Okay, so I'm very excited and honored to be joined today
by Philip guidemmy and Fred Turner two Scholars of
considerable distinction and two thinkers whose work is
actually been invaluable to to me personally. And so thank
you for that.
Really good. Demi is an anthropologist and a cybernetic thinker who
has been grappling with Gregory bateson's ideas ever since
taking batesons classes as an
undergraduate at the University of California Santa Cruz in
the 1970s.
His own working on for apology. It's about ritual
and subsistence in the seapick region of Papua New
Guinea just upriver from where Gregory Bates and worked in
the 1930s. And he has also published on the effects
of proposed gold mining in that region his University
of Michigan PhD had Roy Rapoport his major
advisor himself of course was highly influenced
by Bates and
Philip is the president of the Bates and idea group the nonprofit
organization responsible for managing bateson's intellect
intellectual Legacy, which handles is intellectual property
rights and works with his multiple archives. He's
also director of the international boats and Institute.
He was for many years managing managing editor of
the journal cybernetics and human knowing
And we're I think we're all have come across that many of
us will have come across much of that material.
Phillips made some related Publications. I've dealt with varied topics
including the problem of conscious purpose the cybernetics
of what we mean when we talk about power.
The relation of basins early study navans a second order cybernetics
and the use of Africa inanthropology of
bateson's later and more systemic ideas is also
co-authored a joint matter log about the Macy conferences with
norovates and his book Gregory Bateson on
relational communication from octopuses to Nations was published
by Springer in 2020 as volume 20 of
its notable by a semiotic series. It's a
fantastic contribution. I look forward to discussing some of this new
material today.
Fraterna is the Harry and Norman Chandler professor of
communication at Stanford University before moving
to Stamford. He taught communication at Harvard's John F
Kennedy School of government and MIT Sloane School
of Management is also worked for 10 years as a journalist.
Fred is the author or co-author of no less than five books
on subject training from Silicon Valley to the
American memory of Vietnam War and including two books in
which Gregory Bateson is a significant historical protagonist.
The first from the counterculture to cyberculture Stuart brand
the whole herd the whole earth Network and the
rise of digital utapianism from 2006 and
it's prequel.
From 2013 the Democratic surround multimedia and
the American liberalism from World War Two to the
Psychedelic sixties.
I've had the pleasure of meeting Philip on a number of occasions and
it's great to see you again Philip. Also very happy to
meet for the first time Fred Sana.
for to work on the history of the US counterculture has always
brought the complexities of this story to life for me and his prehistory
of the counterculture in pre-World War Two and
World War Two worker Bateson amid has been a fascinating revelation
of a period I think many of
us knew little about
welcome to to both of you Fred and Philip
and thanks so much for joining us
as when we were putting
this together. Everyone was still saying, oh, they should be keeping their heads down. They got plenty
of projects to be working with so it's very kind of
you both to join us. And first thing in the morning I should
say as well. This is 8 am in California where you
both are and and
so much appreciated
okay, I'm just going to
sharing screen
Okay, you guys seeing that page? Okay.
So good. Yeah, great. Thank you. Okay, so
let me just try to frame what's at stake in
this in this panel the purpose if I can ironically say
that of this panel and introduce myself very quickly.
Thanks though many for
for doing that as well actually so
I can I can remove some of this. I'm Dr. John Goodman. I come
from an architectural background.
These days teaching on the ma environmental architecture program at
the Royal College of Art in London. And the rest of my time in
Athens initiating some ecological pedagogy experimental projects.
And as done
when he said actually I've been working with with Bates and
in various ways for a while and she's introduced something so I
can cut that one of the aspects of
bateson's work. I've been particularly interested in
Sorry, this was that these are these are Fred and
Phillips masterpieces. They
are really really excellent pieces.
He's actually a couple of recent things.
published okay
They're one of the aspects of bateson's work that I've been particularly interested
in the lessons of warnings. The Bateson has
for us regarding planning and design broadly understood.
Within the complex human and more than human systems.
And of course this conference on systems design is
is speaking to to these questions much more
widely Bates and especially in his later work
presented us with a paradox a double bind.
On the one hand, he was one of the first to recognize the unfolding
environmental emergency that we find ourselves in
today, and he clearly articulated a need
for us to make radical changes to our ways of being in the
world.
But he also warned us that there are such fundamental problems with our ideas
of planning and design that any interventions and changes
that we make likely to have unforeseen consequences possibly
of a self or systematically amplifying nature,
especially if tightly governed by
our conscious goals
Certainly that I should say the later
basically.
He argue that our conscious design goals.
Tend to perceive problems and Solutions in
a limited linear and often quantitative cause and
effect chain, whereas the ecological systems that we are
intervening within the characterized by complex networks of
bio-semiotic feedback relationships, which
have their own goals and behaviors.
These are not easy for us to perceive precisely because our conscious
purpose focuses on parts of systems and our goals
for them. Whereas the properties sensitivities and behaviors
of complex systems the products of whole networks of
relationships.
These relationships are also difficult for us to perceive even with
our extended.
you know satellite monitoring systems and so on Bates
and argue precisely because our technology is a methods for understanding
the various systems of the world tend to
measure flows of matter and energy and then tend to
think dominantly in metaphors based upon matter and
energy this troubled Bates an enormously
he argued that whenever you have the kind of complexity that characterizes
living by a semiotic material
energetic systems and ecologists. You need
Concepts and metaphors that are relational and not based in Newtonian objects
on forces when you're talking about the the
semiotic the information or character of those systems.
You can use the Newtonian things for for the
simple forces, but that doesn't work for the
relational aspect he argue but we're a language is
completely encumbered by those.
So this was another big problem in his
opening paper.
to
99 Grand pasium that
he convened on the moral and aesthetic structure of
human adaptation, which is one of a series of attempts around
that time that he made to think about problems of planning
and human adaptation often using some version of
what Felix guatari would later call the three ecologist.
Bateson stated in the 69 Symposium. What
is lucky in? There is a theory of action.
Within large complex systems where the active agent
is himself a part of and a product of the
system. These are these are his attacks Basin
never did succeed in articulating a theory
of action.
Or at least completing one, but he did leave some fascinating
sign per post and some caution some steps
that we needed to take in trying to develop one.
For some of the roots that you thought might lead might lead at
least part of the journey.
And to creatively lead us beyond the double bind and these
were an ecological reworking of the aesthetic and the
moral the least in this pain moment of his thinking.
Why did he think that in some way evolving our aesthetic and
moral sensibilities would help us to perceive these kinds of
relationships? Why did he try to take on the work
of defining these Concepts formally in relational ecological
systemic theoretic ways.
To understand this we need to remember that Bateson thought
that he had effectively turned Sigmund Freud inside out.
Beta argued that the unconscious is not only to
be found in the non-conscious processes of a brain within a
body.
The Bates and are unconscious minds or Minds also include
the whole Web of Life and the whole web of social relationships within
which we exist.
And for me actually my to my wider work, but
maybe relevant today. There's a fascinating parallel here actually between
batesons understanding of an extended unconsciousness and actually
are yeah modern subjectivity
is difficulty in seeing that and hegelian and
Marxist concepts of alienation as a very
interesting resonance, I think.
