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Okay, so I'm very excited and honored to be joined today

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by Philip guidemmy and Fred Turner two Scholars of

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considerable distinction and two thinkers whose work is

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actually been invaluable to to me personally. And so thank

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you for that.

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Really good. Demi is an anthropologist and a cybernetic thinker who

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has been grappling with Gregory bateson's ideas ever since

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taking batesons classes as an

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undergraduate at the University of California Santa Cruz in

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the 1970s.

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His own working on for apology. It's about ritual

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and subsistence in the seapick region of Papua New

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Guinea just upriver from where Gregory Bates and worked in

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the 1930s. And he has also published on the effects

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of proposed gold mining in that region his University

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of Michigan PhD had Roy Rapoport his major

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advisor himself of course was highly influenced

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by Bates and

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Philip is the president of the Bates and idea group the nonprofit

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organization responsible for managing bateson's intellect

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intellectual Legacy, which handles is intellectual property

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rights and works with his multiple archives. He's

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also director of the international boats and Institute.

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He was for many years managing managing editor of

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the journal cybernetics and human knowing

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And we're I think we're all have come across that many of

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us will have come across much of that material.

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Phillips made some related Publications. I've dealt with varied topics

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including the problem of conscious purpose the cybernetics

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of what we mean when we talk about power.

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The relation of basins early study navans a second order cybernetics

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and the use of Africa inanthropology of

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bateson's later and more systemic ideas is also

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co-authored a joint matter log about the Macy conferences with

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norovates and his book Gregory Bateson on

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relational communication from octopuses to Nations was published

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by Springer in 2020 as volume 20 of

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its notable by a semiotic series. It's a

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fantastic contribution. I look forward to discussing some of this new

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material today.

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Fraterna is the Harry and Norman Chandler professor of

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communication at Stanford University before moving

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to Stamford. He taught communication at Harvard's John F

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Kennedy School of government and MIT Sloane School

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of Management is also worked for 10 years as a journalist.

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Fred is the author or co-author of no less than five books

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on subject training from Silicon Valley to the

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American memory of Vietnam War and including two books in

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which Gregory Bateson is a significant historical protagonist.

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The first from the counterculture to cyberculture Stuart brand

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the whole herd the whole earth Network and the

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rise of digital utapianism from 2006 and

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it's prequel.

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From 2013 the Democratic surround multimedia and

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the American liberalism from World War Two to the

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Psychedelic sixties.

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I've had the pleasure of meeting Philip on a number of occasions and

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it's great to see you again Philip. Also very happy to

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meet for the first time Fred Sana.

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for to work on the history of the US counterculture has always

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brought the complexities of this story to life for me and his prehistory

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of the counterculture in pre-World War Two and

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World War Two worker Bateson amid has been a fascinating revelation

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of a period I think many of

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us knew little about

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welcome to to both of you Fred and Philip

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and thanks so much for joining us

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as when we were putting

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this together. Everyone was still saying, oh, they should be keeping their heads down. They got plenty

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of projects to be working with so it's very kind of

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you both to join us. And first thing in the morning I should

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say as well. This is 8 am in California where you

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both are and and

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so much appreciated

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okay, I'm just going to

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sharing screen

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Okay, you guys seeing that page? Okay.

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So good. Yeah, great. Thank you. Okay, so

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let me just try to frame what's at stake in

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this in this panel the purpose if I can ironically say

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that of this panel and introduce myself very quickly.

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Thanks though many for

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for doing that as well actually so

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I can I can remove some of this. I'm Dr. John Goodman. I come

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from an architectural background.

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These days teaching on the ma environmental architecture program at

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the Royal College of Art in London. And the rest of my time in

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Athens initiating some ecological pedagogy experimental projects.

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And as done

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when he said actually I've been working with with Bates and

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in various ways for a while and she's introduced something so I

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can cut that one of the aspects of

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bateson's work. I've been particularly interested in

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Sorry, this was that these are these are Fred and

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Phillips masterpieces. They

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are really really excellent pieces.

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He's actually a couple of recent things.

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published okay

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They're one of the aspects of bateson's work that I've been particularly interested

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in the lessons of warnings. The Bateson has

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for us regarding planning and design broadly understood.

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Within the complex human and more than human systems.

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And of course this conference on systems design is

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is speaking to to these questions much more

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widely Bates and especially in his later work

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presented us with a paradox a double bind.

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On the one hand, he was one of the first to recognize the unfolding

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environmental emergency that we find ourselves in

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today, and he clearly articulated a need

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for us to make radical changes to our ways of being in the

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world.

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But he also warned us that there are such fundamental problems with our ideas

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of planning and design that any interventions and changes

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that we make likely to have unforeseen consequences possibly

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of a self or systematically amplifying nature,

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especially if tightly governed by

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our conscious goals

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Certainly that I should say the later

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basically.

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He argue that our conscious design goals.

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Tend to perceive problems and Solutions in

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a limited linear and often quantitative cause and

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effect chain, whereas the ecological systems that we are

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intervening within the characterized by complex networks of

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bio-semiotic feedback relationships, which

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have their own goals and behaviors.

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These are not easy for us to perceive precisely because our conscious

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purpose focuses on parts of systems and our goals

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for them. Whereas the properties sensitivities and behaviors

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of complex systems the products of whole networks of

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relationships.

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These relationships are also difficult for us to perceive even with

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our extended.

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you know satellite monitoring systems and so on Bates

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and argue precisely because our technology is a methods for understanding

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the various systems of the world tend to

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measure flows of matter and energy and then tend to

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think dominantly in metaphors based upon matter and

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energy this troubled Bates an enormously

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he argued that whenever you have the kind of complexity that characterizes

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living by a semiotic material

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energetic systems and ecologists. You need

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Concepts and metaphors that are relational and not based in Newtonian objects

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on forces when you're talking about the the

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semiotic the information or character of those systems.

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You can use the Newtonian things for for the

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simple forces, but that doesn't work for the

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relational aspect he argue but we're a language is

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completely encumbered by those.

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So this was another big problem in his

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opening paper.

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to

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99 Grand pasium that

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he convened on the moral and aesthetic structure of

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human adaptation, which is one of a series of attempts around

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that time that he made to think about problems of planning

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and human adaptation often using some version of

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what Felix guatari would later call the three ecologist.

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Bateson stated in the 69 Symposium. What

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is lucky in? There is a theory of action.

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Within large complex systems where the active agent

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is himself a part of and a product of the

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system. These are these are his attacks Basin

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never did succeed in articulating a theory

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of action.

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Or at least completing one, but he did leave some fascinating

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sign per post and some caution some steps

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that we needed to take in trying to develop one.

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For some of the roots that you thought might lead might lead at

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least part of the journey.

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And to creatively lead us beyond the double bind and these

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were an ecological reworking of the aesthetic and the

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moral the least in this pain moment of his thinking.

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Why did he think that in some way evolving our aesthetic and

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moral sensibilities would help us to perceive these kinds of

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relationships? Why did he try to take on the work

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of defining these Concepts formally in relational ecological

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systemic theoretic ways.

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To understand this we need to remember that Bateson thought

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that he had effectively turned Sigmund Freud inside out.

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Beta argued that the unconscious is not only to

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be found in the non-conscious processes of a brain within a

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body.

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The Bates and are unconscious minds or Minds also include

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the whole Web of Life and the whole web of social relationships within

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which we exist.

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And for me actually my to my wider work, but

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maybe relevant today. There's a fascinating parallel here actually between

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batesons understanding of an extended unconsciousness and actually

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are yeah modern subjectivity

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is difficulty in seeing that and hegelian and

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Marxist concepts of alienation as a very

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interesting resonance, I think.

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A number of his three ecologies iterations

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from the same period the paper form substance and

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difference from 1970. He stated this

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point Freudian. The first point I

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should Freudian psychology expanded the concept of mind inwards to

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include the whole communication of system within the body the autonomic

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the habitual the vast range of unconscious

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processes.

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Well, I am saying expands the Mind outwards and both

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of these changes repeat the scope of

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the conscious self. The certain humility becomes appropriate.

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Furthermore the in fact started to complicate as

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he in fact started to complicate his simpler three

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ecology's model Loosely of a self-society and

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environment with other perspectives and in

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the same paper, he actually identified two epistemologically

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and ontologically distinct ecological audience what

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we actually might call the two colleges cutting cutting things

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up a different way.

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I want to raise this. I think it's actually very interesting as statement

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for kind of systems design think of

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because of its clarity.

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He says ecology currently has two faces to

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it the face, which is called bioenergetics the economics

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of energy and materials. We're going to Coral Reef the

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redwood forest or a city and second an

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economics of information of entropy and

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Meg entropy Etc.

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The two of these do not fit together well precisely because

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the units are differentially bounded in the

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two sorts of ecology. So describing the

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sea different entities

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In bioenergetics, it is natural and

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appropriate to think of units bounded at the

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cell membrane or the skin.

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Or of units of code specific individuals conspacific individuals.

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These boundaries are then the

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Frontiers at which measurements can be made to determine the additive subtractive

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budget of energy and presumably other

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metabolic flows for the given unit.

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in contrast

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Information or an entropic ecology there was

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requitting a possible a Pathways and

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a probability.

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The resulting budgets are fractionating not subtractive.

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And the boundaries must enclose and not cut

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the whole of the relevant Pathways. So it's

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describes two very different ways. In which ecology

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the field of ecological studies were

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working some of which were seeing boundaries and

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we're measuring flows across those boundaries quantitatively and

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then another which was actually the study of ecological

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And by semiotics really

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that's only a floating relationships and probabilities. And

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again, actually with the marks relation marks

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was very interesting work with the difference between

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fractionating and subtractive.

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This this combination of seeing large-scale

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problems with of planning and

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a failure to understand our extended unconscious.

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And what happens when that's when

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that's played out and and Amplified with modern

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text technology and Basin further

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worked out in in the pathologies of epistemology essay.

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Actually a few months earlier. This is

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the essay that Felix guatari and uses to

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launch the like his three ecology as essays.

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And actually I think is a response to

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we're about some follows through some of

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this and notes you decide that you want to get rid of the byproducts of

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human life. And that Lake Erie will be a good place to put

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them you forget that the EK mental system called Lake

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Erie is a part of your wider EK mental system

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and that if Lake Erie has driven insane. It's insanity

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is incorporated into the larger system of your

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thoughts and experience.

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And I could obviously fresh out much more and more but

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we're not here to hear me give an extended lecture, but that's it.

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It seemed to me that there's political Dimensions or implications

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to much of baits and sinking regarding.

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Or operating both at the level of the political subject modern

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self's mishaprehension of or alienation from

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the real boundaries of itself. And also at the

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level of human adaptation of socio ecological planning.

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is something that's that's

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being thought about again tentatively so much today,

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but these these political implications of Bateson.

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It seems to me have not been well drawn out

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and fun finds many different contradictory readings or

283
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approaches to this out there.

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And indeed there's a certain sense that one can get from many of the received

285
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readings of Gregory rates. And which is a here's a character who was

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in some sense above politics.

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And without that there's you can see where that's come

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from. There's that there's some kind of Truth to that and indeed by

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the end of his life as fraterna has perceptively noted based

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on a come to be received as something approaching a modern Same by

291
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many of his followers and and

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We can.

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Often see that feeling then it's a is

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very interesting.

295
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But it's it's it's it's tended to

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perhaps shape an obscure

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some of the real political moves that

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I think maybe we can see.

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other more apparently political voices such

300
00:14:47,300 --> 00:14:51,000
as those are really mentioned of delirious and the philosopher and

301
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the radical activist and therapist Felix Qatari

302
00:14:53,700 --> 00:14:56,200
seems to dismiss that Bates and

303
00:14:56,200 --> 00:14:59,500
trajectory of that carrier can

304
00:15:01,200 --> 00:15:02,000
use my pool in French.

305
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And as Robert Shaw has noted it seems straightforward for

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delivers in gretari Bateson is the failed

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revolutionary.

308
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We can actually look at.

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the passage from anti-edeplus just for any

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newcomers to base when we paradoxically uses

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as a little

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career introduction. They State the

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00:15:25,600 --> 00:15:29,000
scientists has such as no revolutionary potential. He's the

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first integrated agent of integration a refuge

315
00:15:31,600 --> 00:15:34,200
for bad conscience and the force destroyer of his

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00:15:34,200 --> 00:15:34,800
own creativity.

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That's consider Gregory Bateson.

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00:15:39,400 --> 00:15:42,400
Jump a few lines as he begins by fleeing the Civilized World by becoming

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00:15:42,400 --> 00:15:45,400
an ethnologist following the Primitive codes

320
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and the Savage flows. He then turns in the direction

321
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of flows that are more and more decoded those of schizophrenia from

322
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which he extracts an interesting psychoanalytic theory

323
00:15:54,600 --> 00:15:57,600
then still in search of another Beyond another

324
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walk to break through he turns to dolphins to the

325
00:16:00,500 --> 00:16:03,400
language of dolphins to flows that are even stranger and

326
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more deterritorialized.

327
00:16:05,300 --> 00:16:08,200
But where does the dolphin flux end if not with the basic

328
00:16:08,200 --> 00:16:11,200
research projects of the American Army which brings us back to

329
00:16:11,200 --> 00:16:14,200
the preparations for War and the absorption of surplus value?

330
00:16:15,200 --> 00:16:18,700
Now this is I think a fascinating passage The Refuge for bad conscience

331
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is surely a reference to bateson's.

