and act with no fear for themselves. Neerja Bhanot was one of those people. 


I think there are many people who have these attributes, but who fortunately are never put to the test. There were a plane full of people on United Airlines flight 93 headed to Washington on 9/11/2001. We see many such people during the big disasters that becoming more frequent. We see it among teachers, doctors, nurses, firefighters, policeman….. We see these qualities among mothers and fathers. We also see it among dogs, who will put themselves at risk to help or protect others without any training or request. 


But, here in the U.S. and in many other places around the world, aggression and violence are valued and promoted. The toxicity of anger, hatred, and violence is a pandemic in the U.S. that is a greater threat than the pandemic of Covid-19. In fact, this pandemic of aggression-hate-violence is so threatening that it is likely to bring down this country along with a huge death toll. We find ourselves in a pandemic of delusional psychosis (a) on the “right” of the political spectrum (I don’t know what to call it) and (b) on the left, which seems to be stuck in another kind of delusion of normalcy and self-absorption. 


If only we had a vaccine for this pandemic….


FACEBOOK POST:

33rd Anniversary: Flight Attendant Who Saved American Lives Shot Dead By Terrorists.

She was the youngest person and first civilian to posthumously receive India’s highest award for gallantry. 


This week in September 1986, Flight Attendant Neerja Bhanot, 23, of Chandigarh, India was shot dead while shielding three children on the hijacked Pan Am Flight 73. 


She is credited with saving the lives of 360 passengers when radical Islamist terrorists hijacked her aircraft in Karachi, Pakistan. She informed the pilots who used their escape hatch to get away. When the terrorists demanded to know who the Americans were on the flight so they could execute them, Bhanot gathered all passports and hid those belonging to Americans under seat cushions.


The terrorists confused and unable to determine the national origins of the passengers didn’t execute anyone. When Pakistani police raided the plane she was able to nearly singlehandedly evacuate all the passengers as the firefight ensued.


She was one of the last people on board and found three children still hiding. As she led the children to safety the surviving terrorists spotted the children and opened fire on them. Neerja jumped in the way of the bullets and was mortally wounded.


She was able to evacuate the children to safety before dying from her wounds. She also posthumously received a “Special Courage” award from the government of Pakistan and recognition from the U.S. Department of Justice. The 2016 Indian Hindi-language biographical thriller drama, Neerja, is about her life.


What Needs to be Taught? — Part I: A History

During my career as an educator, which started off as a leap off of a cliff into a raging fire, I became increasingly concerned with the issue of “what to teach.” I began teaching as a middle school science teacher in New York City. It was a great environment with good, but challenging, students. However, I was generally clueless, even though I thought I had a lot to offer. With the help and support of my principal and a French teacher, I began to see the errors in my thinking and approach. I began questioning many of the assumptions I had about teaching and learning. And, then I studied with Gregory Bateson for an intensive summer program on education. That summer turned everything upside down. Bateson’s ideas slowly soaked in over many years and even decades as the processes of developing deeper understandings percolated. About 8 years after the Bateson program, I entered graduate school. I entered the graduate program with a kind of selfish attitude. I said to myself that “I don’t care about grades or the professors’ styles of teaching. I am going to learn as much as I can from this experience… just for me.” As I finished my masters degree, then doctoral degree, I left feeling like I was embarking on a path of continual learning, of challenging my and others’ ideas. And, now, having retired from the academic path, I am still learning and challenging.

But, what was it about the learning that occurred during this initial period that changed the way I approached my interaction with the world? I certainly slogged my way through many boring and seemingly irrelevant courses, which were really quite deadly. However, there were many more professors who enlivened the material being studied and who focused heavily on challenging the status quo. And, studying with Gregory Bateson was entirely a process of upending the assumptions of how we think, learn, relate, and live.