A number of his three ecologies iterations
from the same period the paper form substance and
difference from 1970. He stated this
point Freudian. The first point I
should Freudian psychology expanded the concept of mind inwards to
include the whole communication of system within the body the autonomic
the habitual the vast range of unconscious
processes.
Well, I am saying expands the Mind outwards and both
of these changes repeat the scope of
the conscious self. The certain humility becomes appropriate.
Furthermore the in fact started to complicate as
he in fact started to complicate his simpler three
ecology's model Loosely of a self-society and
environment with other perspectives and in
the same paper, he actually identified two epistemologically
and ontologically distinct ecological audience what
we actually might call the two colleges cutting cutting things
up a different way.
I want to raise this. I think it's actually very interesting as statement
for kind of systems design think of
because of its clarity.
He says ecology currently has two faces to
it the face, which is called bioenergetics the economics
of energy and materials. We're going to Coral Reef the
redwood forest or a city and second an
economics of information of entropy and
Meg entropy Etc.
The two of these do not fit together well precisely because
the units are differentially bounded in the
two sorts of ecology. So describing the
sea different entities
In bioenergetics, it is natural and
appropriate to think of units bounded at the
cell membrane or the skin.
Or of units of code specific individuals conspacific individuals.
These boundaries are then the
Frontiers at which measurements can be made to determine the additive subtractive
budget of energy and presumably other
metabolic flows for the given unit.
in contrast
Information or an entropic ecology there was
requitting a possible a Pathways and
a probability.
The resulting budgets are fractionating not subtractive.
And the boundaries must enclose and not cut
the whole of the relevant Pathways. So it's
describes two very different ways. In which ecology
the field of ecological studies were
working some of which were seeing boundaries and
we're measuring flows across those boundaries quantitatively and
then another which was actually the study of ecological
And by semiotics really
that's only a floating relationships and probabilities. And
again, actually with the marks relation marks
was very interesting work with the difference between
fractionating and subtractive.
This this combination of seeing large-scale
problems with of planning and
a failure to understand our extended unconscious.
And what happens when that's when
that's played out and and Amplified with modern
text technology and Basin further
worked out in in the pathologies of epistemology essay.
Actually a few months earlier. This is
the essay that Felix guatari and uses to
launch the like his three ecology as essays.
And actually I think is a response to
we're about some follows through some of
this and notes you decide that you want to get rid of the byproducts of
human life. And that Lake Erie will be a good place to put
them you forget that the EK mental system called Lake
Erie is a part of your wider EK mental system
and that if Lake Erie has driven insane. It's insanity
is incorporated into the larger system of your
thoughts and experience.
And I could obviously fresh out much more and more but
we're not here to hear me give an extended lecture, but that's it.
It seemed to me that there's political Dimensions or implications
to much of baits and sinking regarding.
Or operating both at the level of the political subject modern
self's mishaprehension of or alienation from
the real boundaries of itself. And also at the
level of human adaptation of socio ecological planning.
is something that's that's
being thought about again tentatively so much today,
but these these political implications of Bateson.
It seems to me have not been well drawn out
and fun finds many different contradictory readings or
approaches to this out there.
And indeed there's a certain sense that one can get from many of the received
readings of Gregory rates. And which is a here's a character who was
in some sense above politics.
And without that there's you can see where that's come
from. There's that there's some kind of Truth to that and indeed by
the end of his life as fraterna has perceptively noted based
on a come to be received as something approaching a modern Same by
many of his followers and and
We can.
Often see that feeling then it's a is
very interesting.
But it's it's it's it's tended to
perhaps shape an obscure
some of the real political moves that
I think maybe we can see.
other more apparently political voices such
as those are really mentioned of delirious and the philosopher and
the radical activist and therapist Felix Qatari
seems to dismiss that Bates and
trajectory of that carrier can
use my pool in French.
And as Robert Shaw has noted it seems straightforward for
delivers in gretari Bateson is the failed
revolutionary.
We can actually look at.
the passage from anti-edeplus just for any
newcomers to base when we paradoxically uses
as a little
career introduction. They State the
scientists has such as no revolutionary potential. He's the
first integrated agent of integration a refuge
for bad conscience and the force destroyer of his
own creativity.
That's consider Gregory Bateson.
Jump a few lines as he begins by fleeing the Civilized World by becoming
an ethnologist following the Primitive codes
and the Savage flows. He then turns in the direction
of flows that are more and more decoded those of schizophrenia from
which he extracts an interesting psychoanalytic theory
then still in search of another Beyond another
walk to break through he turns to dolphins to the
language of dolphins to flows that are even stranger and
more deterritorialized.
But where does the dolphin flux end if not with the basic
research projects of the American Army which brings us back to
the preparations for War and the absorption of surplus value?
Now this is I think a fascinating passage The Refuge for bad conscience
is surely a reference to bateson's.
You know publicly stated sense of unease in his later
life with his World War Two psyops work with the OSS
and perhaps more with the instrumentalization of
the schizo genetic theory that he had developed in his in his
thirties and for political work.
the force the story of his own creativity
That's less clear. I wonder.
Have seriously pointing us to a deeper and more interesting observation there.
That whilst Bateson is often described using a list
of disciplinary roles or relations, you know anthropologists ecologists.
ethnographer
So on I mean the regularly see a list
of descriptions of the fields that he moved through but
very rarely actually do we see him described as
an artist whether by himself or by others and yet
he was at various times at filmmaker a photographer
curator the creative writer an orator
actually in you know,
listen some recordings. It was borderline performance out.
Equally some of the suggestions in the passage seen
somewhere unfair and Bates and had left journalism program
precisely because he said he found he couldn't work
in jubiously funding projects and later. He would
resign from the University of California Board of Regents due to
the institution taking on Military nuclear research.
Independent was precisely not in any normal sense of
scientist.
He spent much time critiquing both the instrumentalism and
the epistemologies of dominant scientific practices theories and
institutions. And in fact, it seems to me that the
lures and qataria amend or at least complicate their first narrative
in their second joint work a thousand plateau.
Where they surely take baits on as the prototypical practitioner of
a nomadic science as they describe it.
something different so
the the Royal mainstream science
and actually as my colleagues Fred and Phillip
here today have shown in their work.
There were periods of life. I think where Baker was not in the engaging in very
political problems, but actually at a higher
level of abstraction even actually attempting to
intervene in the very possibility space of the political.
In the Democratic surround multimedia and American liberalism
from World War Two to the circadelic success Fred discusses
how Bateson and his then wife Margaret Meads pre-World
War Two anti-fascist work in the states where they ask
forever as possible between culture the emergence of a democratic character
or subjectivity Fred. I'm looking forward
to hearing you say something about that in a moment and I am getting towards
the end.
However, his experience of using his own pre-war anthropological
work on schizmagenesis.
Clearly Disturbed him in his in its World War Two
OSS applications and together with his growing concern
about the general epistemological error that I described earlier
of linear human conscious purpose intervening and
complex systems. This seems to lead him
to largely question the possibility of something like an applied social
science in the post-war period
as actually opposed to by then
his former wife Margaret, really he
continued to actively pursue the possibility of
an applied social science. There seems
to be a period of 10 to 20 years where he's largely avoiding.
