Tag: Gregory Bateson

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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

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When Things Go South — Schismogenesis

Have you ever noticed what happens when our life situations go south or when big global situations turn bad? It seems that much more often than not, we react with aggression, which can range from pushing someone away to outright physical aggression and violence. At least in contemporary Western societies, the only other ways of reacting to bad situations include (a) withdrawing or taking submissive position or (b) trying to seduce the other entity into some sort of relationship.

Buddhists call these reactions the three poisonous emotions or kleshas. The first is aggression, which can range from pushing something away to attacking it. The second is ignorance or avoidance, where one might withdraw or take a submissive position in order to avoid conflict. The third is passion, where one tries to seduce the other and take ownership. None of these emotional reactions or strategies is particularly helpful. They all result in further conflicts and confusion.

From the perspective of Gregory Bateson, there also are three basic strategies or types of relationships. These types of relationships don’t align with the Buddhist 3 poisons, but one can see how the three poisons come into play within these relationships. Gregory called the first of these types of relationship “symmetrical.” Such symmetrical relationships are characterized by the parties being at odds with one another. Such a relationship can manifest as two people or two groups vying for control. Both individuals or groups are similar in nature. The second type of relationship he called “complementary.” In these relationships, the individuals or entities take on the characteristics of opposites. In some cases these relationships consist of a dominant individual and a submissive individual. Both of these types of relationships tend to degenerate into schismogenesis or the pulling apart and disintegration of the relationships. The warfare of the symmetrical and the resentment of the complementary do not help bring relationships together. The only type of relationship that holds the potential to not lead into schismogenesis is reciprocal or a relationship based on negotiation and some sense of mutuality. However, most relationships, whether at the scale of two individuals or even one individual contending with some other thing (e.g., an alcoholic and alcohol) or at the scale of nations, relationships move from symmetrical to complementary to reciprocal. But, the ones that tend to default at reciprocal are those that hold the most potential for survival.

But, let’s go back to how our default patterns of reaction, especially in Western societies, seem to be those that are aggressive or retaliatory. Someone calls us a name and we are ready to punch them. Someone drives to slowly and we start cursing at them. We think some problem is the fault of a particular group (illegal immigrants, Republicans, Democrats, liberals, conservatives, the LGBTQ community, African Americans, Mexicans, Muslims, Jews, Christians, or whomever). We react with aggression. At the very least, we may spread the anger or hatred and poison those around us. The reaction to 9/11 was aggression. The reaction to anything we don’t like is one of aggression. Abortion doctors are killed. A murderer is executed. A person who looks different from us is pushed away, attacked, or killed. We do this every single day. The police do it. Everyday citizens do it. Corporations do it.

And, as our world begins to collapse under the weight of a burgeoning population, rising sea levels, scarcity of water, scarcity of food, and scarcity of almost all resources, people will act out through aggression. But, aggression is exactly what is NOT needed. We don’t need to disintegrate into the visions extreme schismogenesis as in Mad Max, Blade Runner, or Total Recall. What we need to do more than anything is to come together. And, the only way to do that is with reciprocity along with heavy doses of empathy, compassion, and a willingness to understand others. Of course, we also need to change our ways of thinking so that we can in fact move toward solutions to a global meltdown, which isn’t a problem of any one nation or group of people, but is a problem for all of humanity.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I’ll end with an excerpt from a poem (“It’s a Mistake to Think You’re Special”) by John Giorno (from Subduing Demons in America, 2008, Berkeley, CA: SoftSkull Press, pp. 341—342) – read this with rhythm and a lot of energy:

Butterflies
sucking
on the carcass
of a dead bird,
and your body
is being pulled down
backwards
into the world
below,
as a king.

I feel most
at home
among the defiled
I feel most at
home among
the defiled
I feel most at home among
the defiled,
in the center
of a flower
under a deep
blue
sky.

It’s a mistake
to think
you’re special.