However, the big issue is how the system of education fails our children and, for that matter, many, if not most, adults going through colleges and universities. This issue has been plaguing me for decades. From the institutions of education, we get more “national standards,” more “teacher accountability,” more “testing,” and more “teacher-proof curricula.” All of these actions just continue to deaden the entire system of schooling.

Today, I started reading an old book by the noted philosopher, Alfred North Whitehead. His book, The Aims of Education, was first published almost a century ago in 1929. Below, are two short summaries with quotes about “what to teach” and “testing.” Reading books from this time period is slow going. The way the English language was used was different, so I’ve summarized most of what he wrote, but have included key quotes.

What to Teach (from page 13 in The Aims of Education)

In teaching children, “…above all things we must beware of what I will call ‘inert ideas’ — that is to say, ideas that are merely received into the mind without being utilized, or tested, or thrown into fresh combinations.” …. Throughout history, education at one point may be “alive with a ferment of genius,” but in later times, education becomes pedantic and routine. “The reason is, that they are overladen with inert ideas. Education with inert ideas is not only useless: it is, above all things, harmful—Corruptio optimi, pessima.” [The corruption of the best, the worst — from https://www.latin-online-translation.com]

Testing (from page 17 in The Aims of Education)

Whitehead describes the issue of how best to teach as dependent upon the teacher (intelligence, knowledge, etc.), the students (intelligence, knowledge, etc.), the students’ potentialities for later life, and the contexts (physical, social, cultural, etc.) in which the students live. “It is for this reason that the uniform external examination is so deadly.”

And, here we are almost 100 years later still suffering from the “deadly” approaches to schooling. During the mid- to late-1800’s, politicians and those with influence over education were quite explicit about not providing a good education for the masses. In John Gatto’s well-researched chapter, “Some Lessons From the Underground History of American Education,” he describes a pattern of control exerted over education that had the intention of control over children in order to control them as adults and keeping all but the very elite under-educated.

Here are a few choice points from this chapter:

A School or A Prison?
  • 1857 — effort to have schools take complete control over children through behavior modification, so that they took over the role of parent.
  • 1906 — William Torrey Harris (U.S. Commissioner of Education said on page 279, “Ninety-nine [students] out of a hundred are automata, careful to walk in prescribed paths, careful to follow the prescribed custom. This is not an accident but the result of substantial education, which, scientifically defined, is the subsumption of the individual. — The Philosophy of Education (1906, p. 270)
  • Just before World War I — Woodrow Wilson said on page 272: “We want one class to have a liberal education. We want another class, a very much larger class of necessity, to forgo privilege of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks.”
  • 1917 — (page 272) “…the major administrative jobs in American schooling were under control of a group referred to in the press of that day as ‘the education trust.’ The first meeting of this trust included representatives of Rockefeller, Carnegie, Harvard, Stanford, the University of Chicago, and the National Education Association. The chief end, wrote the British evolutionist Benjamin Kidd in 1918, was to ‘impose on the young the ideal of subordination.’”
  • And, in the contexts of present-day education, not much has really changed. We do not use the same words and phrases to describe what should happen in schools. Instead of being straight forward with our intent, we couch our language in words and phrases that may imply more positive goals, such as “raising standards” and “holding teachers accountable.” The strategies used to dumb down our children, to segregate the classes, and to control our children have become more insidious, but are still the major influences on what is taught and how that information is taught.

We have done a wonderful job of preparing our children to be adults who welcome authoritarianism, who will be obedient and subservient, who will not question authority, and whose thinking abilities have been blocked and strangled. And, here we are in 2021, in a society dying from decades of psychological violence against its citizens.

References

Gatto, J. T. (2002). Some lessons from the underground history of American education. In R. Kick (Ed.), Everything you know is wrong: The disinformation guide to secrets and lies (pp. 274–287). New York: The Disinformation Company.

Harris, W. T. (1906). The philosophy of education. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University.

Whitehead, A. N. (1929). The aims of education. New York: Mentor Book/New American Library (Macmillan).