Avoiding that I'm sorry. Just don't for any kind
of newcomers just a more extensive.
Quick career run through but then
from the mid 60s onwards he seems to or he's
not seems to or anything does start to re-engage.
And there are wonderfully critical words from his daughter
in the beginning of our own
metaphor book where they collaborated on her
writing up.
the precursor that to the conference
I mentioned earlier the 1968 one on
human adaptation and she says you can
imagine it's completely nation very careful dates and
Giving yourself a s*** basically, but as an adolescent, I'd be
rated my father for his cynically stated relatance to
become involved his sense that the universities and
the political and economic structures of the world
were irredeemably steeped in Folly and shortly.
It wasn't so wrong now in
the emerging ecological crisis here decided
to care again. So this would be our first Club our
first collaboration in commitment.
as well
and of course Fred, you're your history of the US counterculture in
the 60s and seventies of based on these. Once again, the major
priority protagonist as he is in the three point.
Um, there's also a primarily in relationship to this
latter period that Philip guidelines book Gregory
Basin on relational education systems
focuses that
It does refer back at various moments to bateson's earlier
work too and elsewhere has done
Philippine your book. You you look at
the Cuban Missile Crisis and and the nuclear researcher, California and
it's fascinating material and gain. Hopefully
we can start to bring that in a moment.
There's one final as I was thinking
about this preparation. I've been wondering how should I just present lots
of pieces of evidence of different things that we might consider?
Potential political moments
or so, I think
most of these I've been trying to touch on a few of those and I think I believe
with these will come out in discussion, but there's one
which which I've enjoyed partly just because I've only
recently found this myself this emerged in recordings of
the question and answer session.
Um following batesons presentation at
the dialectics of Liberation Congress in London in 1967.
Which was actually an archetypal new left event, which
might be Irrelevant for some conversations shortly.
But where he stated though, there was no small contribution
from marks actually marks made a considerable contribution to
the thinking I was offering you earlier.
He was one of the earliest scientists who got the idea of interacting systems and
the exponential phenomena.
of systems
So with that wider opening of
a systems theoretic history, I shall stop sharing.
was screen and and invite Philip
and
bread to turn off their microphone
or turn on their microphones and
And join us and and I guess I mean there's a general.
Question about whether it's a proposes as an individual question or
whether it's just something you might respond to anyway, but I mean
do you agree with that kind of apparent temporalization
of some direct engagements in
in kind of earlier. Let's appearance and a period of
withdraw as in the you know, Mary Catherine herself
seemed to describe in her quotes.
Is that does that same an appropriate?
Um, yeah temporalization to
start with and and
I guess maybe Fred you might even make
your comments on that. There's there's I've tried to introduce some
of the political social ecological planning questions that
Bateson was looking at later in his life around, you
know, the possibilities and and
risks of trying to shape complex systems
and these concerns it seem to to
mirror
Much of actually the early material that you looked
at in the prequel in the Democratic surround and
I wondered if I could could invite you
to maybe sort of
tell us a bit more about how he became interested in that material and
to sketch some of that what was actually an extraordinary situation
of you know,
we've got fascism unfolding in Europe. There's American intellectuals,
you know, very seriously thinking about
what kinds of interventions can they
do in this in this area sure. I'm
happy to jump in and I don't thank you
very much for having me. I feel very lucky to be here. I
know that our audience comes from around the globe, which
is incredible and is the kind of thing that people
like Bates in imagined might happen in the mid-century and
it's also special nice to be here with With
You Phillip and and I'll defer to you on questions a
periodization. You know, I think that's gonna be real interesting
the piece of interest me most
About bateson's politics is it's emergence in
a moment in the mid-century when intellectuals like
Bates and others were terrified that doing
power in a hierarchical top-down
instrumental manner would lead
Americans and other nations to Fascism as it
apparently already had in Germany.
And you know, so just to sketch that
moment.
Um, you know, Germany was for the despite World
War One Germany was often looked at by Americans in the mid-century as
a great and cultured Nation really the home of culture Brothers
Beethoven and brought us art and brought us poetry hyena philosophy.
And so the mystery was how on
Earth did this country that was so sophisticated go
so far wrong so fast and one
of the answers that was really sort of
everywhere was that Hitler had got hold of media new communication
Technologies and had developed the ability
to deliver the same message simultaneously to millions
and millions of people and literally for some
folks. In fact them with the madness that was his own
and so it's a kind of classic media infection metaphor,
but the key point for Bates and for others like him is
that that this process worked in a top-down
manner.
And it literally turned people from normal human beings
who might be empathetic into fascist subjects
obedient people who are willing to line up behind a leader and
follow that leader and so the question that animated Bateson and
Mead and the cyberneticists Norbert Weiner
and that that crowd later on was how do
we build a model of politics of agency that
will conduce to
a Democratic Society and that will help produce Democratic people.
And based in a mead worked at this very hard. I can go I
can go way down this Rabbit Hole. I'll spare everyone it's in the
book. But but the essential point is that
they believed that cultures tended to
have personalities. This is culture and personality anthropology and
that media and communication systems.
Could shape the personalities that cultures produced.
And the challenge at the start of World War Two in America was to
create systems that would produce a democratic personality.
And so Basin and me played
a very active role in a group called the committee for National morale which
ended up advising Theodore Roosevelt and was actually
much more influential than we remember and they promoted of
you of doing Communication in
a way that would produce Democratic subjects and they were they were
in explicit conflict with folks who are promoting a more German version there
were people who said you know, look gerbils is doing a great job. We
should do the same thing and Bates in the meat
were not those people.
And you know John when you were talking earlier about his theory
of action from 6869 and talking about the model
of a self that was both in the system and yet free
to act.
That was what was at the time in 1942
called the Democratic personality the
committee for National morale was trying
to create citizens where people could express themselves
be free. No one another through communication without
being dominated or dominating others.
Yet at the same time being organized being ordered
and they imagined a democratic system as one
in which order emerged from the process of constant expressive
communication by individuals and that
model still, you know, flowed through bateson's work flowed through
the counterculture arguably can still be found in a
dark version at Facebook today. So I
think I'll stop there but Philip I'd love to hear from you on the periodization issue
as well.
I think the periodization is is quite
right and I remember
with a group including the norabates and
then the couple others of us going
to the Library of Congress where
a lot of these papers exist, especially
basins
papers are kind
of divided the pre-1946 or
1947 when he was in the east coast and with
Margaret Mead are in the Margaret Mead
collection at the Library of Congress. Whereas the
West Coast beginning in the late 40s
and onward are held
primarily at the University of California Santa Cruz.
So that's kind of a sharp periodization
right there. But as we looked
through those early papers, we were really
very struck by the awareness that
really everyone had and is
starting in the 30s when they first met when they
were first together when they were doing their work in Bali,
they were always doing it under the shadow of the war
that might come. So this was really a
long standing set of
concerns.
And then yeah this committee and morale this
paper or one very like it that you're referring
to is in steps to an Ecology
of mind. It's under a different title. It's called something
about due to our learning I want to
talk about but it is
and what's interesting about that periodization is
that it went it that paper
was done immediately before the two
of them split up and did their various War work and then
Gregory batesons instance that was
going around to the
Far East and so on in India
and Vermont places like that with the
OSS.