(1984)

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Responsibility and Relationships: From You and Me to Society

Over the past eight months or so, my wife and I have been renting a house after moving from a different city. Several weeks ago we found a house to buy. We approached our landlord, who lives out of state, and proposed that if he can let us out of our lease we could help him find a new tenant and fix up the place to move-in ready condition before the new tenant moves in. To us, this seemed like a perfectly normal proposition and apparently so did our landlord.

So, for the past two weeks we have been advertising the house, letting people view the house, and handing out applications and landlord contact information. But, what has been surprising about this whole process is that the people who call and come to see the house cannot figure out why we are doing this. They can’t make sense out of why we would be advertising the house, why we would be showing the house, and why we would be discussing the terms of the lease. When they ask “why?” I want to just say, because we’re responsible adults. But, I just give them a rather lengthy rationale instead.

I don’t think people have any models for how to develop straightforward relationships with people and how to assume responsibility for situations. The relationships they encounter with housing are all adversarial and based on distrust. Gregory Bateson’s complementary (dominant–submissive) and symmetrical (competitive or adversarial) types of relationships seem to characterize the vast majority of relationships encountered in the business of everyday life. As for “responsibility,” schools don’t really address it, even though they talk about teaching it all of the time. Their parents have been caught up in the same messy relationships and have lacked any experience in responsibility. And, most workplaces are based on the same dysfunctional sorts of relationships and lack of trust.

We live in a society where the relationships are out of whack. In such contexts, a number of the social characteristics we all discuss and say that we value are just not supported. These social characteristics include responsibility, ethics, empathy, moral reasoning/judgment, and so forth. We’ve created a social context where these sorts of positive personal and social characteristics are not supported, encouraged, or developed. There are few positive models for others to emulate. The vast majority of relationships are problematic at best. What we see in the media are dysfunctional relationships. The vast majority of our politicians do not model functional (reciprocal, negotiable) relationships or any of the positive social characteristics. I’d like to say that looking at the Republican debates is clear evidence of dysfunctionality, but the same holds true for almost all politicians. It’s just that the Republicans seem have taken the bar to a whole new low point. However, the point is that the predominant model of behavior as represented in film, TV, news, and everyday encounters is one that does not value reciprocal relationships and the values and behaviors that are intertwined in such relationships. Reciprocal relationships (Bateson’s third type) are those that are based on some sense of trust, and where terms and issues are negotiated rather than becoming the source of conflict and resentment. This sort of relationship should be what we strive to achieve with our partners, our friends, our families, and our adversaries. What would Congress look like if reciprocity was the basis for interactions. Instead of blockages and other childish games, we may see adults sitting down together in serious conversation. Disagreements would be a source of negotiation, change, and growth. But, instead we are left with childish, self-centered antics that only serve to prevent growth and destabilize the whole of society.

As The Turtles said, “You don’t believe we’re on the eve of destruction.” But, here we are and not quite in the way The Turtles saw it.

We can step back from this precipice and change our ways of thinking and acting, but that will take an overwhelming desire from a vast majority of people to just say “NO MORE” to this nonsense.

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Play and the Killing of Children’s Spirits in U.S. Schools

Play may be the most powerful form of learning. Play allows us to break rules, test boundaries, look at things upside-down. I can’t imagine a Richard Feynman who didn’t play; or, a Charles Darwin, or an Albert Einstein, or a Carl Sagan, or a Lynn Margulis, or a Stephen Jay Gould, or a Jane Goodall, or any great thinker, scientist, poet, artist, inventor, innovator, who didn’t play.

Gregory Bateson suggested that play was one of the three ways that we can find the limits of the possible. The other two ways are exploration and crime. But, all three of these seem to overlap and may, in fact, just be different ways of looking at the same process in different contexts.

Play is critical to learning. Without play, we lose the emotional impact that helps to embed learning richer and more meaningful contexts. Without play, we lose the ability to connect to multiple contexts and multiple ways of seeing and knowing, which are essential for deeper understandings. Without play, there is no curiosity, no “aha” moments, no joy of discovery, no astounding mistakes (as opposed to oppressive mistakes of tests, etc.).