332
00:16:22,100 --> 00:16:25,100
You know publicly stated sense of unease in his later

333
00:16:25,100 --> 00:16:28,700
life with his World War Two psyops work with the OSS

334
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and perhaps more with the instrumentalization of

335
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the schizo genetic theory that he had developed in his in his

336
00:16:34,300 --> 00:16:35,400
thirties and for political work.

337
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the force the story of his own creativity

338
00:16:39,600 --> 00:16:41,000
That's less clear. I wonder.

339
00:16:41,500 --> 00:16:44,900
Have seriously pointing us to a deeper and more interesting observation there.

340
00:16:45,700 --> 00:16:48,400
That whilst Bateson is often described using a list

341
00:16:48,400 --> 00:16:52,600
of disciplinary roles or relations, you know anthropologists ecologists.

342
00:16:53,100 --> 00:16:54,100
ethnographer

343
00:16:54,800 --> 00:16:57,100
So on I mean the regularly see a list

344
00:16:57,100 --> 00:17:00,800
of descriptions of the fields that he moved through but

345
00:17:00,800 --> 00:17:03,300
very rarely actually do we see him described as

346
00:17:03,300 --> 00:17:06,600
an artist whether by himself or by others and yet

347
00:17:06,600 --> 00:17:09,300
he was at various times at filmmaker a photographer

348
00:17:09,300 --> 00:17:12,800
curator the creative writer an orator

349
00:17:12,800 --> 00:17:15,000
actually in you know,

350
00:17:15,300 --> 00:17:18,000
listen some recordings. It was borderline performance out.

351
00:17:19,700 --> 00:17:22,600
Equally some of the suggestions in the passage seen

352
00:17:22,600 --> 00:17:25,800
somewhere unfair and Bates and had left journalism program

353
00:17:25,800 --> 00:17:28,300
precisely because he said he found he couldn't work

354
00:17:28,300 --> 00:17:31,200
in jubiously funding projects and later. He would

355
00:17:31,200 --> 00:17:34,600
resign from the University of California Board of Regents due to

356
00:17:34,600 --> 00:17:37,100
the institution taking on Military nuclear research.

357
00:17:37,700 --> 00:17:40,600
Independent was precisely not in any normal sense of

358
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scientist.

359
00:17:41,700 --> 00:17:44,300
He spent much time critiquing both the instrumentalism and

360
00:17:44,300 --> 00:17:47,900
the epistemologies of dominant scientific practices theories and

361
00:17:47,900 --> 00:17:50,200
institutions. And in fact, it seems to me that the

362
00:17:50,200 --> 00:17:53,600
lures and qataria amend or at least complicate their first narrative

363
00:17:53,600 --> 00:17:56,400
in their second joint work a thousand plateau.

364
00:17:57,100 --> 00:18:00,900
Where they surely take baits on as the prototypical practitioner of

365
00:18:00,900 --> 00:18:02,900
a nomadic science as they describe it.

366
00:18:03,600 --> 00:18:04,500
something different so

367
00:18:05,300 --> 00:18:07,200
the the Royal mainstream science

368
00:18:08,100 --> 00:18:11,200
and actually as my colleagues Fred and Phillip

369
00:18:11,200 --> 00:18:13,400
here today have shown in their work.

370
00:18:14,200 --> 00:18:17,400
There were periods of life. I think where Baker was not in the engaging in very

371
00:18:17,400 --> 00:18:20,800
political problems, but actually at a higher

372
00:18:20,800 --> 00:18:23,300
level of abstraction even actually attempting to

373
00:18:23,300 --> 00:18:26,000
intervene in the very possibility space of the political.

374
00:18:27,500 --> 00:18:30,400
In the Democratic surround multimedia and American liberalism

375
00:18:30,400 --> 00:18:33,900
from World War Two to the circadelic success Fred discusses

376
00:18:33,900 --> 00:18:36,300
how Bateson and his then wife Margaret Meads pre-World

377
00:18:36,300 --> 00:18:39,300
War Two anti-fascist work in the states where they ask

378
00:18:39,300 --> 00:18:42,900
forever as possible between culture the emergence of a democratic character

379
00:18:42,900 --> 00:18:45,100
or subjectivity Fred. I'm looking forward

380
00:18:45,100 --> 00:18:49,100
to hearing you say something about that in a moment and I am getting towards

381
00:18:48,100 --> 00:18:49,600
the end.

382
00:18:50,700 --> 00:18:54,100
However, his experience of using his own pre-war anthropological

383
00:18:53,100 --> 00:18:55,600
work on schizmagenesis.

384
00:18:56,100 --> 00:18:59,300
Clearly Disturbed him in his in its World War Two

385
00:18:59,300 --> 00:19:02,400
OSS applications and together with his growing concern

386
00:19:02,400 --> 00:19:05,500
about the general epistemological error that I described earlier

387
00:19:05,500 --> 00:19:08,800
of linear human conscious purpose intervening and

388
00:19:08,800 --> 00:19:11,200
complex systems. This seems to lead him

389
00:19:11,200 --> 00:19:14,300
to largely question the possibility of something like an applied social

390
00:19:14,300 --> 00:19:16,100
science in the post-war period

391
00:19:16,600 --> 00:19:20,200
as actually opposed to by then

392
00:19:19,200 --> 00:19:23,100
his former wife Margaret, really he

393
00:19:22,100 --> 00:19:25,400
continued to actively pursue the possibility of

394
00:19:25,400 --> 00:19:28,600
an applied social science. There seems

395
00:19:28,600 --> 00:19:31,600
to be a period of 10 to 20 years where he's largely avoiding.

396
00:19:34,300 --> 00:19:37,900
Avoiding that I'm sorry. Just don't for any kind

397
00:19:37,900 --> 00:19:40,200
of newcomers just a more extensive.

398
00:19:41,400 --> 00:19:45,700
Quick career run through but then

399
00:19:45,700 --> 00:19:48,500
from the mid 60s onwards he seems to or he's

400
00:19:48,500 --> 00:19:50,700
not seems to or anything does start to re-engage.

401
00:19:51,400 --> 00:19:55,300
And there are wonderfully critical words from his daughter

402
00:19:54,300 --> 00:19:57,600
in the beginning of our own

403
00:19:57,600 --> 00:20:00,200
metaphor book where they collaborated on her

404
00:20:00,200 --> 00:20:00,800
writing up.

405
00:20:01,500 --> 00:20:04,400
the precursor that to the conference

406
00:20:04,400 --> 00:20:07,500
I mentioned earlier the 1968 one on

407
00:20:07,500 --> 00:20:10,300
human adaptation and she says you can

408
00:20:10,300 --> 00:20:12,700
imagine it's completely nation very careful dates and

409
00:20:13,100 --> 00:20:16,200
Giving yourself a s*** basically, but as an adolescent, I'd be

410
00:20:16,200 --> 00:20:19,900
rated my father for his cynically stated relatance to

411
00:20:19,900 --> 00:20:23,200
become involved his sense that the universities and

412
00:20:22,200 --> 00:20:25,100
the political and economic structures of the world

413
00:20:25,100 --> 00:20:29,100
were irredeemably steeped in Folly and shortly.

414
00:20:28,100 --> 00:20:32,200
It wasn't so wrong now in

415
00:20:31,200 --> 00:20:34,600
the emerging ecological crisis here decided

416
00:20:34,600 --> 00:20:37,800
to care again. So this would be our first Club our

417
00:20:37,800 --> 00:20:39,200
first collaboration in commitment.

418
00:20:39,900 --> 00:20:40,600
as well

419
00:20:41,600 --> 00:20:44,300
and of course Fred, you're your history of the US counterculture in

420
00:20:44,300 --> 00:20:47,100
the 60s and seventies of based on these. Once again, the major

421
00:20:47,100 --> 00:20:51,200
priority protagonist as he is in the three point.

422
00:20:52,100 --> 00:20:55,400
Um, there's also a primarily in relationship to this

423
00:20:55,400 --> 00:20:59,900
latter period that Philip guidelines book Gregory

424
00:20:58,900 --> 00:21:02,600
Basin on relational education systems

425
00:21:01,600 --> 00:21:04,600
focuses that

426
00:21:05,500 --> 00:21:08,800
It does refer back at various moments to bateson's earlier

427
00:21:08,800 --> 00:21:11,200
work too and elsewhere has done

428
00:21:11,200 --> 00:21:14,000
Philippine your book. You you look at

429
00:21:14,200 --> 00:21:18,300
the Cuban Missile Crisis and and the nuclear researcher, California and

430
00:21:17,300 --> 00:21:20,500
it's fascinating material and gain. Hopefully

431
00:21:20,500 --> 00:21:22,500
we can start to bring that in a moment.

432
00:21:25,500 --> 00:21:28,200
There's one final as I was thinking

433
00:21:28,200 --> 00:21:31,300
about this preparation. I've been wondering how should I just present lots

434
00:21:31,300 --> 00:21:33,800
of pieces of evidence of different things that we might consider?

435
00:21:34,700 --> 00:21:37,800
Potential political moments

436
00:21:37,800 --> 00:21:40,100
or so, I think

437
00:21:40,100 --> 00:21:43,500
most of these I've been trying to touch on a few of those and I think I believe

438
00:21:43,500 --> 00:21:46,100
with these will come out in discussion, but there's one

439
00:21:46,100 --> 00:21:49,200
which which I've enjoyed partly just because I've only

440
00:21:49,200 --> 00:21:53,300
recently found this myself this emerged in recordings of

441
00:21:53,300 --> 00:21:54,900
the question and answer session.

442
00:21:56,900 --> 00:21:59,600
Um following batesons presentation at

443
00:21:59,600 --> 00:22:02,900
the dialectics of Liberation Congress in London in 1967.

444
00:22:04,300 --> 00:22:07,300
Which was actually an archetypal new left event, which

445
00:22:07,300 --> 00:22:11,300
might be Irrelevant for some conversations shortly.

446
00:22:11,300 --> 00:22:14,500
But where he stated though, there was no small contribution

447
00:22:14,500 --> 00:22:17,200
from marks actually marks made a considerable contribution to

448
00:22:17,200 --> 00:22:18,600
the thinking I was offering you earlier.

449
00:22:20,100 --> 00:22:23,500
He was one of the earliest scientists who got the idea of interacting systems and

450
00:22:23,500 --> 00:22:24,800
the exponential phenomena.

451
00:22:27,200 --> 00:22:28,300
of systems

452
00:22:29,600 --> 00:22:32,400
So with that wider opening of

453
00:22:32,400 --> 00:22:35,300
a systems theoretic history, I shall stop sharing.

454
00:22:36,700 --> 00:22:42,200
was screen and and invite Philip

455
00:22:39,200 --> 00:22:42,400
and

456
00:22:42,400 --> 00:22:45,500
bread to turn off their microphone

457
00:22:45,500 --> 00:22:46,700
or turn on their microphones and

458
00:22:47,700 --> 00:22:50,800
And join us and and I guess I mean there's a general.

459
00:22:52,300 --> 00:22:55,400
Question about whether it's a proposes as an individual question or

460
00:22:55,400 --> 00:22:58,300
whether it's just something you might respond to anyway, but I mean

461
00:22:58,300 --> 00:23:02,400
do you agree with that kind of apparent temporalization

462
00:23:01,400 --> 00:23:05,500
of some direct engagements in

463
00:23:05,500 --> 00:23:08,700
in kind of earlier. Let's appearance and a period of

464
00:23:08,700 --> 00:23:12,700
withdraw as in the you know, Mary Catherine herself

465
00:23:11,700 --> 00:23:14,600
seemed to describe in her quotes.

466
00:23:14,600 --> 00:23:16,100
Is that does that same an appropriate?

467
00:23:17,600 --> 00:23:20,900
Um, yeah temporalization to

468
00:23:20,900 --> 00:23:21,800
start with and and

469
00:23:23,900 --> 00:23:27,200
I guess maybe Fred you might even make

470
00:23:26,200 --> 00:23:29,400
your comments on that. There's there's I've tried to introduce some

471
00:23:29,400 --> 00:23:32,700
of the political social ecological planning questions that

472
00:23:32,700 --> 00:23:36,100
Bateson was looking at later in his life around, you

473
00:23:35,100 --> 00:23:38,200
know, the possibilities and and

474
00:23:38,200 --> 00:23:41,500
risks of trying to shape complex systems

475
00:23:41,500 --> 00:23:44,400
and these concerns it seem to to

476
00:23:44,400 --> 00:23:45,000
mirror

477
00:23:45,700 --> 00:23:48,500
Much of actually the early material that you looked

478
00:23:48,500 --> 00:23:52,500
at in the prequel in the Democratic surround and

479
00:23:51,500 --> 00:23:54,100
I wondered if I could could invite you

480
00:23:54,100 --> 00:23:57,400
to maybe sort of

481
00:23:57,400 --> 00:24:00,600
tell us a bit more about how he became interested in that material and

482
00:24:00,600 --> 00:24:04,700
to sketch some of that what was actually an extraordinary situation

483
00:24:03,700 --> 00:24:06,000
of you know,

484
00:24:06,400 --> 00:24:11,500
we've got fascism unfolding in Europe. There's American intellectuals,

485
00:24:10,500 --> 00:24:13,300
you know, very seriously thinking about

486
00:24:13,300 --> 00:24:16,500
what kinds of interventions can they

487
00:24:16,500 --> 00:24:20,400
do in this in this area sure. I'm

488
00:24:19,400 --> 00:24:22,600
happy to jump in and I don't thank you

489
00:24:22,600 --> 00:24:25,400
very much for having me. I feel very lucky to be here. I

490
00:24:25,400 --> 00:24:28,500
know that our audience comes from around the globe, which

491
00:24:28,500 --> 00:24:31,300
is incredible and is the kind of thing that people

492
00:24:31,300 --> 00:24:35,500
like Bates in imagined might happen in the mid-century and

493
00:24:34,500 --> 00:24:37,300
it's also special nice to be here with With

494
00:24:37,300 --> 00:24:40,300
You Phillip and and I'll defer to you on questions a

495
00:24:40,300 --> 00:24:43,300
periodization. You know, I think that's gonna be real interesting

496
00:24:43,300 --> 00:24:45,500
the piece of interest me most

497
00:24:45,700 --> 00:24:48,400
About bateson's politics is it's emergence in

498
00:24:48,400 --> 00:24:51,900
a moment in the mid-century when intellectuals like

499
00:24:51,900 --> 00:24:55,100
Bates and others were terrified that doing

500
00:24:54,100 --> 00:24:58,100
power in a hierarchical top-down

501
00:24:57,100 --> 00:25:00,800
instrumental manner would lead

502
00:25:00,800 --> 00:25:03,400
Americans and other nations to Fascism as it

503
00:25:03,400 --> 00:25:05,200
apparently already had in Germany.