And then he was deeply disillusioned by that and
probably that soured
him on the concept of planning.
So
in in a very in a very real way and so
then he turned to these other.
other issues
And there's one of the things that's interesting also about this period
and which I know.
is is a material factor in some
of the work that he does during the war is that of course,
we have these this this wave
of escaping German intellectuals moving
over to the states and and both intellectuals
and Bauhaus artists and so on and and
I mean one of the interesting things that we
various comments of one can get in reaction
supposing the question of Bates and the politics and one
is is can often be this this curious kind
of guilt by association of a certain understanding of
cybernetics where cybernetics is
kind of exclusively understood as a kind
of yeah something that emerges out of the military and then
also that
Something I've had many times is our yeah, and
Bateson was involved in the you know in in the Forerunner
of the CIA and so on the OSS anything. I
mean he was involved in but I mean
that was the place to be actually I mean like adorno was
in there, you know, but I mean if
you took out yeah, it's Fred. Did you want
to yeah, I want to jump right on this point. I think we labor under a
misunderstanding of what the military is and it
haunts our thinking, you know, the military.
We imagine it as a top-down hierarchical bureaucratic institution
only and certainly during World War Two.
It had some elements of that had that approach but the
research side of the military was extraordinarily collaborative playful
for researchers out there.
There's an absolutely wonderful resource at MIT, which is
the Memoirs of the wives of the scientists at
the radiation laboratory who described living
essentially communally working all the time. And so
so we have to remember that military goals
might be something we disagree with
but military culture in this period is something that
people found really comfortable and I
I also think that the the mode that
Driving the cybernetic mode coming out of the sort
of story. We have it coming out of the anti-war out of the Norbert wieners
Gunnery machine. I mean, that's the Galveston story
and it's certainly true and in its way but the appeal of
cybernetics its ability to explode into the dominant way
of thinking in the late 50s and 1960s. I would argue came
precisely from its ability to challenge a view
of the world. That was hierarchical that was presumed to be fascist that
was presumed to be domineering and self-eradicating cybernetic
seemed offer to disciplines of many
kinds a way of being simultaneously free
and organized and that was
the Democratic challenge. How do we stay free while also
being organized and and that's something that was there
and it this is the irony that idea actually comes
in some ways out of a military culture that
we misunderstand as I'm free when in
fact inside that part of the military things were actually very wild.
That's incredible as an incredibly interesting. No, thank you.
Thank you for that. And actually I guess in your story that
actually some of that organizational teamwork
in culture from actually that period
then gets carried forwards into
You know, the working practices actually are
in the in the post classic cybernetic period of
Silicon Valley and absolutely yeah, it's story
that you very much tell in the and this
is one of the deepest ironies and beaten's career from my perspective is
that you know on the one hand. He's he devotes his entire career
as far as I can tell to pushing back against deleterious
politics and
political forms as he understands them against hierarchy against
domination against human intention that
will ultimately result in destructive anti-ecological events
and yet he and
folks around him, especially in the 40s and 50s and Margaret Mead
is a part of this but so is Norbert Weiner and then later people in
the 60s Pioneer a new mode of
technocratic Life a mode of technocratic life
that is actually built around networks collaboration teams, highly
individuated lives. And
and that mode of technocratic life is in fact the mode
that dominates a good chunk of Silicon Valley today.
Well, it's
running such a skeptic.
Of the whole use of Technology. Yeah, and
what I
Called to your attention and to both
of your attention is an attachment was a
meta log that he never published because the
one Anthropologist who looked at it who was his basically, um
research assistant just was horrified by it because
so radical and uncompromising an
anti-technology standard he calls it,
you know, Daddy is there a conspiracy and
you know
it is and he goes after the
whole question of ecological damage and all the
ills of the world and is there
a conspiracy and basically he's not saying
that there's a conspiracy but he he talks
a lot about what having tools does and
how it mediates. I believe he uses
that phrase mediates the relationship to the
environment such as you're no longer working. You're
no longer in contact with the environment directly.
But you are in contact with your tools that you're
using and and that
this accelerates the pace of change
and it does various things that could lead
to our Extinction which was very clear with all
the conferences that he was involved in the
60s beginning with the
one that his daughter.
sort of
help document and his
whole critique of what he called conscious purpose
which was this sort of linear expression,
which he actually
said that it is really damaging when
your power ratio against here in environment and
uncharacteristically. He said power ratio because he
was allergic to the concept of power most of
the time but the power
ratio is so unbalanced that
really it leads
you to
to increasing disaster. So that's
that's the irony. That
is the main thrust of
his.
Understandings was so much against this
and yet at the same
time. Yes, he was influential with
the people like Stuart brand
and does flow somewhat
into that.
Yeah, and I think so. This is only really you made
it really important distinction there in my mind, which is between tools and systems
and I very much agree that he was an anti-tool
technology kind of guy and precisely in
the way that you describe it tools being mediators between humans
who are presumed to have linear intent and things
in the world that humans will intentionally destroy
makes a total sense what I think what I think Bateson was
a little bit more ambiguous about and
which the tech crowd here in California really picked up
on was the notion that that systems themselves were
becoming technology technological and
simultaneously technological natural and
mystical. So so the idea of
a system in which mind is imminent made sense
that a kind of mystical level but but to folks developing integrated
Computing it also made sense that a technological level
like, oh my gosh. Yes, the world really is an information
system. And what we really do need to do is get the relationships
between information entities, correct?
And so so it you know, even as he's
pushing back against tools, he's providing a framework
and intellectual framework within which systems oriented
Technologies whose makers May probably
don't even think of them as tools but think of them as models of the world can make
sense can be legitimate can be embraced and it's
just an irony and you know,
yeah,
well, you know, but he but he
makes an interesting critique in the position
paper to that first 1968 Congress, which
is a critique that really anticipate
some of our you know
criticisms of the recent Supreme Court decisions, which
consider a corporations
as as persons really he
has a critique of
sort of corporate structure in there as being
composed of parts of persons as being only able
to look at certain types of
um relationships and that you
have to sort of put you know, the part
of you that understands poetry out to
the side before you get into your you know,
bureaucratic or or your business
job. Well that all made sense in the
60s. Oh, yeah, those awful people 50 people in their final
suits but applies just
as well to everything that happened since the
19.
You know since the 1990s in the
world of tech, in
fact, you know, if you
want to say that capitalism corrupted on this
lovely image of these systems, which
could have imminent mind. Well that might be
an argument. You might want to take Douglas rushcock
and just wrote a book which I was
um going to try to argue with his interpretation of baitlin because
I didn't think he got that right but got
a lot of things very right and in terms
of the history of Silicon Valley in the last three decades,
I I think definitely Basin would
have critiqued it on exactly the same.
ways that he critique the
Sort of culture in the 1960s. It
was just an extension of it rather than
something that
but against it he was always very clear that
dependent in his cybernetics that depending on
the way it was going. It would either go towards
self-correction or would go toward runaway. Which reminds
me I think Anthony Cheney is with us and
he had wrote brilliant book
on the dialectics of Liberation and
very very much.