And, yet, in the United States, we have now moved pretty much all of schooling away from play. We don’t even have recess. Kindergarten is now relegated to “work” and standardized tests. We are killing our children at the root of their humanity. Their very spirits of inquisitiveness and joy are being cut off at the knees. These are our children. What are we thinking!!! It’s an unconscionable act of psychological violence.

And, by the way, not all developed countries do this to their children. Here’s an article in a recent issue of The Atlantic about school in Finland:

”The Joyful, Illiterate Kindergartners of Finland”

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Jerome Bruner Turns 100 Today, October 1, 2015

Jerry Bruner was and still is an inspiration for my own work (teaching and research). I mentioned to him many years ago that he reminded me of Gregory Bateson, and he responded that he wasn’t even close to being at that level. He is a humble man with a great mind and heart. And, I only wish more people would pay attention to what he has to say about children, learning, teaching, and schooling.

Happy birthday, Jerry Bruner!

See Chris Watkins’ blog entry on Jerry Bruner:

Bruner scores a century!

Some of Jerry Bruner’s books:

Bruner, J. (1977). The process of education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Bruner, J. (1987). Actual minds, possible worlds. Harvard University Press.

Bruner, J. (1992). Acts of meaning: Four lectures on mind and culture. Harvard University Press.

Bruner, J. S. (1966). Towards a theory of instruction. Harvard University Press.

Bruner, J., & Haste, H. (1987). Making sense: The child’s construction of the world. New York: Methuen & Co.

Bruner, J. (2003). Making stories: Law, literature, life. New York: Farrar, Strauss, & Giroux.

He also edited and has a chapter in a book on play in which Gregory Bateson has a chapter:
Bruner, J. S., Jolly, A., & Sylva, K. (Eds.). (1976). Play – Its role in development and evolution. New York: Basic Books.

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Beyond Systems 2: Borderless Cognition

As discussed in my last posting, the mere mention of “systems” brings to mind images of mechanistic-like dynamics. But, this sort of association with living “systems” is problematic. In the embedded video of hawks catching prey and flying through various habitats, we can think about the dynamics of what is occurring, but not so much as a system, but as something beyond a system … as complex interactions and complex, non-linear paths of information flow, and all kinds of relationships and the dynamics within these relationships.

EBS Global Documentary: Goshawk, the Soul of the Wind Spot
Posted on Facebook by: Atmaca Alemi / Sparrowhawk World Community

https://youtube.com/watch?v=FbnPxoSANd0

This is a great video to consider in terms of what we might think of as distributed, borderless cognition. If this Goshawk had to think about each maneuver and each object, he or she would not do well at all. In fact, these maneuvers would not be possible. When you look at this video, the hawk is acting as if her thinking is at the tips of her wings and the edges of the tree limbs and at the tips of her talons and the edges of the tree trunks and in her eyes and all the way along in front of her to whatever objects there are. This is what Gregory Bateson talked about as a cybernetics of cognition. The information flows from the wings to the air to the trees and back again; from the legs to the talons to the trees to the talons to the legs; from the brain to the eyes to the scene in front to the eyes to the brain; and so forth.

There is no real separation…. Just what we impose. And, that imposition is just that… “an imposition.” We impose separation. We impose mechanism. We impose parts and wholes, We impose all sorts of labels. But, they are all an imposition to seeing and understanding the reality of our living world.

The same holds true for an athlete. If a basketball player had to think about every move, he or she could not dribble or make a shot, especially in the midst of an intense game. The thinking has to be distributed and borderless.

We also can call this cognition “being present in the moment.”

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Linear Thinking… a Lament

Every time I listen to radio news, read news stories, communicate with people, I am saddened by the intensity of linear (or as Gregory Bateson referred to it, “lineal”) thinking. When I can discuss issues and try to present more complex, non-linear or recursive ways of thinking about problems, I almost always encounter a knee-jerk resistance. I don’t even think most people realize they are doing it. But, it’s as if I’m talking some foreign language that doesn’t even register.