The Poison That Can Be Money

A couple of days ago, I took my wife for a diagnostic procedure, which us older people usually takes 3 hours or so. And, since anesthesia is usually involved, she could not drive herself. So, I packed up some readings and my computer and drove her to the facility. Conveniently, there was a nice looking breakfast—lunch (and self-described) diner right next door. And, even better, they had outdoor seating. I ordered an Hawaiian omelet, which I thought was a bit pricy, but it sounded delicious. When it arrived, it took up over half of a 14-inch plate with the other half stacked with hash browns, I realized the price was not bad at all. It could easily have been brunch and dinner, but I devoured it in one sitting. The owner stopped by to see how I was doing. I gave him accolades about the food and service, and asked apologetically for him to kick me out, if he needed the seating. He smiled and said they’re open till 4:00. He lied, they close at 2:30, but his heart was in the place he liked. After my wife’s procedure, she was craving French fries. So, we stopped by this little gem of a restaurant. I ran in ordered some fries. When they came out of the kitchen, he handed me the box and a muffin. He didn’t want to charge me for any of it! I told him, “no, here’s $5. I’ll feel better supporting a great business.” He begrudgingly accepted the money, then said, “I have a rule to put people before business.” I smiled and told him I’d be back. My wife loved the fries, too.

This encounter reinforced something that I have been thinking about for a while. And, that is, how the pursuit of money can be poison.

Over a year and a half ago, I decided to start a little online store with books and other goods that could support people interested in complex living systems, learning, teaching, and inquiring. These kinds of stores require no particular investment and no inventory. You provide links to the goods, and you get a commission on the sales. “Easy enough,” I thought. It was a lot of work putting the store together. And, once together, it required regular attention. Once this store went ‘live,’ a subtle change descended upon me. Every encounter with a friend or new acquaintance slowly became an opportunity to draw in a new customer. After a while, I noticed that I was thinking about how to promote my store, when I was having deep and immensely interesting conversations with people. Resentment started to build, as friends did not help me promote my store. I was turning into a money-monster.

So, I decided to scrap the store altogether. “Screw it,” I said to myself, “it is not worth the loss of relationships.” Just as I made this determination, a friend sent me a note about how wonderful my bookstore was. “Nice, but yuck!” So, I made a determination. I dumped all of the store items, except books, which are one of my loves. And, I repeated over and over again to drill it into my head that, “I don’t care if anyone ever buys a book from this store. I’m just going to leave it here as a service. And, I’ll just buy books from my own store. And, that’s all okay.”

Working for money is one thing. My father labored in a factory most of his life. I’ve worked in all kinds of jobs, including factories, retail, real estate, and then schools and universities. People who work at some occupation earn money, which usually is not enough to live on. But, it is honest work in which one is compensated. The real estate job I had was not one of them. That was my first introduction to the poison of money. Commission sales, running your own business, and the big corporate money contexts carry a huge potential for the pursuit of money poisoning one’s own psychological state and all of the relationships one has. The little restaurant owner I described did not allow his business to undermine his caring for relationships. I have known a few business owners like this, but they certainly do not seem to be in the majority.

Rural Poverty in the Deep South, 1972
Homelessness, Hopelessness, and Complete Despair in New York City, 1975

However, there is even a sense of money as poison among working class people. But, it is a different sort of poison. Living paycheck-to-paycheck is difficult. If we find ourselves in this sort of position, we are always under stress. Such stress can affect our relationships and our senses of self-worth. This poison is more insidious in many ways. It eats away at the core of our beings. And, those people living in extreme poverty, including the homeless, are experiencing another type of money-poison. The poison of having no or not nearly enough money to survive. The effects of this situation are beyond terrible. No human being should have to live like this, no matter what the circumstances.

Wars are fought over money. Wars make some corporations huge amounts of money. Crimes are committed for money… either out of greed or desperation. Marriages and other relationships fall apart over money. And, misery is propagated over money.