That instance of his history.
So I really think that
that his
stance would not be different to
that. He would just see somehow something that
might have been hopeful in the 90s went
from being as part of self-correction to
a part of further run away and that
it could always go either way systems would
could always go either way. They're not necessarily going
to lead you to Arcadia to you know,
Pasco Utopia. This is
one of the the dilemmas I guess within within
cybernetics in general
is is on the one hand and and the various complications
of it the understanding of its terms within different. Yeah
areas is on the one hand.
Yes, it certainly facilitated a
certain way in which technology and Society
could develop.
But also by no means all all
people who are calling themselves Urban decisions, but but certainly a number
including and possibly
most notably Bates and we're actually
using the kind of arguing that these are the strongest
tools that we're going to have to understand
that phenomenon and and to try to to deal
with it in in some ways as always
this. Yeah can
I think as
I forget he said it's I won't say well if you went back
a couple decades also and you look at the
bateson's criticism of Game Theory Game
Theory as it
was developed in early cybernetics was
and remains a tremendously powerful
mathematical way of looking at the
world, but he always said the point
isn't to learn how to behave better in
the games that we have. The point is to know how
to change the games now, that's that's an
echo of marks that I never expected anyhow, but
he always said that about the
theory of games and especially in the use
of the theory of games by the
Cold War and the
Nuclear arms race that existed in that
time which he was extremely critical of yeah. It's
so it's so interesting because we're on this
this point that I think is characteristic of the the latter half of
the 20th century a lot of American thinking it's the tension about sort
of where is politics, right? If we if we
see Bates in bateson's politics as being connected to
State institutions, right the military or objecting
to State institutions, but in some way relating to them military governance,
you know that then
then there's a certain view that he's very much
a rebel and it's absolutely correct.
And you could see why he'd be frustrated working for
the OSS, you know, but at the same time I think
the alternative to that kind of politics that he's
trying to build is always from the get-go political. You know,
Bateson is in many ways. I would argue a pioneer of design
as a political technology, you know
during World War Two and 42, for example, you know,
he and Margaret Mead are our theorizing how to
build Educational Systems that will produce Democratic people
and and some of that stuff gets gets
kind of wild. I pulled a couple of quotes here. So,
you know, he says that so this
is when he's thinking about about developing a moral system and
he wants to build an educational technology for this. He says the essential
thing. This is him and me writing together. The essential thing
is that the Central State Agency for morale building shall not
see itself as manipulating people the moment
the central agency begins to see itself as a
manipulator of Puppets propaganda becomes inevitable.
The only way to avoid this result is
to organize the whole system.
So that the central agency is firmly oriented toward
discovering and couraging and
servicing local initiative.
He's imagining a world in which we can you know, encourage folks to
be local but it gets a little bit creepier. You
know, he later says we may be able to get a more definite more
operational definition of such habits as free will if we ask
about each what sort of experimental learning context would
we devise to inculcate this habit? Let me
just repeat that what sort of experimental learning
context would we devise in order
to inculcate this habit? This is him again. How would
we read the maze or problem box so that
the anthropomorphic rat shall obtain a
repeated and reinforced impression of his own free
will
Now I want to get jump into that. I thought
you might yes. There's a young. Well, you talk
about the culture and personality school and actually
aware that got sort
of read out of the history of anthropology that was
taught in graduate schools was when they started looking at
some of the Nations they they were doing a lot of
type a lot typologising of
Nations from a distance but also
as part of the war effort, so Ruth Benedict had
the chrysanthemum and the sword which was really developed dealing,
you know, they could
she couldn't go to Japan. So they were
interviewing people in the states and and so forth
and so on but they were developing these pictures of these
different cultures.
so
to allude to this sort of thing without really exceeding
to its more raw statements
one way that Basin would
talk about these things in classes is by a
precisely referring to the experiments that
the different types
of behaviors would do and the
most often he
would, you know, you're talking about the contrast with
the Germans. Well, there's an implicit contrast with the Russians that's
going on as well. And with respect
to Pavlov the dog is putting into
a harness and learns to salivate but the
salivation is a passive response.
Hmm.
To the experimental manipulation, whereas in
American behaviorism, you're always
getting these very energetic rats who are doing the
you who are doing things who are agent as
we'd say today and he it's
a paradox. Yes, because because
if you are if you
come from a culturally relative a
framework of culturalism to begin
with you will see that different cultures
or different, you know different rats for
that matter different animals based on their experience
and based on their own.
Based on what they learned from their contacts
will develop
different characterological points
of view now.
Meat is going from her own studies of
American culture. She had a book of keeping powder
dries and things like that and she
is going from her own characterization of
American culture and indeed they're reflected in
the rad experiments, but you could then say well, you know,
these rat these rats these mazes are sort
of surrounds and these rats are being very gented
in a bit in a very structured way. I
think this is exactly the kind of thing that later Bates
and was reacting against by the way. I don't think
that he persists and
thinking that you can plan at
this level. I tell a story on my
History at University of California Santa Cruz,
they had a program where you could make your own major and I
came up with the idea of a major in cultural planning
as I really called it.
And he I wondered if he could be
an advisor for that. So he
I said well, yes, you should
do that and you should definitely do that do
it with a will and then you will come up
with a belly laugh.
And realize that it can't be done.
And then he said to fix things in my
brain. He said you can't deal with love in
that way.
and by love, he meant a lot of things he meant,
you know fundamental values and what
people care about he meant
so that was about the strongest
statement about
manipulation that I think you could get and
so I would say that.
Well, there are reasons that he broke
up. He yeah, yeah, I agree
with you. I'm manipulation. I think you're absolutely right. I think there's a it's a
paradox. I don't think he wants to manipulate people. I really don't
but I think he wants to create conditions within which
certain kinds of people can emerge and other kinds of people are not
part of the picture. I don't think he wants fascists in
the world. I don't think he wants authoritarians in the world and
I think he sees at least in the 40s which
is the period I know best. I think he sees that as
As the mission of sight one of the missions of science is
to find the conditions under which people can be free.
And it's a discovery Mission not a manipulation
Mission but remembering as well. They're in
their twenties still. Yeah, I mean, yeah Bates in
a mead when they're starting this work on thinking about in
culturing Democratic character. I mean, they're still
in their late twenties. I mean that I
you know that they're very young. And in the sense that there's the
point Fred you make up. I remember which book it's in
but that there's a comment along the lines of you know, but in his later period
he's become an emotionally mature person
or something like that you said which I
thought was I mean that was very interesting again kind
of observation, but but in power
This since I have is it's precisely because
of various moments. He came close to
the dark side of various ways.
You know that that actually gave the
the level of sensitivity to
these issues that we I think do find in
the later work and and
which which the kind of like Legacy to
to deal with we already I mean I want to
start to open it up to anyone else
in the audience. He has any
points to
to raise
but one of the other things actually I wanted
to just raise because the times flying by
and I wish we did actually have several hours because just a deal
with the interpreting the historical material but
there's there's also you know a reason no
doubt why we're all here today which isn't simply a fascination
with a historical periods and and
characters. But but there's you know, it's how is
this resonating with various challenges that
we have today and it seems actually in both
of these periods of Engagement, whether it's kind of, you know,
anti-fascist building of democratic institutions
or culture or whatever but dealing with
that problem is is
From is is very very
real and as a Brit we're
you know.