504
00:25:05,800 --> 00:25:08,400
And you know, so just to sketch that

505
00:25:08,400 --> 00:25:08,600
moment.

506
00:25:09,800 --> 00:25:12,400
Um, you know, Germany was for the despite World

507
00:25:12,400 --> 00:25:15,300
War One Germany was often looked at by Americans in the mid-century as

508
00:25:15,300 --> 00:25:18,500
a great and cultured Nation really the home of culture Brothers

509
00:25:18,500 --> 00:25:22,100
Beethoven and brought us art and brought us poetry hyena philosophy.

510
00:25:21,100 --> 00:25:24,500
And so the mystery was how on

511
00:25:24,500 --> 00:25:28,100
Earth did this country that was so sophisticated go

512
00:25:27,100 --> 00:25:31,200
so far wrong so fast and one

513
00:25:30,200 --> 00:25:33,200
of the answers that was really sort of

514
00:25:33,200 --> 00:25:36,300
everywhere was that Hitler had got hold of media new communication

515
00:25:36,300 --> 00:25:39,100
Technologies and had developed the ability

516
00:25:39,100 --> 00:25:42,400
to deliver the same message simultaneously to millions

517
00:25:42,400 --> 00:25:45,300
and millions of people and literally for some

518
00:25:45,300 --> 00:25:48,300
folks. In fact them with the madness that was his own

519
00:25:48,300 --> 00:25:51,500
and so it's a kind of classic media infection metaphor,

520
00:25:51,500 --> 00:25:54,600
but the key point for Bates and for others like him is

521
00:25:54,600 --> 00:25:57,300
that that this process worked in a top-down

522
00:25:57,300 --> 00:25:57,900
manner.

523
00:25:58,500 --> 00:26:01,600
And it literally turned people from normal human beings

524
00:26:01,600 --> 00:26:06,300
who might be empathetic into fascist subjects

525
00:26:06,300 --> 00:26:09,300
obedient people who are willing to line up behind a leader and

526
00:26:09,300 --> 00:26:12,800
follow that leader and so the question that animated Bateson and

527
00:26:12,800 --> 00:26:15,800
Mead and the cyberneticists Norbert Weiner

528
00:26:15,800 --> 00:26:18,100
and that that crowd later on was how do

529
00:26:18,100 --> 00:26:22,200
we build a model of politics of agency that

530
00:26:21,200 --> 00:26:24,000
will conduce to

531
00:26:24,400 --> 00:26:27,700
a Democratic Society and that will help produce Democratic people.

532
00:26:28,600 --> 00:26:31,400
And based in a mead worked at this very hard. I can go I

533
00:26:31,400 --> 00:26:34,100
can go way down this Rabbit Hole. I'll spare everyone it's in the

534
00:26:34,100 --> 00:26:37,300
book. But but the essential point is that

535
00:26:38,500 --> 00:26:41,400
they believed that cultures tended to

536
00:26:41,400 --> 00:26:45,000
have personalities. This is culture and personality anthropology and

537
00:26:44,200 --> 00:26:47,300
that media and communication systems.

538
00:26:48,400 --> 00:26:51,100
Could shape the personalities that cultures produced.

539
00:26:52,100 --> 00:26:55,700
And the challenge at the start of World War Two in America was to

540
00:26:55,700 --> 00:26:58,900
create systems that would produce a democratic personality.

541
00:26:58,900 --> 00:27:01,400
And so Basin and me played

542
00:27:01,400 --> 00:27:04,700
a very active role in a group called the committee for National morale which

543
00:27:04,700 --> 00:27:07,500
ended up advising Theodore Roosevelt and was actually

544
00:27:07,500 --> 00:27:10,800
much more influential than we remember and they promoted of

545
00:27:10,800 --> 00:27:13,700
you of doing Communication in

546
00:27:13,700 --> 00:27:16,200
a way that would produce Democratic subjects and they were they were

547
00:27:16,200 --> 00:27:20,100
in explicit conflict with folks who are promoting a more German version there

548
00:27:19,100 --> 00:27:22,300
were people who said you know, look gerbils is doing a great job. We

549
00:27:22,300 --> 00:27:25,200
should do the same thing and Bates in the meat

550
00:27:25,200 --> 00:27:25,700
were not those people.

551
00:27:26,600 --> 00:27:29,800
And you know John when you were talking earlier about his theory

552
00:27:29,800 --> 00:27:32,600
of action from 6869 and talking about the model

553
00:27:32,600 --> 00:27:35,500
of a self that was both in the system and yet free

554
00:27:35,500 --> 00:27:35,900
to act.

555
00:27:36,800 --> 00:27:39,700
That was what was at the time in 1942

556
00:27:39,700 --> 00:27:43,200
called the Democratic personality the

557
00:27:42,200 --> 00:27:45,200
committee for National morale was trying

558
00:27:45,200 --> 00:27:48,600
to create citizens where people could express themselves

559
00:27:48,600 --> 00:27:52,500
be free. No one another through communication without

560
00:27:51,500 --> 00:27:54,500
being dominated or dominating others.

561
00:27:55,500 --> 00:27:58,400
Yet at the same time being organized being ordered

562
00:27:58,400 --> 00:28:01,300
and they imagined a democratic system as one

563
00:28:01,300 --> 00:28:04,900
in which order emerged from the process of constant expressive

564
00:28:04,900 --> 00:28:07,500
communication by individuals and that

565
00:28:07,500 --> 00:28:10,300
model still, you know, flowed through bateson's work flowed through

566
00:28:10,300 --> 00:28:13,300
the counterculture arguably can still be found in a

567
00:28:13,300 --> 00:28:16,600
dark version at Facebook today. So I

568
00:28:16,600 --> 00:28:19,300
think I'll stop there but Philip I'd love to hear from you on the periodization issue

569
00:28:19,300 --> 00:28:19,400
as well.

570
00:28:21,900 --> 00:28:24,200
I think the periodization is is quite

571
00:28:24,200 --> 00:28:27,500
right and I remember

572
00:28:27,500 --> 00:28:31,100
with a group including the norabates and

573
00:28:30,100 --> 00:28:34,500
then the couple others of us going

574
00:28:33,500 --> 00:28:36,900
to the Library of Congress where

575
00:28:36,900 --> 00:28:42,900
a lot of these papers exist, especially

576
00:28:39,900 --> 00:28:44,500
basins

577
00:28:42,500 --> 00:28:45,100
papers are kind

578
00:28:45,100 --> 00:28:49,500
of divided the pre-1946 or

579
00:28:49,500 --> 00:28:52,800
1947 when he was in the east coast and with

580
00:28:52,800 --> 00:28:55,600
Margaret Mead are in the Margaret Mead

581
00:28:55,600 --> 00:28:58,500
collection at the Library of Congress. Whereas the

582
00:28:58,500 --> 00:29:01,700
West Coast beginning in the late 40s

583
00:29:01,700 --> 00:29:04,500
and onward are held

584
00:29:04,500 --> 00:29:07,600
primarily at the University of California Santa Cruz.

585
00:29:08,300 --> 00:29:11,500
So that's kind of a sharp periodization

586
00:29:11,500 --> 00:29:14,300
right there. But as we looked

587
00:29:14,300 --> 00:29:17,300
through those early papers, we were really

588
00:29:17,300 --> 00:29:21,400
very struck by the awareness that

589
00:29:20,400 --> 00:29:23,800
really everyone had and is

590
00:29:23,800 --> 00:29:26,100
starting in the 30s when they first met when they

591
00:29:26,100 --> 00:29:29,300
were first together when they were doing their work in Bali,

592
00:29:29,300 --> 00:29:32,400
they were always doing it under the shadow of the war

593
00:29:32,400 --> 00:29:36,000
that might come. So this was really a

594
00:29:35,900 --> 00:29:38,800
long standing set of

595
00:29:38,800 --> 00:29:39,500
concerns.

596
00:29:40,200 --> 00:29:43,200
And then yeah this committee and morale this

597
00:29:43,200 --> 00:29:46,700
paper or one very like it that you're referring

598
00:29:46,700 --> 00:29:49,200
to is in steps to an Ecology

599
00:29:49,200 --> 00:29:52,500
of mind. It's under a different title. It's called something

600
00:29:52,500 --> 00:29:55,200
about due to our learning I want to

601
00:29:55,200 --> 00:29:58,200
talk about but it is

602
00:29:58,200 --> 00:30:02,000
and what's interesting about that periodization is

603
00:30:01,200 --> 00:30:05,000
that it went it that paper

604
00:30:04,300 --> 00:30:08,500
was done immediately before the two

605
00:30:08,500 --> 00:30:11,400
of them split up and did their various War work and then

606
00:30:11,400 --> 00:30:14,700
Gregory batesons instance that was

607
00:30:14,700 --> 00:30:18,400
going around to the

608
00:30:17,400 --> 00:30:20,700
Far East and so on in India

609
00:30:20,700 --> 00:30:24,300
and Vermont places like that with the

610
00:30:23,300 --> 00:30:25,100
OSS.

611
00:30:26,200 --> 00:30:29,700
And then he was deeply disillusioned by that and

612
00:30:29,700 --> 00:30:33,700
probably that soured

613
00:30:32,700 --> 00:30:35,900
him on the concept of planning.

614
00:30:37,000 --> 00:30:37,200
So

615
00:30:38,900 --> 00:30:41,800
in in a very in a very real way and so

616
00:30:41,800 --> 00:30:43,700
then he turned to these other.

617
00:30:45,600 --> 00:30:46,500
other issues

618
00:30:48,200 --> 00:30:51,500
And there's one of the things that's interesting also about this period

619
00:30:51,500 --> 00:30:52,100
and which I know.

620
00:30:55,200 --> 00:30:58,600
is is a material factor in some

621
00:30:58,600 --> 00:31:01,000
of the work that he does during the war is that of course,

622
00:31:01,100 --> 00:31:04,800
we have these this this wave

623
00:31:04,800 --> 00:31:07,800
of escaping German intellectuals moving

624
00:31:07,800 --> 00:31:11,200
over to the states and and both intellectuals

625
00:31:10,200 --> 00:31:13,200
and Bauhaus artists and so on and and

626
00:31:13,200 --> 00:31:15,500
I mean one of the interesting things that we

627
00:31:16,400 --> 00:31:19,500
various comments of one can get in reaction

628
00:31:19,500 --> 00:31:22,800
supposing the question of Bates and the politics and one

629
00:31:22,800 --> 00:31:26,800
is is can often be this this curious kind

630
00:31:26,800 --> 00:31:29,400
of guilt by association of a certain understanding of

631
00:31:29,400 --> 00:31:32,100
cybernetics where cybernetics is

632
00:31:32,100 --> 00:31:35,600
kind of exclusively understood as a kind

633
00:31:35,600 --> 00:31:39,400
of yeah something that emerges out of the military and then

634
00:31:39,400 --> 00:31:40,200
also that

635
00:31:41,800 --> 00:31:44,200
Something I've had many times is our yeah, and

636
00:31:44,200 --> 00:31:47,600
Bateson was involved in the you know in in the Forerunner

637
00:31:47,600 --> 00:31:51,200
of the CIA and so on the OSS anything. I

638
00:31:50,200 --> 00:31:52,800
mean he was involved in but I mean

639
00:31:53,800 --> 00:31:56,700
that was the place to be actually I mean like adorno was

640
00:31:56,700 --> 00:32:00,300
in there, you know, but I mean if

641
00:31:59,300 --> 00:32:02,100
you took out yeah, it's Fred. Did you want

642
00:32:02,100 --> 00:32:05,400
to yeah, I want to jump right on this point. I think we labor under a

643
00:32:05,400 --> 00:32:08,500
misunderstanding of what the military is and it

644
00:32:08,500 --> 00:32:11,300
haunts our thinking, you know, the military.

645
00:32:11,300 --> 00:32:15,100
We imagine it as a top-down hierarchical bureaucratic institution

646
00:32:14,100 --> 00:32:17,400
only and certainly during World War Two.

647
00:32:17,400 --> 00:32:20,500
It had some elements of that had that approach but the

648
00:32:20,500 --> 00:32:24,300
research side of the military was extraordinarily collaborative playful

649
00:32:23,300 --> 00:32:26,300
for researchers out there.