We are living in times during which we are facing huge problems that threaten the future of humanity. We need to think about the issues facing us from multiple perspectives. We can’t just see some problem and think that there is a simple causal factor. The problems are not that simple. They don’t work like mechanical systems. There are complex webs of interactions that contribute to multiple causes and effects. To address these issues in ways that may help create a reasonable future for humanity, we have to be open to all perspectives and we have to do our best to wrestle with the complexities.

I know we are capable of thinking in this way. We have to put aside our own agendas (greed, selfishness, self-absorption, or just nose-to-the-grindstone) and engage in conversations that expose the messiness and complexity of the issues we’re facing. We need to reconnect with one another, with our ecological context, and our biological and social contexts. It’s our only hope…

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Relationships, Bundles of Relationships

Over the past several years – actually it’s probably been over the past several decades – I’ve been increasingly interested in “relationships.” This topic has arisen in previous posts. However, I’d like to explore this topic briefly, but in some depth here.

When I bring up the topic with my students, the immediate reaction is that of “boy friend – girl friend” relationships, but this is only one part of the notion of relationship. We have relationships within ourselves. In fact, everyone, each living thing, is a bundle of relationships. Every living organism is made up of bundles of biochemical, biological, and other patterns of relationships. As human beings, we weave our bundles of relationship even further. We have relationships to ourselves. Sometimes these relationships are positive and sometimes negative (ranging from aspects of ourselves we find embarrassing at best to self-loathing). Obviously, we have relationships to varying degrees with other people. We also have relationships to our physical and social worlds and to our natural environment. And, then we have relationships to the world of ideas. And, we all have the potential for relationships to something beyond ideas that reaches to the depth of our humanity, which some may call spirituality.

Gregory Bateson thought relationships should be the primary focus of schooling. In fact, he thought we needed to change our View of the world from seeing the world and people as separate “things” to seeing everything as interrelated or as bundles of relationships.

Over the past year, I’ve been trying to see my own students as bundles of relationships and to relate to them in terms of “relationship.” In schooling, the tendency is to see students as “objects.” K-12 teachers may sit in lounges complaining about students, labeling them, and creating a kind of “anti-relationship.” In universities, the tendency is to keep students are arms length (or more). So, my attempts at actually relating to my students started with inviting students to come to my office and talk near the beginning of each semester. In some meetings, very little conversation occurred, while in others the conversations took on many different characteristics. At the beginning of every day, I think to myself, “I’m going to be nice to my students today.” It’s a different way to start than thinking about all the work I have to do, how far behind I am, and whatever else is happening around me. In class, I try to see each student as patterns of relationships that are not all that different from my own patterns of relationships. I try to focus on how we’re connected, rather than focusing on my own “academic” agenda.

I’ve also realized how “what I have to say in class” really isn’t all that important. It’s how it’s being said in relationship to each individual. So, if I don’t cover what “I” think is important, it really isn’t such a big deal. The connection, the relationship is what is important. My communication of my own relationship to them, to others, to children, to the physical and social setting of the classroom, to the natural world, and to the world of ideas is what is important.

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Children as Real People and Engaged Learners, but Schools Get in the Way

I mention in my book, Creating a Classroom Community of Young Scientists (2nd ed.), that “children are people.” Although this may seem obvious, the “institution” of schooling assumes that children are something less than human. In fact, children (as emotional, thinking, creative, and curious human beings) are totally missing in The No Child Left Behind Act. Children are merely pawns in the politics of education.

Fundamentally, humans are born as learning beings. From the moment children are born, they start exploring and making sense of the world. They learn one of the most abstract “things” we ever learn (i.e., language or languages) and do so within the first few years and with no real “instruction.” They come up with all kinds of explanations about the world (many of them are amazingly complex, but might make natural and social scientists cringe).