Looking down the canon in a way that you were recently in the
states. And and so the these
questions about the kind of
you know, what the premises of our cultures that we might want
to to protect in some way and then
the same kind of set of questions.
As a kind of
ecological level and the question actually is I mean, are they
two different questions or are they actually the same?
question in into contexts
I was hoping to actually drag Philip out on the question of context as
well. That might be another rabbit hole.
At first we would see we do have questions from
the audience and I think I see Fred Fredrick star.
Fred and
needed
Right. I need to unmute myself. Yeah. Thanks so many
for sending this up and thanks Phillip John and Fred for such
a really highly energizing conversation so
far. I've been listening for sort of
patterns across your talks which I guess is also
trying to listen as Bates in my and things
that are occurred to me. Are you really bookings
or steps? Right? So the initial this is
something from what you're just talking about now John the importance
of the model right and and really holding
on to how it is that we you know, given that this is a
design conference how it is that we over really rely
on sort of a static organization rather than
opening up for possibilities, perhaps even trying
to introduce Notions of the model into what
it is that we're doing.
The other end and this is where my question is is the
paper later. I got called ecology
and flexibility in urban civilization.
And this is something Philip and I have talked a lot about how you
know when you think about what's going on here in
this in our panel right now. What is
the relationship between understanding particularly understanding in
a cybernetic way and thinking about cybernetic explanation
and action right? And does that
particular kind of understanding create a disposition
for Action, even if you know Gregory himself
might not have been particularly political.
And here one of the things that strikes me is so
important is that when we think about designer co-design the notion
of allowing for flexibility, which I
know John you've also written about is something that often gets,
you know ignored right or push the side that we
think of design is creating these constraints without recognizing
how when we're talking about human
adaptation.
We need to also hold on to the variety for a future changes
in the environment. I'm wondering if each of
you as addressed this in a different way whether with qatari's
three ecologies, but how you see this
the importance of flexibility in thinking
about conference on design?
Sorry for that being such a long question.
Well, I think I would like to underscore
that for this Design Group that Gregory was
working with grip Bates and was working with these various
design conferences in the
last 10 years of his life that this was a
this was actually done for mayor Lindsey's.
Yeah.
Group in New York to look
about certain issues that had to
do with design and that earlier in Tarrytown. He
was at a conference with all these
architects.
Jacqueline Robinson
And Peter Blake and Mary Nichols and Robert
Caro writing about Robert Moses.
And basically he was critiquing Robert Moses. And
as everyone was
in that conference for what that
would mean with her concept of power and was
applauding how it would
be impossible for new Robert Moses to emerge
again this fits with
a homegrown fascism, like di supposed and
real way but even though
given that this group is interested in
design that's really something to to look
at and in his position paper, which was published was
was republished in the co-evolution quarterly
linking it again to Stuart brand, but then
he talks a lot about speculates a
lot about what power might mean considering that
we shouldn't take it as
example of physics of some simple quantity that you
have more of or less of but you should look at it as
a patterned phenomenon and specific ways.
So I think that's super helpful. I I
have a kind of quandary around Bates and
I haven't got it figured out and I don't know how to read the issue that
you're raising here Fred, um, you know on the one hand you could
tell it as a co-optation story in Silicon Valley so Bates
in Longs towards the end
of his career for being to be a whole person to see love everywhere to build
a kind of holistic world and it's a really kind of
beautiful vision and you know, he dies at the Zen Center and and
it's it's a kind of a beautiful vision and yet here in
the valley. I think for folks who want to build more explicitly
manipulative systems. It becomes
a way for them to imagine that they are somehow participating in
his somewhat saintly project as they
do things like build manipulative patterns into computer interfaces,
and I you know, I really do talk to contemporary Tech
folks who are building things Building Systems that I would think
of as controlling, you know decision determining horrible
sort of commercial Technologies
who see themselves as Lego
A basin which I find baffling. I don't think that's
correct another way to read it. And so that's a straight
co-optation story. You see folks trying to justify their activity by
referring back to someone who's activity was actually quite different. There's another
story though, which is one that I don't know how I feel about which
is that somehow embedded in the cybernetic project
of which Batson was a part is the
idea that order is something that emerges in
the world and that can be discovered through science and that
and that has this weird habit. I think of legitimating
the orders that do emerge as if they were
natural themselves and and
this is a tendency that's just kind of built into some parts
of systems thinking I don't know what to do with it. Um,
but I do think it has that that tendency I very
much celebrate Fred your idea of sticking with the model, you know,
that's an idea that flows through through Donna heraway's work
and and through through all kinds of, you know later sort of
cybernetically inflected feminism. And I think
the model is a very helpful notion design.
To produce models within which people can nonetheless
act that makes sense to me. It does
it does but actually there's one
of the reasons why I think Bateson is interesting still today
and some of the work that hasn't been
picked up in the wider kind of ecological materialism this
goes and actually by people like haraway and
one of the things that I
on how I completely agree Fred with yes that
the maintaining the mother is important, but
one of the
Basin didn't stop at those
kinds of descriptions. I mean he went through enormous pains
to try to understand what models were
made of what you know, what is it that produces
the variety and and one of
the frustrations I have with a lot of contemporary material as
much as I enjoy it and
so on of people like haraway is that I
think that they just too easily stop at the model or the
trouble or whatever and kind of you.
It's the as a kind of antidote to
the formalism of much of bateson's generations
attempts to understand the nature of systems. It's kind
of it feels to me gone too much the other way
where we don't really know. Okay. So what kinds of models then over?
Yeah some better than others are you know?
And so whilst absolutely.
Tendentiously I'm agreeing with you. I'm also thinking that there's
some kind of you know basinian work to do on
actually understanding the nature of
better and worse muddles in a vegetarian makes
no sense in that formulation at all. But he uses the word weeds, you
know, and actually to answer another
point of question that you raised Fred in your question.
Just then was about the question of flexibility.
And indeed, you know, it seems you
know, when when you're when we read about the variables getting
up tight in various ways that the key.
sensible design Ambitions that
they should be to build in all kinds of flexibility and
redundancy and systems such that they
can deal with with, you know,
increasingly unpredictable background environments, you
know, what used to be stable is
Is changing faster than we are in some respects?
And and so there's there's that kind of flexibility
that seems and yes, thank you for mentioning that
I've done a paper trying to pull that out.
But of course there's there's another kind of flexibility of neoliberal
discourse, which
Which also exploits that?
Which we can actually leave them on, you know is there but Basin
also made the point that the most flexible organisms out there
are weeds.
and and it wasn't necessarily a good point that actually you know
As you increase your economics of
flexibility of your budget of flexibility.
You're actually tending to also lose.
Niche specificities and many things that
we would think of as you know things to
be protected. So there's actually as ever
A kind of you know a contradictory moment in
I think bateson's identification and thank
you bring up of this question of flexibility.