650
00:32:26,300 --> 00:32:29,100
There's an absolutely wonderful resource at MIT, which is

651
00:32:29,100 --> 00:32:32,500
the Memoirs of the wives of the scientists at

652
00:32:32,500 --> 00:32:35,400
the radiation laboratory who described living

653
00:32:35,400 --> 00:32:39,000
essentially communally working all the time. And so

654
00:32:38,300 --> 00:32:43,000
so we have to remember that military goals

655
00:32:41,400 --> 00:32:44,400
might be something we disagree with

656
00:32:44,400 --> 00:32:47,300
but military culture in this period is something that

657
00:32:47,300 --> 00:32:50,200
people found really comfortable and I

658
00:32:50,200 --> 00:32:53,400
I also think that the the mode that

659
00:32:53,700 --> 00:32:57,300
Driving the cybernetic mode coming out of the sort

660
00:32:57,300 --> 00:33:02,000
of story. We have it coming out of the anti-war out of the Norbert wieners

661
00:33:01,800 --> 00:33:04,500
Gunnery machine. I mean, that's the Galveston story

662
00:33:04,500 --> 00:33:07,300
and it's certainly true and in its way but the appeal of

663
00:33:07,300 --> 00:33:10,100
cybernetics its ability to explode into the dominant way

664
00:33:10,100 --> 00:33:13,300
of thinking in the late 50s and 1960s. I would argue came

665
00:33:13,300 --> 00:33:16,200
precisely from its ability to challenge a view

666
00:33:16,200 --> 00:33:19,100
of the world. That was hierarchical that was presumed to be fascist that

667
00:33:19,100 --> 00:33:23,500
was presumed to be domineering and self-eradicating cybernetic

668
00:33:22,500 --> 00:33:25,500
seemed offer to disciplines of many

669
00:33:25,500 --> 00:33:29,100
kinds a way of being simultaneously free

670
00:33:28,100 --> 00:33:31,200
and organized and that was

671
00:33:31,200 --> 00:33:34,300
the Democratic challenge. How do we stay free while also

672
00:33:34,300 --> 00:33:37,400
being organized and and that's something that was there

673
00:33:37,400 --> 00:33:40,800
and it this is the irony that idea actually comes

674
00:33:40,800 --> 00:33:43,600
in some ways out of a military culture that

675
00:33:43,600 --> 00:33:46,200
we misunderstand as I'm free when in

676
00:33:46,200 --> 00:33:48,700
fact inside that part of the military things were actually very wild.

677
00:33:49,500 --> 00:33:52,100
That's incredible as an incredibly interesting. No, thank you.

678
00:33:52,100 --> 00:33:55,500
Thank you for that. And actually I guess in your story that

679
00:33:55,500 --> 00:33:59,100
actually some of that organizational teamwork

680
00:33:58,100 --> 00:34:01,200
in culture from actually that period

681
00:34:01,200 --> 00:34:04,000
then gets carried forwards into

682
00:34:05,500 --> 00:34:08,700
You know, the working practices actually are

683
00:34:08,700 --> 00:34:11,400
in the in the post classic cybernetic period of

684
00:34:11,400 --> 00:34:15,100
Silicon Valley and absolutely yeah, it's story

685
00:34:14,100 --> 00:34:17,400
that you very much tell in the and this

686
00:34:17,400 --> 00:34:20,300
is one of the deepest ironies and beaten's career from my perspective is

687
00:34:20,300 --> 00:34:23,400
that you know on the one hand. He's he devotes his entire career

688
00:34:23,400 --> 00:34:28,600
as far as I can tell to pushing back against deleterious

689
00:34:26,600 --> 00:34:29,400
politics and

690
00:34:29,400 --> 00:34:32,800
political forms as he understands them against hierarchy against

691
00:34:32,800 --> 00:34:35,600
domination against human intention that

692
00:34:35,600 --> 00:34:39,200
will ultimately result in destructive anti-ecological events

693
00:34:38,200 --> 00:34:41,400
and yet he and

694
00:34:41,400 --> 00:34:44,500
folks around him, especially in the 40s and 50s and Margaret Mead

695
00:34:44,500 --> 00:34:47,400
is a part of this but so is Norbert Weiner and then later people in

696
00:34:47,400 --> 00:34:50,500
the 60s Pioneer a new mode of

697
00:34:50,500 --> 00:34:53,200
technocratic Life a mode of technocratic life

698
00:34:53,200 --> 00:34:57,700
that is actually built around networks collaboration teams, highly

699
00:34:56,700 --> 00:34:59,500
individuated lives. And

700
00:34:59,500 --> 00:35:02,300
and that mode of technocratic life is in fact the mode

701
00:35:02,300 --> 00:35:04,500
that dominates a good chunk of Silicon Valley today.

702
00:35:07,500 --> 00:35:07,900
Well, it's

703
00:35:11,100 --> 00:35:12,300
running such a skeptic.

704
00:35:12,800 --> 00:35:16,000
Of the whole use of Technology. Yeah, and

705
00:35:15,800 --> 00:35:16,800
what I

706
00:35:18,900 --> 00:35:21,600
Called to your attention and to both

707
00:35:21,600 --> 00:35:24,900
of your attention is an attachment was a

708
00:35:24,900 --> 00:35:27,500
meta log that he never published because the

709
00:35:27,500 --> 00:35:32,100
one Anthropologist who looked at it who was his basically, um

710
00:35:32,100 --> 00:35:35,300
research assistant just was horrified by it because

711
00:35:35,300 --> 00:35:38,600
so radical and uncompromising an

712
00:35:38,600 --> 00:35:41,300
anti-technology standard he calls it,

713
00:35:41,300 --> 00:35:44,600
you know, Daddy is there a conspiracy and

714
00:35:44,600 --> 00:35:47,000
you know

715
00:35:47,600 --> 00:35:50,200
it is and he goes after the

716
00:35:50,200 --> 00:35:55,000
whole question of ecological damage and all the

717
00:35:54,300 --> 00:35:57,800
ills of the world and is there

718
00:35:57,800 --> 00:36:00,500
a conspiracy and basically he's not saying

719
00:36:00,500 --> 00:36:03,400
that there's a conspiracy but he he talks

720
00:36:03,400 --> 00:36:06,400
a lot about what having tools does and

721
00:36:06,400 --> 00:36:09,500
how it mediates. I believe he uses

722
00:36:09,500 --> 00:36:12,300
that phrase mediates the relationship to the

723
00:36:12,300 --> 00:36:16,000
environment such as you're no longer working. You're

724
00:36:15,200 --> 00:36:18,600
no longer in contact with the environment directly.

725
00:36:19,400 --> 00:36:22,700
But you are in contact with your tools that you're

726
00:36:22,700 --> 00:36:26,700
using and and that

727
00:36:26,700 --> 00:36:29,400
this accelerates the pace of change

728
00:36:29,400 --> 00:36:32,300
and it does various things that could lead

729
00:36:32,300 --> 00:36:36,000
to our Extinction which was very clear with all

730
00:36:35,200 --> 00:36:38,100
the conferences that he was involved in the

731
00:36:38,100 --> 00:36:41,100
60s beginning with the

732
00:36:41,100 --> 00:36:42,900
one that his daughter.

733
00:36:44,900 --> 00:36:45,400
sort of

734
00:36:46,900 --> 00:36:49,800
help document and his

735
00:36:49,800 --> 00:36:52,700
whole critique of what he called conscious purpose

736
00:36:52,700 --> 00:36:57,000
which was this sort of linear expression,

737
00:36:55,900 --> 00:36:58,500
which he actually

738
00:36:58,500 --> 00:37:01,200
said that it is really damaging when

739
00:37:01,200 --> 00:37:04,400
your power ratio against here in environment and

740
00:37:04,400 --> 00:37:08,000
uncharacteristically. He said power ratio because he

741
00:37:07,100 --> 00:37:10,200
was allergic to the concept of power most of

742
00:37:10,200 --> 00:37:13,600
the time but the power

743
00:37:13,600 --> 00:37:16,900
ratio is so unbalanced that

744
00:37:16,900 --> 00:37:19,700
really it leads

745
00:37:19,700 --> 00:37:20,300
you to

746
00:37:21,900 --> 00:37:26,100
to increasing disaster. So that's

747
00:37:24,100 --> 00:37:28,100
that's the irony. That

748
00:37:27,100 --> 00:37:30,300
is the main thrust of

749
00:37:30,300 --> 00:37:30,600
his.

750
00:37:32,300 --> 00:37:35,400
Understandings was so much against this

751
00:37:35,400 --> 00:37:38,000
and yet at the same

752
00:37:38,300 --> 00:37:41,200
time. Yes, he was influential with

753
00:37:41,200 --> 00:37:44,200
the people like Stuart brand

754
00:37:44,200 --> 00:37:47,500
and does flow somewhat

755
00:37:47,500 --> 00:37:47,900
into that.

756
00:37:49,600 --> 00:37:52,300
Yeah, and I think so. This is only really you made

757
00:37:52,300 --> 00:37:55,600
it really important distinction there in my mind, which is between tools and systems

758
00:37:55,600 --> 00:37:59,200
and I very much agree that he was an anti-tool

759
00:37:58,200 --> 00:38:01,700
technology kind of guy and precisely in

760
00:38:01,700 --> 00:38:04,900
the way that you describe it tools being mediators between humans

761
00:38:04,900 --> 00:38:07,700
who are presumed to have linear intent and things

762
00:38:07,700 --> 00:38:10,500
in the world that humans will intentionally destroy

763
00:38:10,500 --> 00:38:15,100
makes a total sense what I think what I think Bateson was

764
00:38:14,100 --> 00:38:17,300
a little bit more ambiguous about and

765
00:38:17,300 --> 00:38:20,300
which the tech crowd here in California really picked up

766
00:38:20,300 --> 00:38:24,200
on was the notion that that systems themselves were

767
00:38:23,200 --> 00:38:26,900
becoming technology technological and

768
00:38:26,900 --> 00:38:29,600
simultaneously technological natural and

769
00:38:29,600 --> 00:38:32,100
mystical. So so the idea of

770
00:38:32,100 --> 00:38:35,300
a system in which mind is imminent made sense

771
00:38:35,300 --> 00:38:39,000
that a kind of mystical level but but to folks developing integrated

772
00:38:38,500 --> 00:38:41,600
Computing it also made sense that a technological level

773
00:38:41,600 --> 00:38:44,400
like, oh my gosh. Yes, the world really is an information

774
00:38:44,400 --> 00:38:47,600
system. And what we really do need to do is get the relationships

775
00:38:47,600 --> 00:38:49,300
between information entities, correct?

776
00:38:49,600 --> 00:38:52,200
And so so it you know, even as he's

777
00:38:52,200 --> 00:38:55,500
pushing back against tools, he's providing a framework

778
00:38:55,500 --> 00:38:59,100
and intellectual framework within which systems oriented

779
00:38:58,100 --> 00:39:01,300
Technologies whose makers May probably

780
00:39:01,300 --> 00:39:04,600
don't even think of them as tools but think of them as models of the world can make

781
00:39:04,600 --> 00:39:08,600
sense can be legitimate can be embraced and it's

782
00:39:07,600 --> 00:39:10,200
just an irony and you know,

783
00:39:10,200 --> 00:39:11,400
yeah,

784
00:39:12,200 --> 00:39:16,000
well, you know, but he but he

785
00:39:15,400 --> 00:39:18,700
makes an interesting critique in the position

786
00:39:18,700 --> 00:39:22,300
paper to that first 1968 Congress, which

787
00:39:21,300 --> 00:39:26,100
is a critique that really anticipate

788
00:39:24,100 --> 00:39:28,100
some of our you know

789
00:39:28,100 --> 00:39:32,700
criticisms of the recent Supreme Court decisions, which

790
00:39:31,700 --> 00:39:35,000
consider a corporations

791
00:39:34,200 --> 00:39:38,900
as as persons really he

792
00:39:37,900 --> 00:39:40,200
has a critique of

793
00:39:40,200 --> 00:39:43,200
sort of corporate structure in there as being

794
00:39:43,200 --> 00:39:46,600
composed of parts of persons as being only able

795
00:39:46,600 --> 00:39:48,400
to look at certain types of

796
00:39:49,800 --> 00:39:52,700
um relationships and that you

797
00:39:52,700 --> 00:39:55,600
have to sort of put you know, the part

798
00:39:55,600 --> 00:39:58,200
of you that understands poetry out to

799
00:39:58,200 --> 00:40:01,400
the side before you get into your you know,

800
00:40:01,400 --> 00:40:04,400
bureaucratic or or your business

801
00:40:04,400 --> 00:40:07,400
job. Well that all made sense in the

802
00:40:07,400 --> 00:40:10,800
60s. Oh, yeah, those awful people 50 people in their final

803
00:40:10,800 --> 00:40:13,800
suits but applies just

804
00:40:13,800 --> 00:40:18,000
as well to everything that happened since the

805
00:40:17,000 --> 00:40:19,100
19.