The question we all need to ponder is “how can we not allow the toxicity of money to ruin our relationships, our society, and our global community?”


Learning Authoritarianism — Insidious and Pervasive

Reposted from The Nook Blog

The following image and images like it have been bouncing around Facebook, Twitter, and other social media. In such posts, the reader/viewer is struck at an emotional level while appearing to be a rational question to a specific issue. But, the image, the question, and the entire context of this “problem” point to a deeply embedded and insidious pattern of education in the U.S. and elsewhere.

A Facebook Post that Continues to Make Its Rounds in the Virtual World

This post can grab you emotionally and get you to make a definitive decision about the issue of cell phones in classrooms. Because is states “share if you agree!” and the post continues to repeatedly make its rounds, one must assume that viewers agree that teachers must take away student cell phones while they are in the classroom. And, as pictured in the post, the students seem to be quite compliant with the teacher’s mandate.

However, this “issue” of cell phones is not quite so simple. In fact, this post points to a much more complex set of contexts, issues, and patterns of schooling and society than one may think. But, we all have been “processed” by the same contexts and patterns of schooling. As a result, we look at this photo and it feels familiar. The patterns of response are ingrained in our thinking. And, we automatically know –whatever that is– “right” from “wrong.”

Hmmm…. And, this situation is what frightens me the most.

Schools in this country have been designed — for well over a century — to produce compliant, conforming, and obedient adults who do not question authority and who have been “educated ” just enough to function in society as a worker and to be easily influenced and manipulated “voter.” The power elite — politicians and big money brokers — have never wanted a society of deep and critical thinkers, who have been well-educated. Such people are a threat to their holding onto money, power, and control.1

Schools have not been designed to teach children how to participate in a democracy. Nor have they been designed to develop children’s innate intelligence and abilities to think deeply, complexly, creatively, critically, independently, and interdependently. They are not taught to care, empathize, develop a strong and deep sense of integrity, and understand other people across an array of wonderful differences. Schools — and let me state right here that it is NOT the fault of most teachers who are subject to the same dysfunctional pressures as children — have failed our students and our countries.

Underneath this schooling agenda is an agenda geared to support authoritarianism. From the beginning, the hidden curriculum of schools focused on the rules and nature of authoritarianism. The “explicit” curriculum promoted the teaching of fragmented and decontextualized bits of information, while portraying itself as rigorous, deep, and extensive. Such a portrayal was “enhanced” by curriculum standards, high-stakes testing, and accountability. But, the bottom line of this entire approach to education has been to keep our population dumbed down. And, again, the “blame” is not with the students or people who have been dumbed down by the educational system. Our entire society functions as a support system for the system of dumbing down. Such processes of dumbing down and rewarding those who have succeeded in that system are difficult obstacles to overcome.

As is evidenced in the photo, above, people immediately are drawn into agreeing with the teacher depicted in this scenario. We assume that teachers are the authorities over knowledge, behavior, and thinking. We have been unwittingly taught to behave, obey, conform, comply, and keep our noses clean.

The authoritarian approach only creates further issues. Such approaches undermine and break relationships that are so vital to creating classroom communities, where students can learn how to participate in a democracy. And, where they can learn to care for others, to question and explore all kinds of ideas, and to develop identities of creators of knowledge through the arts, sciences, and humanities, if we care to separate these inseparable ways of knowing. Authoritarian approaches promote distrust, resentment, and hatred. These approaches undermine the development of responsibility, initiative, caring for others, and so forth.

If phones are seen as a problem, the problem is much more extensive and complex than the phones. In a democratic classroom community, any problem that arises is a problem for the community. Of course, if this were a real classroom community, where students had a sense of ownership over and responsibility for the community, the problem such as phones probably would not arise in the first place. But, if it did, the problem would have to be discussed and remediated in some way by the entire group or classroom community.