I feel like I need to I want to make some amendments to
my kind of wholehearted embrace of
the way in which it was framed largely actually in the paper that
you referred to the one from the New York planners because there's
yeah there's there's a mess
of budget of flexibility as well. You don't want you.
endlessly flexible systems would be pretty
Yeah, just to add to what you're saying.
I suppose you could say that you wrote that paper with the idea of
flexibility in mind about the paper itself that you could
adjust it to future questions. That might emerge 10
years later.
But I think that that's a very just I mean I want to give time for other people to
raise questions. You're racing a very important point because a
lot of times in design, we think
We don't take the idea of writing seriously enough
and we adapt to circumstances as
they are now letting go of some of the variety which then
becomes impossible to bring back that
might be needed for a future environment that we cannot predict.
Right and so cold here
making an adaptation without it being in the
Philippines or about this also without it being a mallet adaptation that
you we've lost the variety and that we're now
addicted or stuck in some place. Yeah. No, I
I think that kind of framing is
is very useful and one of the things I mentioned in some
pre conversation chat with with the
other friend and Philip and it's
a kind of slightly out there substation, but looking yeah, I
mean first of all, I'm always amused by you know,
if we look where various characters are in kind
of 68 and and you've got you people like
the laws of guitar. He literally, you know on the streets
aligned with certain, you know,
social movements and part of a new
left project.
And we kind of ironically then find that
that Bateson not even metaphorically literally,
you know, but for those Summers of the
late 60s is literally in a tower literally in a
in a castle on top of a mountain pulling together
a small group of collaborators. We've got yeah one
Bunch on the streets another event in almost literally
and I've every Tower but then
Fascinatingly one of the things that that we can
almost see that he's trying to do in that very
abstract isolated work in those human adaptation
conferences.
Is actually try to Define.
the the safe limits and the ways of
beginning to go about some kind of socio-ecological project
that the
People on the streets were you know fighting for in some
sense? And so that again, I
mean, it seems like yeah that the nature of what are the
safe possibilities of changing systems.
How do we build in those sensitivities?
That kind of conversation.
I mean, it just seems it's such an important conversation today
still and and
again, I guess one of the points of convening this panel
was to try to inject that back into or you
know in for many people here. I'm sure it's already there. But you know
so many of the very important discussions that
we have in right now in design schools about, you
know, just transitions climate Justice Green
New Deal projects.
You know large-scale ecological and social
planning is is back on the table of
conversation again, it's not in the in our actual political
immediate reality in the first
way really I think since you know in these five
decades since since you know that counterculture generation
and and and the various
other Natures at 68 events took in in Europe and so
on we're on the table, but it
also worries me on the one hand. Yes. We do have much much better
idea of the complexity of systems and
so on and and IPC and all
those kind of you.
Bodies of managing and modeling.
These data sets are well aware of that. But
on the one hand, you know, they are still doing it. It seems on on
largely quantitative matter and energy models
rather than you know
semiotic models that might require a
different kind of subject to engage with them.
And and indeed the same kind of
assumption that we we just need the right plans and
then implementing them be a problem.
Um
And so we kind of need I think to to
both enrich, but you know pull this this
material back into that kind of come, you know, new socioecological
planning conversation that there is very vibrant, you
know in schools in in various projects
political emerging political projects around the
world.
I mean, I'm into the green new deal with their various versions and manifestations
of that.
And so yes, I mean once again, I guess I'm curious in
in both of the historical material and working with
that but also, you know is there.
Don't be how we do have a question also from I think
Natalia.
And would you want to post the question Natalia? So
you have post two questions in the chat?
But you could also directly kind of.
Are you still there or?
We can't hear you Natalie. You have to turn off your mute.
She might not be there. Okay, so then do
we move on to someone else who might have a question?
I mean
we could read out the taliers. What question right? Yes. Oh,
yeah her Mike. She says her microphone
was disabled earlier. Can you try to speak now? Or
if not, yeah. If not, we could read out what
you have written here is
so I'd read out your second question,
which is did Bates never Envision a
different role for the military or did he foresee the structure
as possibly existing without hierarchy?
I don't know Philip. Do you know?
He wasn't speculative in exactly that
way. I I think that he
his model was always like the natural world. So
on that creates a
kind of interesting perspective with regard to
systems that are actually there in
the world whether they're you know companies.
Nations, you know militaries what
have you they exist what you
know, what are the Dynamics that they're engaged
in? What are the Dynamics that form them?
He didn't do
this sort of World building that you would need to try
to invent a structure that
was different in that way.
I don't think he used his imagination particularly that
kind of Direction. I Would jump on that question
and say that I agree with that. I don't know nothing that he's written about the military
particularly. But embedded in that question is another level of
problem that I think John was pointing us to as well, you know,
we have a legacy problem Bateson has urged us to
think about design for the local and to empower the
local to empower diversity to empower flexibility.
And yet we're living at a time when empowering the
local is literally the engine by which Facebook
makes its money and it's also I
would argue something that that where the local
is a very different kind of local if you're if your Bateson
and you're living in a castle with really brilliant other
folks working in a team of folks who are planning the local
looks pretty sweet. If you come from a
very small rural town as I do where the dairy industry
is struggling the local is pretty
crummy and you kind of wish that people would come and
intervene.
And sometimes I think what we see in the world of January
6th and neo-fascism. We
see local contexts highly
individuated people people who've been cut off from larger systems
trying to come together and form some
kind of new order that will get people to pay attention to
their particular local setting.
and so my challenge for us is how
do we
Rethink a local that includes
locals that aren't like ours. I think that's
really the challenge. How do we do that? And the natural order
makes room for lots of different kinds of things and Embraces them in
a whole and maybe that's the sort of benevolent Vision that
comes from bateson's work. We can imagine a hole that includes species that
aren't like
and and practice attending to
that place and parts of the military perversely have
tried to do that. And of course it comes out sideways, but but that's
something that's hiding in that question. I think what are
the hierarchies what are the structures? What are the institutions through
which we can build a world in which the many locals
can actually talk to one another and exist as
a benevolent as the kind of benevolent hole that beats an imagined.
Well, I guess to build up. Okay, what's strange
is that he was almost taking your side
in a correspondence with Paul Goodman who is
someone who is should be mentioned here anyway,
because Paul Goodman was very
influential in this period perhaps more
influential in some ways than baits and
toward the new communitarians and a lot of the sort
of counterculture that I
think he was extremely in.
Influential and Bates and actually
argue again. Goodman's saying
that you should do everything with
the local saying some systems may not just be able to handle that
you're not may not be able to have for example
a hospital if it's going to have certain
machines has to serve, you
know certain wider area. You can't have a
lot of little hospitals if you're going to have an MRI. I don't
know they had those then but even whatever they had that
so there are
all these sort of systemic constraints as to the size of
whatever you're dealing with and even at that level
you can't be as local as Paul Goodman
wanted to be and so I think that
he was very aware of this tension. I don't think he
resolved it. But I think he was in he was
in court, you know, he's in correspondence literally they were
good friends. They stated each other's houses
and so on.
But that's interesting.
Often think just to build on that point briefly that
the paper that was already referenced the
flexibility and ecology. You're you're
muted. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. The
John Natalia is trying to get in. Yeah. She's trying to
say something. Yeah, Natalia you can you could kind
of elaborate.
She's gone again.