806
00:40:20,900 --> 00:40:23,100
You know since the 1990s in the

807
00:40:23,100 --> 00:40:27,500
world of tech, in

808
00:40:26,500 --> 00:40:29,600
fact, you know, if you

809
00:40:29,600 --> 00:40:32,400
want to say that capitalism corrupted on this

810
00:40:32,400 --> 00:40:35,400
lovely image of these systems, which

811
00:40:35,400 --> 00:40:38,200
could have imminent mind. Well that might be

812
00:40:38,200 --> 00:40:43,000
an argument. You might want to take Douglas rushcock

813
00:40:42,500 --> 00:40:44,900
and just wrote a book which I was

814
00:40:46,100 --> 00:40:49,800
um going to try to argue with his interpretation of baitlin because

815
00:40:49,800 --> 00:40:52,600
I didn't think he got that right but got

816
00:40:52,600 --> 00:40:55,100
a lot of things very right and in terms

817
00:40:55,100 --> 00:40:58,300
of the history of Silicon Valley in the last three decades,

818
00:40:58,300 --> 00:41:02,400
I I think definitely Basin would

819
00:41:02,400 --> 00:41:04,200
have critiqued it on exactly the same.

820
00:41:05,200 --> 00:41:06,900
ways that he critique the

821
00:41:08,400 --> 00:41:11,800
Sort of culture in the 1960s. It

822
00:41:11,800 --> 00:41:14,600
was just an extension of it rather than

823
00:41:14,600 --> 00:41:15,700
something that

824
00:41:16,900 --> 00:41:19,200
but against it he was always very clear that

825
00:41:19,200 --> 00:41:22,100
dependent in his cybernetics that depending on

826
00:41:22,100 --> 00:41:25,400
the way it was going. It would either go towards

827
00:41:25,400 --> 00:41:29,700
self-correction or would go toward runaway. Which reminds

828
00:41:29,700 --> 00:41:32,500
me I think Anthony Cheney is with us and

829
00:41:32,500 --> 00:41:35,300
he had wrote brilliant book

830
00:41:35,300 --> 00:41:38,300
on the dialectics of Liberation and

831
00:41:38,300 --> 00:41:42,000
very very much.

832
00:41:43,700 --> 00:41:46,500
That instance of his history.

833
00:41:46,500 --> 00:41:49,000
So I really think that

834
00:41:50,500 --> 00:41:51,600
that his

835
00:41:53,500 --> 00:41:54,200
that his

836
00:41:55,600 --> 00:41:58,400
stance would not be different to

837
00:41:58,400 --> 00:42:02,100
that. He would just see somehow something that

838
00:42:01,100 --> 00:42:04,700
might have been hopeful in the 90s went

839
00:42:04,700 --> 00:42:07,400
from being as part of self-correction to

840
00:42:07,400 --> 00:42:11,000
a part of further run away and that

841
00:42:10,300 --> 00:42:13,500
it could always go either way systems would

842
00:42:13,500 --> 00:42:16,500
could always go either way. They're not necessarily going

843
00:42:16,500 --> 00:42:19,300
to lead you to Arcadia to you know,

844
00:42:19,300 --> 00:42:22,600
Pasco Utopia. This is

845
00:42:22,600 --> 00:42:25,900
one of the the dilemmas I guess within within

846
00:42:25,900 --> 00:42:28,400
cybernetics in general

847
00:42:28,400 --> 00:42:31,500
is is on the one hand and and the various complications

848
00:42:31,500 --> 00:42:35,100
of it the understanding of its terms within different. Yeah

849
00:42:34,100 --> 00:42:37,000
areas is on the one hand.

850
00:42:37,900 --> 00:42:40,400
Yes, it certainly facilitated a

851
00:42:40,400 --> 00:42:44,300
certain way in which technology and Society

852
00:42:43,300 --> 00:42:45,000
could develop.

853
00:42:45,900 --> 00:42:48,500
But also by no means all all

854
00:42:48,500 --> 00:42:52,800
people who are calling themselves Urban decisions, but but certainly a number

855
00:42:51,800 --> 00:42:55,200
including and possibly

856
00:42:54,200 --> 00:42:57,500
most notably Bates and we're actually

857
00:42:57,500 --> 00:43:00,800
using the kind of arguing that these are the strongest

858
00:43:00,800 --> 00:43:03,300
tools that we're going to have to understand

859
00:43:03,300 --> 00:43:07,300
that phenomenon and and to try to to deal

860
00:43:06,300 --> 00:43:09,800
with it in in some ways as always

861
00:43:09,800 --> 00:43:11,000
this. Yeah can

862
00:43:12,100 --> 00:43:13,500
I think as

863
00:43:15,100 --> 00:43:18,300
I forget he said it's I won't say well if you went back

864
00:43:18,300 --> 00:43:21,600
a couple decades also and you look at the

865
00:43:21,600 --> 00:43:25,900
bateson's criticism of Game Theory Game

866
00:43:24,900 --> 00:43:27,400
Theory as it

867
00:43:27,400 --> 00:43:30,200
was developed in early cybernetics was

868
00:43:30,200 --> 00:43:34,000
and remains a tremendously powerful

869
00:43:33,900 --> 00:43:36,100
mathematical way of looking at the

870
00:43:36,100 --> 00:43:39,600
world, but he always said the point

871
00:43:39,600 --> 00:43:42,500
isn't to learn how to behave better in

872
00:43:42,500 --> 00:43:46,000
the games that we have. The point is to know how

873
00:43:45,100 --> 00:43:48,800
to change the games now, that's that's an

874
00:43:48,800 --> 00:43:52,400
echo of marks that I never expected anyhow, but

875
00:43:51,400 --> 00:43:54,500
he always said that about the

876
00:43:54,500 --> 00:43:57,700
theory of games and especially in the use

877
00:43:57,700 --> 00:43:59,300
of the theory of games by the

878
00:44:00,700 --> 00:44:02,300
Cold War and the

879
00:44:03,900 --> 00:44:06,600
Nuclear arms race that existed in that

880
00:44:06,600 --> 00:44:10,000
time which he was extremely critical of yeah. It's

881
00:44:09,200 --> 00:44:12,100
so it's so interesting because we're on this

882
00:44:12,100 --> 00:44:15,200
this point that I think is characteristic of the the latter half of

883
00:44:15,200 --> 00:44:18,600
the 20th century a lot of American thinking it's the tension about sort

884
00:44:18,600 --> 00:44:21,200
of where is politics, right? If we if we

885
00:44:21,200 --> 00:44:24,300
see Bates in bateson's politics as being connected to

886
00:44:24,300 --> 00:44:27,400
State institutions, right the military or objecting

887
00:44:27,400 --> 00:44:32,100
to State institutions, but in some way relating to them military governance,

888
00:44:30,100 --> 00:44:33,600
you know that then

889
00:44:33,600 --> 00:44:36,500
then there's a certain view that he's very much

890
00:44:36,500 --> 00:44:37,900
a rebel and it's absolutely correct.

891
00:44:38,700 --> 00:44:41,300
And you could see why he'd be frustrated working for

892
00:44:41,300 --> 00:44:44,300
the OSS, you know, but at the same time I think

893
00:44:44,300 --> 00:44:47,200
the alternative to that kind of politics that he's

894
00:44:47,200 --> 00:44:50,600
trying to build is always from the get-go political. You know,

895
00:44:50,600 --> 00:44:53,900
Bateson is in many ways. I would argue a pioneer of design

896
00:44:53,900 --> 00:44:56,300
as a political technology, you know

897
00:44:56,300 --> 00:44:59,200
during World War Two and 42, for example, you know,

898
00:44:59,200 --> 00:45:02,200
he and Margaret Mead are our theorizing how to

899
00:45:02,200 --> 00:45:06,000
build Educational Systems that will produce Democratic people

900
00:45:05,900 --> 00:45:08,600
and and some of that stuff gets gets

901
00:45:08,600 --> 00:45:11,300
kind of wild. I pulled a couple of quotes here. So,

902
00:45:11,300 --> 00:45:14,400
you know, he says that so this

903
00:45:14,400 --> 00:45:17,300
is when he's thinking about about developing a moral system and

904
00:45:17,300 --> 00:45:20,600
he wants to build an educational technology for this. He says the essential

905
00:45:20,600 --> 00:45:23,300
thing. This is him and me writing together. The essential thing

906
00:45:23,300 --> 00:45:27,000
is that the Central State Agency for morale building shall not

907
00:45:26,100 --> 00:45:29,700
see itself as manipulating people the moment

908
00:45:29,700 --> 00:45:32,200
the central agency begins to see itself as a

909
00:45:32,200 --> 00:45:35,000
manipulator of Puppets propaganda becomes inevitable.

910
00:45:35,900 --> 00:45:38,600
The only way to avoid this result is

911
00:45:38,600 --> 00:45:40,400
to organize the whole system.

912
00:45:41,300 --> 00:45:45,000
So that the central agency is firmly oriented toward

913
00:45:44,800 --> 00:45:47,200
discovering and couraging and

914
00:45:47,200 --> 00:45:49,300
servicing local initiative.

915
00:45:50,400 --> 00:45:53,500
He's imagining a world in which we can you know, encourage folks to

916
00:45:53,500 --> 00:45:56,700
be local but it gets a little bit creepier. You

917
00:45:56,700 --> 00:45:59,100
know, he later says we may be able to get a more definite more

918
00:45:59,100 --> 00:46:02,100
operational definition of such habits as free will if we ask

919
00:46:02,100 --> 00:46:05,600
about each what sort of experimental learning context would

920
00:46:05,600 --> 00:46:08,500
we devise to inculcate this habit? Let me

921
00:46:08,500 --> 00:46:11,500
just repeat that what sort of experimental learning

922
00:46:11,500 --> 00:46:14,200
context would we devise in order

923
00:46:14,200 --> 00:46:17,500
to inculcate this habit? This is him again. How would

924
00:46:17,500 --> 00:46:20,700
we read the maze or problem box so that

925
00:46:20,700 --> 00:46:23,400
the anthropomorphic rat shall obtain a

926
00:46:23,400 --> 00:46:26,600
repeated and reinforced impression of his own free

927
00:46:26,600 --> 00:46:26,800
will

928
00:46:28,100 --> 00:46:31,300
Now I want to get jump into that. I thought

929
00:46:31,300 --> 00:46:35,000
you might yes. There's a young. Well, you talk

930
00:46:34,200 --> 00:46:38,300
about the culture and personality school and actually

931
00:46:37,300 --> 00:46:40,600
aware that got sort

932
00:46:40,600 --> 00:46:43,100
of read out of the history of anthropology that was

933
00:46:43,100 --> 00:46:46,400
taught in graduate schools was when they started looking at

934
00:46:46,400 --> 00:46:49,100
some of the Nations they they were doing a lot of

935
00:46:49,100 --> 00:46:52,600
type a lot typologising of

936
00:46:52,600 --> 00:46:55,500
Nations from a distance but also

937
00:46:55,500 --> 00:46:58,400
as part of the war effort, so Ruth Benedict had

938
00:46:58,400 --> 00:47:03,300
the chrysanthemum and the sword which was really developed dealing,

939
00:47:01,300 --> 00:47:04,200
you know, they could

940
00:47:04,200 --> 00:47:07,300
she couldn't go to Japan. So they were

941
00:47:07,300 --> 00:47:10,400
interviewing people in the states and and so forth

942
00:47:10,400 --> 00:47:13,500
and so on but they were developing these pictures of these

943
00:47:13,500 --> 00:47:13,900
different cultures.

944
00:47:14,900 --> 00:47:15,200
so

945
00:47:16,500 --> 00:47:20,900
to allude to this sort of thing without really exceeding

946
00:47:19,900 --> 00:47:23,200
to its more raw statements

947
00:47:22,200 --> 00:47:25,900
one way that Basin would

948
00:47:25,900 --> 00:47:28,700
talk about these things in classes is by a

949
00:47:28,700 --> 00:47:32,600
precisely referring to the experiments that

950
00:47:31,600 --> 00:47:34,800
the different types

951
00:47:34,800 --> 00:47:39,100
of behaviors would do and the

952
00:47:37,100 --> 00:47:40,300
most often he

953
00:47:40,300 --> 00:47:43,500
would, you know, you're talking about the contrast with

954
00:47:43,500 --> 00:47:46,600
the Germans. Well, there's an implicit contrast with the Russians that's

955
00:47:46,600 --> 00:47:49,800
going on as well. And with respect

956
00:47:49,800 --> 00:47:52,500
to Pavlov the dog is putting into

957
00:47:52,500 --> 00:47:56,600
a harness and learns to salivate but the

958
00:47:55,600 --> 00:47:59,800
salivation is a passive response.

959
00:47:58,800 --> 00:48:00,400
Hmm.

960
00:48:02,700 --> 00:48:06,000
To the experimental manipulation, whereas in

961
00:48:05,300 --> 00:48:08,500
American behaviorism, you're always

962
00:48:08,500 --> 00:48:12,700
getting these very energetic rats who are doing the

963
00:48:12,700 --> 00:48:15,400
you who are doing things who are agent as

964
00:48:15,400 --> 00:48:20,200
we'd say today and he it's

965
00:48:19,200 --> 00:48:23,300
a paradox. Yes, because because

966
00:48:22,300 --> 00:48:25,300
if you are if you

967
00:48:25,300 --> 00:48:29,000
come from a culturally relative a

968
00:48:28,400 --> 00:48:31,800
framework of culturalism to begin

969
00:48:31,800 --> 00:48:34,700
with you will see that different cultures

970
00:48:34,700 --> 00:48:37,400
or different, you know different rats for

971
00:48:37,400 --> 00:48:40,600
that matter different animals based on their experience

972
00:48:40,600 --> 00:48:43,000
and based on their own.

973
00:48:45,300 --> 00:48:50,200
Based on what they learned from their contacts

974
00:48:48,200 --> 00:48:51,600
will develop

975
00:48:51,600 --> 00:48:55,600
different characterological points

976
00:48:54,600 --> 00:48:56,400
of view now.