Authoritarianism is threatening our country as we read this blog post. And, much of the “welcoming” of authoritarianism has its roots in schools, as we’ve just discussed. It’s not a big leap from growing up in a mini-authoritarian culture to feeling comfortable in a larger authoritarian context. 

If we create classrooms and schools as caring, thoughtful, democratic communities, we just might produce citizens who resist authoritarianism and fascism. 


Footnote

1 Gatto, J. T. (2002). Some lessons from the underground history of American education. In R. Kick (Ed.), Everything you know is wrong: The disinformation guide to secrets and lies (pp. 274–287). New York: The Disinformation Company.

The Intended Results of Our Education System

The following very short commentary is in response to a Facebook post. This post is just a photo collage of recent statements made by Congresspeople in the United States.

Downloaded from Facebook, 6-14-2021.

The desired results of an education system designed to “educate” children just enough to be able to work, be obedient, and conform to the norm (whatever that is), but not educated enough to think critically, creatively, or in any depth at all. This was the agenda from the beginning of education in this country. It’s been continued and refined. Now, it’s done by:

  • “teacher accountability” = making teachers into technicians with no ability to make informed decisions about doing what is best for children,
  • “high stakes testing” = avoids deep, interconnected learning;
  • “teacher-proof curriculum” = another way of making teachers technicians, &
  • “standards” = another way to dumb down children, so they don’t question, won’t follow their curiosities and passions, won’t think deeply, and will only learn simplistic and fragmented information with little or no meaning or relevance to anything in their present or future lives. 

Please don’t blame teachers. They are fighting to keep their meager incomes and do their best in awful circumstances. But, please do blame your politicians, school boards, and most principals. However, we are all to blame for not speaking up, for not communicating with our politicians, and for electing our politicians. Parents need to work together to help teachers teach in ways that will really help children develop to their fullest potentials as learners, thinkers, and creators. Parents! You do have the power to make changes when you come together!

The Comfort and Discomfort of Scripts

Over the past few years, my friends and colleagues in the International Bateson Institute and particularly Nora Bateson have been talking about the nature and dynamics of scripts. In the cognitive psychology literature, “scripts” are discussed as ways in which we reduce cognitive load in our everyday lives. Some examples include:

  • The first time our parents take us into a bank and teach us to set up our own account, we have to learn every step of the process. As we go through the process of dealing with bank transactions, we no longer have to think through every step. We’ve learned the script or steps and ways of talking that allow us to complete transactions without having to devote much thinking about the process.
  • The same sort of scripts are learned as we go to grocery stores with our parents. We pick up on how to complete the shopping process so that little thought is needed other than remembering what we need to buy. 
  • When we first learn how to use a computer or a smart phone, we need to go through step-by-step learning processes. As we gain comfort and knowledge with the processes, we no longer need to think about the basics of using a computer or phone. 

If you have travelled to a very different culture, where the scripts may vary, sometimes in subtle and sometimes in not so subtle ways, we may confront the cultural variation of our own scripts. When I was visiting Malaysia, I bought a greeting card for a colleague. However, after purchasing the card, I realized it had the wrong message on the inside. When I tried to exchange the card, the store refused. My whole script short circuited. Although a really minor issue, my script destruction amplified the whole situation. The “you bought it, you keep it” no-return-script never occurred to me. My reaction to a script-short-circuit was actually quite embarrassing.

Squirrel breaking script and swimming across lake.

However, scripts are much more than these procedural sorts of automated behaviors. Scripts can be tightly intertwined with our various identities. They can manifest in a mother or father identity, in a student identity, in a teacher identity, in any professional identity, in a religious identity, in a victim identity, in a bully identity, and so forth. Depending on the context we are in, these identity scripts can dominate how we talk, how we walk, how we act, and how we relate. 