Children’s curiosity almost seems like a basic need. They crave learning  new things. Certainly from a biological point of view, curiosity leads to learning and learning provides human beings with tools for survival. For parents, the concern is always to what extent can you let children pursue their curiosity? If they curiously explore an electrical socket or a cabinet full of chemicals, they could end up getting seriously injured or worse. However, some parents seem to limit children’s exploration around all kinds of personal issues, like “not wanting to be bothered,” “too noisy,” etc. Then, of course, despite the best intentions of parents, they go to school. In most cases, school is the death nell for the spirit of children, which is filled with wonder and curiosity, intriguing ways of making sense of things, an innate cheerfulness, amazing imagination, and an excitement for learning. Schools immediately try to “control” children and make them conform to some adult standard of behavior. They limit or destroy their imaginations and curiosity. They deaden the very process of learning. It becomes the drill and practice march into stupefication. No more excitement for learning, no imaginative play, no more curiosity, no more exploration — just boredom. I’ve seen this happen to my own children, despite our best efforts keep them excited and curious.

Children are capable of so much more than No Child Left Behind will ever allow them do. Then we test them repeatedly for days on end. And, not only do we test them, but we drill and kill them for months in preparing for the tests. It’s a psychological act of violence that parents should be standing up to and saying “no more!”

If we really think hard about what is important for children, we might find that what schools are doing is just the opposite. Of course, there are many amazing teachers, who work very hard at helping children grow in ways that keep the excitement for learning alive, but they fight an uphill battle against their administrators, other teachers, and parents. It is extremely hard for teachers, especially new teachers who may enter the professional with the right kind of ideals, to pursue the kinds of approaches to teaching and learning that will actually benefit children. Such approaches see children as the producers of knowledge rather than the consumers of knowledge. Children explore, investigate, and generate explanations for what they have found. This what they do naturally. Teachers just need to help them refine these skills, challenge them to go to new heights, support them in whatever ways possible, and take peaks at new perspectives and possibilities.

Gregory Bateson (anthropologist, biologist, a thinker way ahead of his time, and one time husband of Margaret Mead) said there were three ways people can find the limits of the possible: (a) exploration (try out new things, see where one can go, etc.), (b) play (fantasy play, “what-if” play, pretending, experimenting, etc.), and (c) crime (breaking the official and unofficial rules, not conforming to the status quo, etc.). If we think about famous people who have made significant contributions to society through writing, science, the arts, etc., have these people engaged in any of these three ways of pushing the limits? Do children engage in any of these before entering school? What do schools do when children engage in these?

[* Thanks to Lisa Smith for her painting of the unicorn frog © 1976]

(originally published June 28, 2008)

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Confusion – Double Bind or Connection in the Classroom

Recently, I was reading part of A Letter to My Students that I had sent them a few days earlier. Among the ideas that I mentioned were ideas of learning as non-linear and of learning as pattern thinking. After I finished a student asked the question, “… but how do patterns fit?” She went on, “they seem to be linear.” I started to respond, then I asked her to explain and she said, “oh, never mind.”

It would have been easy to just continue on with what I had in mind for the rest of class, but I insisted that she explain. As it turned out, she was thinking of patterns as the way in which we might create more rigid, linear, and repetitive approaches to our everyday lives. (Pattern thinking on the other hand is a recursive approach to understanding our world.)

The point here is that we often avoid confusion by solidifying our views or by side-stepping the point of confusion, as the student above was about to do. This event was a classic double bind. The typical situation for a student is that she if she asks a seemingly stupid question, she will look like a fool, especially if she exposes her confusion. On the other hand, she doesn’t ask the question and appear like a fool, she may end up getting a lower grade on an exam or other form of assessment. It’s a no win situation. However, as both Gregory Bateson and his daughter, Catherine Bateson, have suggested, double binds are not necessarily bad events. Avoiding or side-stepping the double bind event is generally problematic since it perpetuates a pathology in relationship. However, if one engages the double bind as a point of potentiality, all kinds of possibilities can emerge. They can be points at which one can connect in ways not possible when immersed in the pathology of a double bind. They also can stimulate creativity, new insights, and novel ways of seeing and relating.

The teaching – learning situation is full of double binds. We see the results of double binds in student dropout rates, in students’ “playing the game” of going-through-the-motions with no real connection, in student passivity, in student resistance, in student “pleasing the teacher” actions, and in the full array of schooling pathologies.

(originally published January 23, 2010)