977
00:48:57,400 --> 00:49:00,100
Meat is going from her own studies of

978
00:49:00,100 --> 00:49:04,000
American culture. She had a book of keeping powder

979
00:49:03,500 --> 00:49:08,000
dries and things like that and she

980
00:49:07,200 --> 00:49:10,400
is going from her own characterization of

981
00:49:10,400 --> 00:49:13,300
American culture and indeed they're reflected in

982
00:49:13,300 --> 00:49:16,300
the rad experiments, but you could then say well, you know,

983
00:49:16,300 --> 00:49:19,200
these rat these rats these mazes are sort

984
00:49:19,200 --> 00:49:22,900
of surrounds and these rats are being very gented

985
00:49:22,900 --> 00:49:25,700
in a bit in a very structured way. I

986
00:49:25,700 --> 00:49:28,600
think this is exactly the kind of thing that later Bates

987
00:49:28,600 --> 00:49:31,800
and was reacting against by the way. I don't think

988
00:49:31,800 --> 00:49:33,300
that he persists and

989
00:49:34,200 --> 00:49:37,900
thinking that you can plan at

990
00:49:37,900 --> 00:49:40,800
this level. I tell a story on my

991
00:49:41,800 --> 00:49:44,400
History at University of California Santa Cruz,

992
00:49:44,400 --> 00:49:47,900
they had a program where you could make your own major and I

993
00:49:47,900 --> 00:49:50,800
came up with the idea of a major in cultural planning

994
00:49:50,800 --> 00:49:53,400
as I really called it.

995
00:49:54,200 --> 00:49:57,100
And he I wondered if he could be

996
00:49:57,100 --> 00:49:58,700
an advisor for that. So he

997
00:49:59,900 --> 00:50:02,400
I said well, yes, you should

998
00:50:02,400 --> 00:50:05,700
do that and you should definitely do that do

999
00:50:05,700 --> 00:50:09,000
it with a will and then you will come up

1000
00:50:08,300 --> 00:50:10,400
with a belly laugh.

1001
00:50:11,400 --> 00:50:13,200
And realize that it can't be done.

1002
00:50:14,200 --> 00:50:17,300
And then he said to fix things in my

1003
00:50:17,300 --> 00:50:20,700
brain. He said you can't deal with love in

1004
00:50:20,700 --> 00:50:21,200
that way.

1005
00:50:22,100 --> 00:50:25,600
and by love, he meant a lot of things he meant,

1006
00:50:25,600 --> 00:50:28,300
you know fundamental values and what

1007
00:50:28,300 --> 00:50:30,100
people care about he meant

1008
00:50:31,400 --> 00:50:34,600
so that was about the strongest

1009
00:50:34,600 --> 00:50:35,500
statement about

1010
00:50:36,800 --> 00:50:39,400
manipulation that I think you could get and

1011
00:50:39,400 --> 00:50:40,700
so I would say that.

1012
00:50:43,100 --> 00:50:46,600
Well, there are reasons that he broke

1013
00:50:46,600 --> 00:50:49,300
up. He yeah, yeah, I agree

1014
00:50:49,300 --> 00:50:52,800
with you. I'm manipulation. I think you're absolutely right. I think there's a it's a

1015
00:50:52,800 --> 00:50:55,400
paradox. I don't think he wants to manipulate people. I really don't

1016
00:50:55,400 --> 00:50:58,200
but I think he wants to create conditions within which

1017
00:50:58,200 --> 00:51:02,100
certain kinds of people can emerge and other kinds of people are not

1018
00:51:01,100 --> 00:51:04,300
part of the picture. I don't think he wants fascists in

1019
00:51:04,300 --> 00:51:07,500
the world. I don't think he wants authoritarians in the world and

1020
00:51:07,500 --> 00:51:10,200
I think he sees at least in the 40s which

1021
00:51:10,200 --> 00:51:14,000
is the period I know best. I think he sees that as

1022
00:51:15,900 --> 00:51:18,500
As the mission of sight one of the missions of science is

1023
00:51:18,500 --> 00:51:20,500
to find the conditions under which people can be free.

1024
00:51:21,300 --> 00:51:24,400
And it's a discovery Mission not a manipulation

1025
00:51:24,400 --> 00:51:27,200
Mission but remembering as well. They're in

1026
00:51:27,200 --> 00:51:31,200
their twenties still. Yeah, I mean, yeah Bates in

1027
00:51:30,200 --> 00:51:33,500
a mead when they're starting this work on thinking about in

1028
00:51:33,500 --> 00:51:36,400
culturing Democratic character. I mean, they're still

1029
00:51:36,400 --> 00:51:37,900
in their late twenties. I mean that I

1030
00:51:39,100 --> 00:51:42,800
you know that they're very young. And in the sense that there's the

1031
00:51:42,800 --> 00:51:45,200
point Fred you make up. I remember which book it's in

1032
00:51:45,200 --> 00:51:48,400
but that there's a comment along the lines of you know, but in his later period

1033
00:51:48,400 --> 00:51:51,700
he's become an emotionally mature person

1034
00:51:51,700 --> 00:51:54,500
or something like that you said which I

1035
00:51:54,500 --> 00:51:58,900
thought was I mean that was very interesting again kind

1036
00:51:58,900 --> 00:52:00,600
of observation, but but in power

1037
00:52:01,500 --> 00:52:04,200
This since I have is it's precisely because

1038
00:52:04,200 --> 00:52:07,300
of various moments. He came close to

1039
00:52:07,300 --> 00:52:10,400
the dark side of various ways.

1040
00:52:10,400 --> 00:52:13,600
You know that that actually gave the

1041
00:52:13,600 --> 00:52:16,700
the level of sensitivity to

1042
00:52:16,700 --> 00:52:19,200
these issues that we I think do find in

1043
00:52:19,200 --> 00:52:20,400
the later work and and

1044
00:52:21,600 --> 00:52:24,400
which which the kind of like Legacy to

1045
00:52:24,400 --> 00:52:27,100
to deal with we already I mean I want to

1046
00:52:27,100 --> 00:52:30,700
start to open it up to anyone else

1047
00:52:30,700 --> 00:52:33,300
in the audience. He has any

1048
00:52:33,300 --> 00:52:33,900
points to

1049
00:52:36,100 --> 00:52:37,200
to raise

1050
00:52:39,800 --> 00:52:42,200
but one of the other things actually I wanted

1051
00:52:42,200 --> 00:52:45,200
to just raise because the times flying by

1052
00:52:45,200 --> 00:52:48,200
and I wish we did actually have several hours because just a deal

1053
00:52:48,200 --> 00:52:51,400
with the interpreting the historical material but

1054
00:52:51,400 --> 00:52:55,000
there's there's also you know a reason no

1055
00:52:54,400 --> 00:52:57,600
doubt why we're all here today which isn't simply a fascination

1056
00:52:57,600 --> 00:53:00,400
with a historical periods and and

1057
00:53:00,400 --> 00:53:03,500
characters. But but there's you know, it's how is

1058
00:53:03,500 --> 00:53:06,400
this resonating with various challenges that

1059
00:53:06,400 --> 00:53:09,400
we have today and it seems actually in both

1060
00:53:09,400 --> 00:53:12,100
of these periods of Engagement, whether it's kind of, you know,

1061
00:53:12,100 --> 00:53:16,300
anti-fascist building of democratic institutions

1062
00:53:15,300 --> 00:53:18,100
or culture or whatever but dealing with

1063
00:53:18,100 --> 00:53:19,100
that problem is is

1064
00:53:19,900 --> 00:53:22,400
From is is very very

1065
00:53:22,400 --> 00:53:25,400
real and as a Brit we're

1066
00:53:25,400 --> 00:53:26,100
you know.

1067
00:53:27,300 --> 00:53:30,200
Looking down the canon in a way that you were recently in the

1068
00:53:30,200 --> 00:53:34,400
states. And and so the these

1069
00:53:33,400 --> 00:53:36,600
questions about the kind of

1070
00:53:36,600 --> 00:53:39,300
you know, what the premises of our cultures that we might want

1071
00:53:39,300 --> 00:53:42,400
to to protect in some way and then

1072
00:53:42,400 --> 00:53:44,200
the same kind of set of questions.

1073
00:53:45,600 --> 00:53:48,200
As a kind of

1074
00:53:48,200 --> 00:53:51,100
ecological level and the question actually is I mean, are they

1075
00:53:51,100 --> 00:53:53,000
two different questions or are they actually the same?

1076
00:53:53,700 --> 00:53:56,000
question in into contexts

1077
00:53:57,400 --> 00:54:00,200
I was hoping to actually drag Philip out on the question of context as

1078
00:54:00,200 --> 00:54:02,200
well. That might be another rabbit hole.

1079
00:54:03,400 --> 00:54:06,400
At first we would see we do have questions from

1080
00:54:06,400 --> 00:54:09,500
the audience and I think I see Fred Fredrick star.

1081
00:54:10,500 --> 00:54:12,000
Fred and

1082
00:54:16,500 --> 00:54:17,100
needed

1083
00:54:19,300 --> 00:54:22,500
Right. I need to unmute myself. Yeah. Thanks so many

1084
00:54:22,500 --> 00:54:25,400
for sending this up and thanks Phillip John and Fred for such

1085
00:54:25,400 --> 00:54:28,800
a really highly energizing conversation so

1086
00:54:28,800 --> 00:54:31,300
far. I've been listening for sort of

1087
00:54:31,300 --> 00:54:34,500
patterns across your talks which I guess is also

1088
00:54:34,500 --> 00:54:38,000
trying to listen as Bates in my and things

1089
00:54:37,100 --> 00:54:40,800
that are occurred to me. Are you really bookings

1090
00:54:40,800 --> 00:54:43,100
or steps? Right? So the initial this is

1091
00:54:43,100 --> 00:54:47,300
something from what you're just talking about now John the importance

1092
00:54:46,300 --> 00:54:49,400
of the model right and and really holding

1093
00:54:49,400 --> 00:54:52,100
on to how it is that we you know, given that this is a

1094
00:54:52,100 --> 00:54:55,800
design conference how it is that we over really rely

1095
00:54:55,800 --> 00:54:58,400
on sort of a static organization rather than

1096
00:54:58,400 --> 00:55:01,800
opening up for possibilities, perhaps even trying

1097
00:55:01,800 --> 00:55:04,500
to introduce Notions of the model into what

1098
00:55:04,500 --> 00:55:05,200
it is that we're doing.

1099
00:55:06,300 --> 00:55:10,000
The other end and this is where my question is is the

1100
00:55:09,500 --> 00:55:12,500
paper later. I got called ecology

1101
00:55:12,500 --> 00:55:14,600
and flexibility in urban civilization.

1102
00:55:15,300 --> 00:55:19,000
And this is something Philip and I have talked a lot about how you

1103
00:55:18,400 --> 00:55:21,300
know when you think about what's going on here in

1104
00:55:21,300 --> 00:55:24,600
this in our panel right now. What is

1105
00:55:24,600 --> 00:55:27,600
the relationship between understanding particularly understanding in

1106
00:55:27,600 --> 00:55:30,800
a cybernetic way and thinking about cybernetic explanation

1107
00:55:30,800 --> 00:55:33,400
and action right? And does that

1108
00:55:33,400 --> 00:55:36,600
particular kind of understanding create a disposition

1109
00:55:36,600 --> 00:55:39,500
for Action, even if you know Gregory himself

1110
00:55:39,500 --> 00:55:41,300
might not have been particularly political.

1111
00:55:42,300 --> 00:55:45,100
And here one of the things that strikes me is so

1112
00:55:45,100 --> 00:55:48,800
important is that when we think about designer co-design the notion

1113
00:55:48,800 --> 00:55:51,300
of allowing for flexibility, which I

1114
00:55:51,300 --> 00:55:54,300
know John you've also written about is something that often gets,

1115
00:55:54,300 --> 00:55:57,300
you know ignored right or push the side that we

1116
00:55:57,300 --> 00:56:01,500
think of design is creating these constraints without recognizing

1117
00:56:00,500 --> 00:56:03,300
how when we're talking about human

1118
00:56:03,300 --> 00:56:04,100
adaptation.

1119
00:56:05,100 --> 00:56:08,600
We need to also hold on to the variety for a future changes

1120
00:56:08,600 --> 00:56:11,400
in the environment. I'm wondering if each of

1121
00:56:11,400 --> 00:56:15,100
you as addressed this in a different way whether with qatari's

1122
00:56:14,100 --> 00:56:17,400
three ecologies, but how you see this

1123
00:56:17,400 --> 00:56:20,900
the importance of flexibility in thinking

1124
00:56:20,900 --> 00:56:22,500
about conference on design?

1125
00:56:24,900 --> 00:56:26,900
Sorry for that being such a long question.

1126
00:56:29,200 --> 00:56:32,900
Well, I think I would like to underscore

1127
00:56:32,900 --> 00:56:36,500
that for this Design Group that Gregory was

1128
00:56:36,500 --> 00:56:40,500
working with grip Bates and was working with these various

1129
00:56:39,500 --> 00:56:42,300
design conferences in the

1130
00:56:42,300 --> 00:56:45,200
last 10 years of his life that this was a

1131
00:56:46,300 --> 00:56:50,100
this was actually done for mayor Lindsey's.

1132
00:56:49,100 --> 00:56:51,000
Yeah.