I’ve certainly relied on these scripts throughout my life, but I’ve never been particularly comfortable with them. I don’t know why I’ve been uncomfortable. Scripts usually provide a certain degree of comfort. They can provide a sense of safety, where we don’t have to expose our vulnerabilities, and we can function in our familiar contexts without much effort. 

As a teacher at all levels (grades 2 through 12 and university), I tried not to “be” in the typical teacher role of authority figure and controller. It just did not feel honest. When I did fall into those teacher scripts, it never worked out that well, and were probably some of the most embarrassing moments for me. Although students and other teachers may not have perceived these as embarrassing moments, they tended to be excruciating for me. The same sort of issues occurred as an academic, when I went to conferences and presented my research. At professional conferences, with 20,000 people acting out their scripts, the few of us who resisted the scripts did not particularly “fit in.”

I often found it most comfortable to sit somewhere in these monster hotels that were hosting the conferences, while drinking coffee and watching “the suits” (I never wore a suit) with their noses scraping the ceilings as they walked by. While sitting in these hotels, a few people would sit nearby and start up conversations, many of which were script-less and quite interesting, even when talking about our research. It was just a situation of people relating as real people. And, with the regularity suggested by probability, a small number of my script-less friends would walk by and join me. These moments of sitting on the side-lines were probably the most valuable and interesting parts of the conferences. Sitting in sessions where people just talked at the audience, did their dog and pony show, and took up more than their allotted time to give their talks were painfully dull and uninspiring. 

Old car beaten up by the “scripts” of the ecosystem.

In the times of pandemic, I, like so many others, have been spending a lot of time on Zoom. Most of these Zoom meetings have been surprisingly and wonderfully inspiring and script-less. We talk with one another about substantive topics, relax, drink coffee or some other beverage, and just be ourselves. There is no strutting, no avoiding our vulnerabilities. We just relate to one another. Then, I was invited by someone in one of those meetings to another Zoom meeting with a different group of people. I joined in and started talking in my usual unscripted fashion, and quickly realized I was the only one not scripting. It was a shock to my system. It was the reverse of acting out one script in a context where that script didn’t work. Just like in Malaysia, I was flabbergasted by the mismatch of scripting. In this new meeting, I found myself in a group of people scripting and expecting scripts, while I just tried to avoid scripting. It was quite awkward and the contrast just about knocked me off my chair, which would have been a great marker of that contrast during the meeting. 

As I continue to play around with this dynamic of non-scripting and scripting, I’ve been thinking about how interesting it would be for others to explore this as well. Maybe we can have some unscripted conversations here on this blog. 

Karma: It “Is” & Isn’t What You Think

The word “karma” has become fairly common in English conversations. However, like far too many other words in common and not so common usage, I get the distinct feeling that what others mean when using “karma” is not at all close to what I mean when thinking about or using this word. This gap in meaning can be so problematic that I tend to avoid using this word at all. So, I’d like to explore this meaning-gap issue, this word, and the concept to which it refers in some detail. 

Let me begin with some mullings on the nature of meaning. The term “meaning” is another relatively slippery word, especially when combined with the baggage carried by words that often accompany “meaning.” For instance, in contexts in which I worked in education, “meaning-making” was bandied about as if everyone understood exactly what that means. — You can see the circularity coming! — The idea of “making” has all kinds of baggage from mechanistic senses of intentionally constructing something to a general sense of intentionality and personal “agency,” which is another heavily loaded word I try to avoid. With these pitfalls in mind, let me try to provide a sense of “meaning” that has as little baggage as possible. 

“KowEkvusnru,” a randomly typed set of letters, has no particular meaning, while “F*@k” may communicate a bit of meaning even though this set of letters and symbols do not explicitly spell an English word. We infer meaning from our personal experiences. The word “president,” on the other hand, can trigger all sorts of meanings, again, depending upon our personal and social experiences. Does everyone hold the same “meaning” for president? Is your meaning for president the same now as it was 10, 20, 30 years ago? I suspect the answers to both questions are “no.” In fact, meaning seems to morph all of the time, depending on the physical, cognitive, and emotional contexts in which we are functioning at any particular moment. At the same time, there may be aspects of meaning that are persistent over time. Our prior experiences, particularly those that have had a large impact on us, and knowledge, whether accurate or not, can provide some degree of consistency. 