He was trying to talk. Yeah, okay.
Then John Sheila.
The Charlie if you want to come in after I've done if you're gonna come back for apologies, I
didn't realize I was just going to add that
in the flexibility.
The urban civilizations paper that actually with surprising
Clarity he tries to set out, you know, he says
what is it that we're going to try and protect them and
he talks about maintaining a technologically High civilization.
It makes money. Yeah, this isn't about
going that was anyway, but then talks about this need to maintain.
Yeah the amount
of variety it talks about you that the
civilization should match the variety of
I'm seeing the title is just become the co-host. So to
build us that idea of diversity and
how to promote diversity and the differences between
different.
civilizations
The unit fee-for-earth initiative created inaugural
youth Council and the idea is very much that how to mobilize
young people across different faiths to work
on the triple planetary crisis of biodiversity and climate change. So there
are these parallel imaginaries that are emerging the
very much our puzzling with that question. And I
guess one of the reasons why I was asking about his role
with the militaries if that is what his origin was and if towards
the end of his life, he's moving towards this idea of Peace as well.
I'm hearing peace when he's talking about love it's partially
because my own bias is coming as a peace fellow and
understanding peace as Johan
Galton does which is not just the absence of violence but
the presence of justice and so very much
looks like he's looking at how to design that in differentiating
and then so if that is the case could
it have been possible that if you were alive today,
he'd be looking at say planetary security and imagining
how the Army could be contributing to something.
Is more about mitigation adaptation instead of
what is currently happening with climate change and the
way that Army's currently contribute to that in terms of fossil fuel
consumption.
There's a lot in there. So a number of points of it. We're very directly
suitable for Philip to pick up
on other than
The questions around peace and you can answer
the his history regarding the military as
well.
you
Well, he came from science actually, his
father was invented the
word genetics and was a major biologist and Victoria and
era.
and then
He came out of anthropology the connection
with the military was shared by
at least two, you know it at least
two of these Architects by
all at least two of
the other. You know, Marcus was
in that I mean everyone was in the OSS that
but and everyone was in
this anti of fascist project.
This was really a mobilization of the intellectuals
that was extremely wide. So it doesn't mean he has
specifically at military background but it's
interesting. He wasn't shy to advise President
Kennedy science advisor this
going to my book where talking about
the Cuban Missile Crisis where
he wanted. I think
Kennedy to recognize as arguably he
did the openings that the Russians had
toward.
Possibility of trust but
he didn't think trust could be automatic. He was
not a pacifist. He didn't think you led withdraw. So
it was really a very
nuanced argument.
And although I love and respect
Johann Dalton's type of work very
much personally. I see
Bates and as
He wasn't pitching it. That way I contrast
it to.
Other figures who were more openly
pacifist in that
movement. He was really trying to do something
that would be relevant to Kennedy as
a policy maker and and
given that the situation was a
wartime situation. How could you recognize openings
for trust that could
help that situation and those openings
for Trust might emerge out of the very
sometimes said violence just to
be provocative, but I would say the very conflict situation
that exists.
I wouldn't say violence. He defines violence very differently
else.
So it puts the question of pacifism a
little bit to the side and yet it
is something that's very important in the
question of how do you recognize opportunities for peacemaking
given that conflict in
some hopefully not nuclear or even you
know, if we could help it Armament sort
of way but conflict will always exist in
some way. So how do you look search that for
openings for trust?
Just as a brief final anecdote to follow up
on on some of those questions. I'd
ever friend and colleague who
could make today better is involved actually in peace
studies and and
looking at how Military Intelligence works.
And he actually mentioned a couple of times either a couple of the documents
that the Bates and produced for
the OSS which
were actually reflecting upon how the post-war situation
my involve might evolve.
and which were apparently surprisingly astute and
a still, you know referred to
today and actually more widely just that the way
in which
paradoxically, this is a
Super Friends work is actually partly
based on this is looking at how military and if
you like, you know just State intelligence operatives and
so on are amongst the some of
the clearest examples of a certain kind of ecological intelligence and
a certain kind of
you know, they're really read through their pass and their based
on and they they're thinking about yeah, how can they abduct information
out of you know messy environments
in various ways. And so there's there's
Yeah, I mean the complications of this kind
of material and the richness of it I guess.
I'm I'm aware that we're well actually
I'm aware of two things one is is we were
always talking internally about this being an hour and
a half session and we're kind of hitting and that
Mark now and I'm aware that
friend of the other days to be getting on with and
they're like
On the are there any burning before we do close and and
to apparently on the conference timetabling it
was yeah as a two and a half hour thing. So
that was a product of some
automatic timetabling from what we understand but
But also yeah, are there
any more questions and do keep in mind that there's like
a series of events also happening and dialogues within
the conference and I think some links
have been provided here on the chat.
and but nevertheless I mean if you have
One more question. Perhaps we have time but if
not
And seem like right? Yeah.
So if not, I I guess we can close this session. We
have it's gonna start to wrap
up but I don't feel it and it's been
a fantastic thing. I've got a whole bunch
of I'm
raised questions that I can say for for
a follow-up session, but it's
been incredibly rich and and interesting and
as we'd hoped it would be
thanks everyone for attending as well. Were there
any closing?
comments or Reflections that you
And that's a very glad to be here. I'm glad we're having this conversation. And I
I just I want to reflect on something that I think is an undertone
in our conversation. And that's the moral dimension of
design, you know, as we live in a world where design becomes
ever more ubiquitous many of
our moral dilemmas are carried out in relation to design and
Bateson was early to understanding that and modeled it
in his life and and live some of the paradoxes that are
what we live now, and and so I feel especially grateful to
be in a room. So to speak full of people who are
wrestling with those paradoxes. So, thanks.
That's that's a lovely statement and very very
true to what?
you know some of the paradoxes that he was
living and that he understood I one who
somehow bring in the whole question of the
natural world. It wasn't merely some sort
of Arcadian Vision. In fact, it wasn't that at all. He was
very familiar from a very early age
with how ecologies worked and whether
we you know,
not always things that we like happen in ecologies, but
he was very interested and always
use that as a way of modeling.
what happened because
He didn't think it was actually different to societies
and ecologies. He was
looking for the common threads just as like he would
look as a Common Thread in animals and
humans rather than
rather than reducing. He was
the opposite of a reductionist. He was willing to
see in animal behavior reflections of
what he observed in humans and then find
commonalities in what was going on and
the same between ecologies and societies and so
on. So this sense of continuity with
the natural world, which is a natural.
I mean, it's a continuity which is simply there in his
thought.
I think is something that I'd like to
emphasize no and always I thank you. Thank
you very fun and and always send on
a personality that the attention to Natural systems
going wrong. Oh, yeah
as it were, you know, the pathologist the pathological
potential conflict systems
is
Yeah, the nature of
the mess around us I guess.
Okay, should we I guess we should we really don't
know. Thank you. Thank you both and I know I know that you do need to
thank you very much.
And thank you to all three of you. So
thanks a lot and for all our participants and hopefully see
some of you know in the in the conference days.
Yeah, we've got the recording and I've just saved the chat. Thanks, John.
Thanks, Bill. Thanks Fred. Thanks everybody.