1133
00:56:52,800 --> 00:56:56,300
Group in New York to look

1134
00:56:56,300 --> 00:56:59,600
about certain issues that had to

1135
00:56:59,600 --> 00:57:03,200
do with design and that earlier in Tarrytown. He

1136
00:57:02,200 --> 00:57:05,600
was at a conference with all these

1137
00:57:05,600 --> 00:57:06,500
architects.

1138
00:57:08,500 --> 00:57:10,800
Jacqueline Robinson

1139
00:57:12,200 --> 00:57:16,100
And Peter Blake and Mary Nichols and Robert

1140
00:57:15,100 --> 00:57:19,700
Caro writing about Robert Moses.

1141
00:57:19,700 --> 00:57:22,900
And basically he was critiquing Robert Moses. And

1142
00:57:22,900 --> 00:57:25,600
as everyone was

1143
00:57:25,600 --> 00:57:28,400
in that conference for what that

1144
00:57:28,400 --> 00:57:32,200
would mean with her concept of power and was

1145
00:57:31,200 --> 00:57:35,200
applauding how it would

1146
00:57:35,200 --> 00:57:40,000
be impossible for new Robert Moses to emerge

1147
00:57:38,200 --> 00:57:41,400
again this fits with

1148
00:57:41,400 --> 00:57:44,600
a homegrown fascism, like di supposed and

1149
00:57:44,600 --> 00:57:48,500
real way but even though

1150
00:57:48,500 --> 00:57:51,300
given that this group is interested in

1151
00:57:51,300 --> 00:57:54,300
design that's really something to to look

1152
00:57:54,300 --> 00:57:57,700
at and in his position paper, which was published was

1153
00:57:57,700 --> 00:58:01,000
was republished in the co-evolution quarterly

1154
00:58:00,500 --> 00:58:04,600
linking it again to Stuart brand, but then

1155
00:58:04,600 --> 00:58:07,100
he talks a lot about speculates a

1156
00:58:07,100 --> 00:58:10,300
lot about what power might mean considering that

1157
00:58:10,300 --> 00:58:11,900
we shouldn't take it as

1158
00:58:12,200 --> 00:58:15,100
example of physics of some simple quantity that you

1159
00:58:15,100 --> 00:58:18,400
have more of or less of but you should look at it as

1160
00:58:18,400 --> 00:58:22,000
a patterned phenomenon and specific ways.

1161
00:58:22,600 --> 00:58:25,300
So I think that's super helpful. I I

1162
00:58:25,300 --> 00:58:28,200
have a kind of quandary around Bates and

1163
00:58:28,200 --> 00:58:31,300
I haven't got it figured out and I don't know how to read the issue that

1164
00:58:31,300 --> 00:58:34,300
you're raising here Fred, um, you know on the one hand you could

1165
00:58:34,300 --> 00:58:38,100
tell it as a co-optation story in Silicon Valley so Bates

1166
00:58:37,100 --> 00:58:40,000
in Longs towards the end

1167
00:58:40,200 --> 00:58:43,300
of his career for being to be a whole person to see love everywhere to build

1168
00:58:43,300 --> 00:58:46,000
a kind of holistic world and it's a really kind of

1169
00:58:46,300 --> 00:58:49,500
beautiful vision and you know, he dies at the Zen Center and and

1170
00:58:49,500 --> 00:58:52,400
it's it's a kind of a beautiful vision and yet here in

1171
00:58:52,400 --> 00:58:55,800
the valley. I think for folks who want to build more explicitly

1172
00:58:55,800 --> 00:58:58,300
manipulative systems. It becomes

1173
00:58:58,300 --> 00:59:01,600
a way for them to imagine that they are somehow participating in

1174
00:59:01,600 --> 00:59:04,300
his somewhat saintly project as they

1175
00:59:04,300 --> 00:59:07,500
do things like build manipulative patterns into computer interfaces,

1176
00:59:07,500 --> 00:59:11,000
and I you know, I really do talk to contemporary Tech

1177
00:59:10,300 --> 00:59:13,300
folks who are building things Building Systems that I would think

1178
00:59:13,300 --> 00:59:18,600
of as controlling, you know decision determining horrible

1179
00:59:16,600 --> 00:59:20,200
sort of commercial Technologies

1180
00:59:19,200 --> 00:59:22,300
who see themselves as Lego

1181
00:59:22,500 --> 00:59:25,100
A basin which I find baffling. I don't think that's

1182
00:59:25,100 --> 00:59:28,300
correct another way to read it. And so that's a straight

1183
00:59:28,300 --> 00:59:31,100
co-optation story. You see folks trying to justify their activity by

1184
00:59:31,100 --> 00:59:34,400
referring back to someone who's activity was actually quite different. There's another

1185
00:59:34,400 --> 00:59:37,600
story though, which is one that I don't know how I feel about which

1186
00:59:37,600 --> 00:59:40,500
is that somehow embedded in the cybernetic project

1187
00:59:40,500 --> 00:59:43,500
of which Batson was a part is the

1188
00:59:43,500 --> 00:59:46,400
idea that order is something that emerges in

1189
00:59:46,400 --> 00:59:49,900
the world and that can be discovered through science and that

1190
00:59:49,900 --> 00:59:52,700
and that has this weird habit. I think of legitimating

1191
00:59:52,700 --> 00:59:55,100
the orders that do emerge as if they were

1192
00:59:55,100 --> 00:59:58,500
natural themselves and and

1193
00:59:58,500 --> 01:00:01,300
this is a tendency that's just kind of built into some parts

1194
01:00:01,300 --> 01:00:04,600
of systems thinking I don't know what to do with it. Um,

1195
01:00:04,600 --> 01:00:07,600
but I do think it has that that tendency I very

1196
01:00:07,600 --> 01:00:10,300
much celebrate Fred your idea of sticking with the model, you know,

1197
01:00:10,300 --> 01:00:13,300
that's an idea that flows through through Donna heraway's work

1198
01:00:13,300 --> 01:00:16,100
and and through through all kinds of, you know later sort of

1199
01:00:16,100 --> 01:00:19,400
cybernetically inflected feminism. And I think

1200
01:00:19,400 --> 01:00:22,300
the model is a very helpful notion design.

1201
01:00:22,500 --> 01:00:25,600
To produce models within which people can nonetheless

1202
01:00:25,600 --> 01:00:28,800
act that makes sense to me. It does

1203
01:00:28,800 --> 01:00:31,300
it does but actually there's one

1204
01:00:31,300 --> 01:00:34,900
of the reasons why I think Bateson is interesting still today

1205
01:00:34,900 --> 01:00:37,300
and some of the work that hasn't been

1206
01:00:37,300 --> 01:00:40,900
picked up in the wider kind of ecological materialism this

1207
01:00:40,900 --> 01:00:43,400
goes and actually by people like haraway and

1208
01:00:43,400 --> 01:00:44,000
one of the things that I

1209
01:00:45,500 --> 01:00:48,300
on how I completely agree Fred with yes that

1210
01:00:48,300 --> 01:00:51,200
the maintaining the mother is important, but

1211
01:00:51,200 --> 01:00:51,600
one of the

1212
01:00:52,600 --> 01:00:55,300
Basin didn't stop at those

1213
01:00:55,300 --> 01:00:58,500
kinds of descriptions. I mean he went through enormous pains

1214
01:00:58,500 --> 01:01:01,600
to try to understand what models were

1215
01:01:01,600 --> 01:01:05,100
made of what you know, what is it that produces

1216
01:01:04,100 --> 01:01:07,500
the variety and and one of

1217
01:01:07,500 --> 01:01:10,800
the frustrations I have with a lot of contemporary material as

1218
01:01:10,800 --> 01:01:12,100
much as I enjoy it and

1219
01:01:13,100 --> 01:01:16,400
so on of people like haraway is that I

1220
01:01:16,400 --> 01:01:19,100
think that they just too easily stop at the model or the

1221
01:01:19,100 --> 01:01:20,900
trouble or whatever and kind of you.

1222
01:01:21,500 --> 01:01:24,600
It's the as a kind of antidote to

1223
01:01:24,600 --> 01:01:27,700
the formalism of much of bateson's generations

1224
01:01:27,700 --> 01:01:30,500
attempts to understand the nature of systems. It's kind

1225
01:01:30,500 --> 01:01:33,200
of it feels to me gone too much the other way

1226
01:01:33,200 --> 01:01:36,400
where we don't really know. Okay. So what kinds of models then over?

1227
01:01:36,400 --> 01:01:38,000
Yeah some better than others are you know?

1228
01:01:39,900 --> 01:01:41,900
And so whilst absolutely.

1229
01:01:43,200 --> 01:01:46,300
Tendentiously I'm agreeing with you. I'm also thinking that there's

1230
01:01:47,300 --> 01:01:50,200
some kind of you know basinian work to do on

1231
01:01:51,300 --> 01:01:53,600
actually understanding the nature of

1232
01:01:55,100 --> 01:01:58,200
better and worse muddles in a vegetarian makes

1233
01:01:58,200 --> 01:02:01,800
no sense in that formulation at all. But he uses the word weeds, you

1234
01:02:01,800 --> 01:02:04,600
know, and actually to answer another

1235
01:02:04,600 --> 01:02:07,200
point of question that you raised Fred in your question.

1236
01:02:07,200 --> 01:02:09,700
Just then was about the question of flexibility.

1237
01:02:11,300 --> 01:02:14,300
And indeed, you know, it seems you

1238
01:02:14,300 --> 01:02:18,300
know, when when you're when we read about the variables getting

1239
01:02:18,300 --> 01:02:20,800
up tight in various ways that the key.

1240
01:02:21,500 --> 01:02:24,800
sensible design Ambitions that

1241
01:02:24,800 --> 01:02:27,800
they should be to build in all kinds of flexibility and

1242
01:02:27,800 --> 01:02:30,400
redundancy and systems such that they

1243
01:02:30,400 --> 01:02:33,700
can deal with with, you know,

1244
01:02:33,700 --> 01:02:36,300
increasingly unpredictable background environments, you

1245
01:02:36,300 --> 01:02:37,500
know, what used to be stable is

1246
01:02:38,500 --> 01:02:40,800
Is changing faster than we are in some respects?

1247
01:02:41,500 --> 01:02:44,500
And and so there's there's that kind of flexibility

1248
01:02:44,500 --> 01:02:47,400
that seems and yes, thank you for mentioning that

1249
01:02:47,400 --> 01:02:49,500
I've done a paper trying to pull that out.

1250
01:02:50,100 --> 01:02:54,500
But of course there's there's another kind of flexibility of neoliberal

1251
01:02:53,500 --> 01:02:55,000
discourse, which

1252
01:02:56,100 --> 01:02:57,500
Which also exploits that?

1253
01:02:58,200 --> 01:03:01,800
Which we can actually leave them on, you know is there but Basin

1254
01:03:01,800 --> 01:03:04,100
also made the point that the most flexible organisms out there

1255
01:03:04,100 --> 01:03:05,100
are weeds.

1256
01:03:06,200 --> 01:03:08,700
and and it wasn't necessarily a good point that actually you know

1257
01:03:10,300 --> 01:03:14,000
As you increase your economics of

1258
01:03:13,200 --> 01:03:15,800
flexibility of your budget of flexibility.

1259
01:03:17,300 --> 01:03:19,200
You're actually tending to also lose.

1260
01:03:20,100 --> 01:03:23,100
Niche specificities and many things that

1261
01:03:23,100 --> 01:03:26,400
we would think of as you know things to

1262
01:03:26,400 --> 01:03:29,800
be protected. So there's actually as ever

1263
01:03:30,800 --> 01:03:33,300
A kind of you know a contradictory moment in

1264
01:03:33,300 --> 01:03:37,000
I think bateson's identification and thank

1265
01:03:36,100 --> 01:03:40,400
you bring up of this question of flexibility.

1266
01:03:41,500 --> 01:03:44,400
I feel like I need to I want to make some amendments to

1267
01:03:44,400 --> 01:03:48,000
my kind of wholehearted embrace of

1268
01:03:47,100 --> 01:03:50,200
the way in which it was framed largely actually in the paper that

1269
01:03:50,200 --> 01:03:54,500
you referred to the one from the New York planners because there's

1270
01:03:53,500 --> 01:03:56,200
yeah there's there's a mess

1271
01:03:56,200 --> 01:03:58,200
of budget of flexibility as well. You don't want you.

1272
01:03:58,800 --> 01:04:00,800
endlessly flexible systems would be pretty

1273
01:04:02,300 --> 01:04:05,200
Yeah, just to add to what you're saying.

1274
01:04:05,200 --> 01:04:08,500
I suppose you could say that you wrote that paper with the idea of

1275
01:04:08,500 --> 01:04:11,100
flexibility in mind about the paper itself that you could

1276
01:04:11,100 --> 01:04:14,600
adjust it to future questions. That might emerge 10

1277
01:04:14,600 --> 01:04:14,900
years later.

1278
01:04:16,200 --> 01:04:19,400
But I think that that's a very just I mean I want to give time for other people to

1279
01:04:19,400 --> 01:04:22,300
raise questions. You're racing a very important point because a

1280
01:04:22,300 --> 01:04:23,600
lot of times in design, we think

1281
01:04:24,500 --> 01:04:27,400
We don't take the idea of writing seriously enough

1282
01:04:27,400 --> 01:04:30,300
and we adapt to circumstances as

1283
01:04:30,300 --> 01:04:33,600
they are now letting go of some of the variety which then

1284
01:04:33,600 --> 01:04:36,300
becomes impossible to bring back that

1285
01:04:36,300 --> 01:04:39,700
might be needed for a future environment that we cannot predict.