From my research with children and adults, I found that meaning includes much more than what has been emphasized during our experiences with school. Meaning is more than the “official” knowledge of a particular subject or field of study. Meaning can involve emotions, values, aesthetics or senses of beauty and ugliness, a huge range of biases, a range of belief frames, a huge variety of interpretive frameworks, humor, fantasy, hopes and fears, desires, imagery, memories of personal experiences, and all sorts of tenuous “understandings” of our world that may or may not be accurate, but which we assume are self-evident truths. In other words, meaning is a complex and fluid, ever-shifting set of “information” that provides rich contexts around all sorts of words, ideas, and experiences at any particular moment. 

With that little divergence into meaning, let’s move on to karma. There seem to be two common frameworks, lenses, or filters that affect people’s understandings and meanings associated with “karma.” Theistic religious traditions seem to contribute some sense of external authority exerting a moral evaluation and pay-back to the meaning of karma. You are getting what you deserve from your actions. The positivistic and mechanistic paradigms or worldviews provided by the philosophical work of René Descartes infiltrate much of our thinking, including karma as a simple cause and effect mechanism. We punch someone. We get punched back. But, both of these filters over-simplify and distort the notion of karma from Buddhist and Hindu perspectives, although the Hindu perspectives may occasionally be influenced by the theistic lens. 

The 7th stage or “nidana” of the cycle of Karma: Feeling.

In order to understand karma from the perspective of Buddhism, we need to situate this concept in a bit more context. Some of the fundamental ideas in Buddhism are based on egolessness. “Ego,” from a Buddhist perspective, is not the same as ego in Western psychology. In Buddhism, ego has to do with our patterns of clinging, attachment, and attempts to solidify our senses of self and of our world. Achieving a state of egolessness does not mean you don’t know who you are or how to function in the world. Such a state is probably just the opposite. We see our patterns of thinking and manifesting clearly, but without any attachment or desire to maintain them. And, we can function in the world with greater clarity and compassion. The practice of Buddhist meditation is really about simplifying, seeing clearly, and sharpening our perception and innate intelligence, which can lead to a cessation of clinging to all of our strategies for maintaining a faulty sense of solid self and solid entities in our world. 

Within this context, the notion of karma involves more of a sense of patterning, as presented by Gregory Bateson and, his daughter, Nora Bateson. This patterning is situated in the way we think. We may find that we tend to respond in certain ways to other people. We may find that we do not open up to others and are always covering up certain things and are always manifesting in a certain way. Maybe we are always critical of other people and focus in on their perceived weaknesses. Or, maybe we are always trying to please others and to be liked. We may find that we are always angry, whether we manifest that anger or not. We may feel misunderstood, marginalized, or victimized and react to these feelings with anger or avoidance. These patterns of thinking and acting are difficult to change. If you have ever had or been around a male dog that was neutered too late in his life, you may have noticed how this dog continues with the same hormonal-affected behaviors it had before being neutered. The patterns of behavior had become so embedded in such a dog’s thinking that they continue after removing the initial hormonal factors. In people, patterns of thinking, reacting, acting, and so forth also become deeply embedded. This is karma. We keep heaping it on ourselves as we go about our everyday lives. 

We also may have heard of “good karma” and “bad karma.” Good karma can be patterns of always trying to help or care for other people. Bad karma can be patterns of aggressive attitudes, thoughts, and behaviors toward others. Although “good karma” is better than bad karma, from a Buddhist practitioner’s perspective, both are problematic. From this view, good karma may continue to build up our sense of ego. We may see our good karma as a way of enhancing our senses of self to which we continue to cling as some sort of confirmation. 

An angry group of men in New York City. PHOTO: © 1975 by Jeffrey W. Bloom

Our accumulation of karma may bite us in the butt, which is more closely associated with the popular usage of the word “karma.” However, as you may have gathered, the accumulation of karma, especially bad karma, can have all sorts of effects on oneself. By always trying to take advantage of others, metaphorically or literally stabbing others in the back, criticizing others, demeaning others, and so forth, one’s life has to be pretty miserable. Think of someone who manifests such bad karma — there are certainly a lot of well-known examples — and imagine that you are that person. When I’ve tried that, I seem to immediately get claustrophobic and want to escape! The suffering must be incredibly intense. But, what seems to happen all too often in such personal contexts is for the person to keep returning to the same strategies and patterns of thinking, while assuming such strategies will offer some sense of relief or success. 

Karma, from this perspective, is really just another way of looking at the feedback loops, non-linearity, and perpetuation of the system from the perspective of complexity. Complex systems are living and/or social systems that self-maintain, self-generate, and self-perpetuate themselves. In many complex systems, such as ecosystems, they maintain their continuity over time by adjusting to changes. Even, after major catastrophes, such systems, if they are not destroyed, may return to a healthy state after a long period time. However, it seems that in the complex systems of human beings, such systems can diverge into more pathological or unhealthy self-maintaining systems. Our political, economic, educational, and the other social systems, which are all intertwined and interdependent, can veer off from what may have been a well-intended system to one that perpetuates further problems and suffering for those participating in and living in those systems. So, there seems to be a sense of social karma, as well. 

A Tribute To the Mind and Heart of Gregory Bateson on the 40th Anniversary of His Death

Some of us may be quite fortunate in having one or more people outside of our families, who have a huge, positive, and lasting impact on our lives. One of those people for me was Gregory Bateson. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Gregory, he was the son of William Bateson, a biologist who coined the term “genetics.” As a young adult, he was an anthropologist in the South Pacific, where he met and later married Margaret Meade, his first of three wives.

During his time in the South Pacific, his thinking began to expand beyond the typical bounds of anthropology. Over the years, he was involved in studies of communication, learning and cognition, psychology, biology, evolution, systems thinking, and cybernetics. His thinking has and continues to influence diverse disciplines and domains of interest. He was one of the great intellects of the 20th Century, whose influence was much more expansive than his popularity among the general populace.


In 1975 and after my year as a middle school science teacher, I had the opportunity to study with Gregory during a 5 week, live-in workshop of education, at what was known then as Naropa Institute in Boulder Colorado. There were only about 12-15 people in this class. And, we all stayed in a big house near the base of the Flatirons, the steep cliffs at the start of the Rocky Mountains. We ate all of our meals together, some of which Gregory prepared, including Oxtail Soup. This experience allowed all of us to be totally immersed in thinking about some of Gregory’s key concepts: relationships, patterns, double binds, context, epistemolgoy, cybernetics, systems, and so forth. But, much of what learned went beyond these intellectual pursuits. We also learned a great deal from being together, exploring our own humanity. Gregory manifested tremendous generosity, kindness, humility, ordinariness, endless curiosity, humor, and so forth.

Re-enacting Shakespeare

He was a remarkable human being. And, to this day, I value having had this opportunity to get to know Gregory and soak up mostly the curiosity and patterns of thinking, as well as some of his major ideas, which have continued to influence my own thinking.

Exploring Pond Ecology

This is dedicated to Nora Bateson (who was present in 1975 at 7 years old), who has picked up the Batesonian torch and taken it to even greater heights…. and to all of the people around the world, who are working on keeping Gregory’s ideas alive and expanding them in a multitude of new directions and contexts.

Shakespeare Discussions

Some Readings and Links

Gregory Bateson Books

Nora Bateson

International Bateson Institute