1286
01:04:40,400 --> 01:04:43,600
Right and so cold here

1287
01:04:43,600 --> 01:04:46,500
making an adaptation without it being in the

1288
01:04:46,500 --> 01:04:49,500
Philippines or about this also without it being a mallet adaptation that

1289
01:04:49,500 --> 01:04:52,200
you we've lost the variety and that we're now

1290
01:04:52,200 --> 01:04:56,100
addicted or stuck in some place. Yeah. No, I

1291
01:04:55,100 --> 01:04:58,600
I think that kind of framing is

1292
01:04:58,600 --> 01:05:01,600
is very useful and one of the things I mentioned in some

1293
01:05:01,600 --> 01:05:04,800
pre conversation chat with with the

1294
01:05:04,800 --> 01:05:08,300
other friend and Philip and it's

1295
01:05:08,300 --> 01:05:11,800
a kind of slightly out there substation, but looking yeah, I

1296
01:05:11,800 --> 01:05:14,600
mean first of all, I'm always amused by you know,

1297
01:05:14,600 --> 01:05:17,500
if we look where various characters are in kind

1298
01:05:17,500 --> 01:05:20,300
of 68 and and you've got you people like

1299
01:05:20,300 --> 01:05:24,000
the laws of guitar. He literally, you know on the streets

1300
01:05:23,400 --> 01:05:26,200
aligned with certain, you know,

1301
01:05:26,200 --> 01:05:30,000
social movements and part of a new

1302
01:05:29,200 --> 01:05:30,400
left project.

1303
01:05:31,700 --> 01:05:34,300
And we kind of ironically then find that

1304
01:05:34,300 --> 01:05:37,400
that Bateson not even metaphorically literally,

1305
01:05:37,400 --> 01:05:40,100
you know, but for those Summers of the

1306
01:05:40,100 --> 01:05:43,300
late 60s is literally in a tower literally in a

1307
01:05:43,300 --> 01:05:46,400
in a castle on top of a mountain pulling together

1308
01:05:46,400 --> 01:05:49,900
a small group of collaborators. We've got yeah one

1309
01:05:49,900 --> 01:05:52,600
Bunch on the streets another event in almost literally

1310
01:05:52,600 --> 01:05:54,100
and I've every Tower but then

1311
01:05:55,100 --> 01:05:58,100
Fascinatingly one of the things that that we can

1312
01:05:58,100 --> 01:06:01,400
almost see that he's trying to do in that very

1313
01:06:01,400 --> 01:06:04,800
abstract isolated work in those human adaptation

1314
01:06:04,800 --> 01:06:05,400
conferences.

1315
01:06:06,100 --> 01:06:07,600
Is actually try to Define.

1316
01:06:08,600 --> 01:06:11,600
the the safe limits and the ways of

1317
01:06:11,600 --> 01:06:14,800
beginning to go about some kind of socio-ecological project

1318
01:06:14,800 --> 01:06:16,200
that the

1319
01:06:17,100 --> 01:06:20,600
People on the streets were you know fighting for in some

1320
01:06:20,600 --> 01:06:23,300
sense? And so that again, I

1321
01:06:23,300 --> 01:06:26,200
mean, it seems like yeah that the nature of what are the

1322
01:06:26,200 --> 01:06:30,500
safe possibilities of changing systems.

1323
01:06:30,500 --> 01:06:32,600
How do we build in those sensitivities?

1324
01:06:33,500 --> 01:06:34,600
That kind of conversation.

1325
01:06:35,700 --> 01:06:39,000
I mean, it just seems it's such an important conversation today

1326
01:06:38,400 --> 01:06:39,900
still and and

1327
01:06:41,200 --> 01:06:44,400
again, I guess one of the points of convening this panel

1328
01:06:44,400 --> 01:06:47,400
was to try to inject that back into or you

1329
01:06:47,400 --> 01:06:50,100
know in for many people here. I'm sure it's already there. But you know

1330
01:06:50,100 --> 01:06:53,400
so many of the very important discussions that

1331
01:06:53,400 --> 01:06:56,800
we have in right now in design schools about, you

1332
01:06:56,800 --> 01:06:59,800
know, just transitions climate Justice Green

1333
01:06:59,800 --> 01:07:01,400
New Deal projects.

1334
01:07:02,700 --> 01:07:05,400
You know large-scale ecological and social

1335
01:07:05,400 --> 01:07:08,300
planning is is back on the table of

1336
01:07:08,300 --> 01:07:12,100
conversation again, it's not in the in our actual political

1337
01:07:11,100 --> 01:07:15,200
immediate reality in the first

1338
01:07:15,200 --> 01:07:18,200
way really I think since you know in these five

1339
01:07:18,200 --> 01:07:22,300
decades since since you know that counterculture generation

1340
01:07:21,300 --> 01:07:24,400
and and and the various

1341
01:07:24,400 --> 01:07:27,200
other Natures at 68 events took in in Europe and so

1342
01:07:27,200 --> 01:07:30,400
on we're on the table, but it

1343
01:07:30,400 --> 01:07:33,700
also worries me on the one hand. Yes. We do have much much better

1344
01:07:33,700 --> 01:07:37,400
idea of the complexity of systems and

1345
01:07:37,400 --> 01:07:40,300
so on and and IPC and all

1346
01:07:40,300 --> 01:07:40,900
those kind of you.

1347
01:07:41,900 --> 01:07:44,600
Bodies of managing and modeling.

1348
01:07:44,600 --> 01:07:47,500
These data sets are well aware of that. But

1349
01:07:47,500 --> 01:07:50,200
on the one hand, you know, they are still doing it. It seems on on

1350
01:07:50,200 --> 01:07:54,500
largely quantitative matter and energy models

1351
01:07:53,500 --> 01:07:56,200
rather than you know

1352
01:07:56,200 --> 01:07:59,900
semiotic models that might require a

1353
01:07:59,900 --> 01:08:01,600
different kind of subject to engage with them.

1354
01:08:02,500 --> 01:08:05,200
And and indeed the same kind of

1355
01:08:05,200 --> 01:08:08,200
assumption that we we just need the right plans and

1356
01:08:08,200 --> 01:08:10,200
then implementing them be a problem.

1357
01:08:11,700 --> 01:08:11,700
Um

1358
01:08:12,700 --> 01:08:15,300
And so we kind of need I think to to

1359
01:08:15,300 --> 01:08:18,500
both enrich, but you know pull this this

1360
01:08:18,500 --> 01:08:21,700
material back into that kind of come, you know, new socioecological

1361
01:08:21,700 --> 01:08:24,500
planning conversation that there is very vibrant, you

1362
01:08:24,500 --> 01:08:27,800
know in schools in in various projects

1363
01:08:27,800 --> 01:08:30,200
political emerging political projects around the

1364
01:08:30,200 --> 01:08:30,300
world.

1365
01:08:31,200 --> 01:08:35,000
I mean, I'm into the green new deal with their various versions and manifestations

1366
01:08:34,200 --> 01:08:35,500
of that.

1367
01:08:36,600 --> 01:08:39,300
And so yes, I mean once again, I guess I'm curious in

1368
01:08:39,300 --> 01:08:42,300
in both of the historical material and working with

1369
01:08:42,300 --> 01:08:44,400
that but also, you know is there.

1370
01:08:46,200 --> 01:08:49,800
Don't be how we do have a question also from I think

1371
01:08:49,800 --> 01:08:50,600
Natalia.

1372
01:08:51,300 --> 01:08:54,800
And would you want to post the question Natalia? So

1373
01:08:54,800 --> 01:08:56,400
you have post two questions in the chat?

1374
01:08:57,500 --> 01:08:59,300
But you could also directly kind of.

1375
01:09:08,500 --> 01:09:09,900
Are you still there or?

1376
01:09:11,900 --> 01:09:14,200
We can't hear you Natalie. You have to turn off your mute.

1377
01:09:26,400 --> 01:09:29,400
She might not be there. Okay, so then do

1378
01:09:29,400 --> 01:09:32,000
we move on to someone else who might have a question?

1379
01:09:36,300 --> 01:09:39,300
I mean

1380
01:09:39,300 --> 01:09:43,800
we could read out the taliers. What question right? Yes. Oh,

1381
01:09:42,800 --> 01:09:45,700
yeah her Mike. She says her microphone

1382
01:09:45,700 --> 01:09:48,700
was disabled earlier. Can you try to speak now? Or

1383
01:09:48,700 --> 01:09:51,300
if not, yeah. If not, we could read out what

1384
01:09:51,300 --> 01:09:52,300
you have written here is

1385
01:09:54,800 --> 01:09:57,300
so I'd read out your second question,

1386
01:09:57,300 --> 01:10:00,300
which is did Bates never Envision a

1387
01:10:00,300 --> 01:10:03,500
different role for the military or did he foresee the structure

1388
01:10:03,500 --> 01:10:06,500
as possibly existing without hierarchy?

1389
01:10:09,900 --> 01:10:11,200
I don't know Philip. Do you know?

1390
01:10:12,500 --> 01:10:15,300
He wasn't speculative in exactly that

1391
01:10:15,300 --> 01:10:16,900
way. I I think that he

1392
01:10:18,600 --> 01:10:21,600
his model was always like the natural world. So

1393
01:10:21,600 --> 01:10:24,900
on that creates a

1394
01:10:24,900 --> 01:10:27,800
kind of interesting perspective with regard to

1395
01:10:27,800 --> 01:10:30,300
systems that are actually there in

1396
01:10:30,300 --> 01:10:33,800
the world whether they're you know companies.

1397
01:10:36,200 --> 01:10:40,000
Nations, you know militaries what

1398
01:10:39,200 --> 01:10:42,300
have you they exist what you

1399
01:10:42,300 --> 01:10:46,200
know, what are the Dynamics that they're engaged

1400
01:10:45,200 --> 01:10:48,500
in? What are the Dynamics that form them?

1401
01:10:48,500 --> 01:10:52,100
He didn't do

1402
01:10:51,100 --> 01:10:54,600
this sort of World building that you would need to try

1403
01:10:54,600 --> 01:10:57,600
to invent a structure that

1404
01:10:57,600 --> 01:10:59,100
was different in that way.

1405
01:11:01,300 --> 01:11:04,700
I don't think he used his imagination particularly that

1406
01:11:04,700 --> 01:11:07,300
kind of Direction. I Would jump on that question

1407
01:11:07,300 --> 01:11:10,300
and say that I agree with that. I don't know nothing that he's written about the military

1408
01:11:10,300 --> 01:11:13,200
particularly. But embedded in that question is another level of

1409
01:11:13,200 --> 01:11:16,100
problem that I think John was pointing us to as well, you know,

1410
01:11:16,100 --> 01:11:19,100
we have a legacy problem Bateson has urged us to

1411
01:11:19,100 --> 01:11:22,300
think about design for the local and to empower the

1412
01:11:22,300 --> 01:11:24,900
local to empower diversity to empower flexibility.

1413
01:11:25,900 --> 01:11:29,200
And yet we're living at a time when empowering the

1414
01:11:29,200 --> 01:11:32,200
local is literally the engine by which Facebook

1415
01:11:32,200 --> 01:11:35,500
makes its money and it's also I

1416
01:11:35,500 --> 01:11:38,100
would argue something that that where the local

1417
01:11:38,100 --> 01:11:41,400
is a very different kind of local if you're if your Bateson

1418
01:11:41,400 --> 01:11:44,400
and you're living in a castle with really brilliant other

1419
01:11:44,400 --> 01:11:47,500
folks working in a team of folks who are planning the local

1420
01:11:47,500 --> 01:11:50,300
looks pretty sweet. If you come from a

1421
01:11:50,300 --> 01:11:53,700
very small rural town as I do where the dairy industry

1422
01:11:53,700 --> 01:11:56,400
is struggling the local is pretty

1423
01:11:56,400 --> 01:11:59,100
crummy and you kind of wish that people would come and

1424
01:11:59,100 --> 01:11:59,600
intervene.

1425
01:12:00,200 --> 01:12:04,900
And sometimes I think what we see in the world of January

1426
01:12:03,900 --> 01:12:07,000
6th and neo-fascism. We

1427
01:12:06,400 --> 01:12:09,700
see local contexts highly

1428
01:12:09,700 --> 01:12:12,500
individuated people people who've been cut off from larger systems

1429
01:12:12,500 --> 01:12:15,800
trying to come together and form some

1430
01:12:15,800 --> 01:12:18,300
kind of new order that will get people to pay attention to

1431
01:12:18,300 --> 01:12:19,700
their particular local setting.

1432
01:12:20,500 --> 01:12:23,700
and so my challenge for us is how

1433
01:12:23,700 --> 01:12:24,000
do we

1434
01:12:24,900 --> 01:12:27,300
Rethink a local that includes

1435
01:12:27,300 --> 01:12:30,100
locals that aren't like ours. I think that's

1436
01:12:30,100 --> 01:12:33,200
really the challenge. How do we do that? And the natural order

1437
01:12:33,200 --> 01:12:36,300
makes room for lots of different kinds of things and Embraces them in

1438
01:12:36,300 --> 01:12:39,300
a whole and maybe that's the sort of benevolent Vision that

1439
01:12:39,300 --> 01:12:42,500
comes from bateson's work. We can imagine a hole that includes species that

1440
01:12:42,500 --> 01:12:43,000
aren't like

1441
01:12:43,900 --> 01:12:46,300
and and practice attending to

1442
01:12:46,300 --> 01:12:49,500
that place and parts of the military perversely have

1443
01:12:49,500 --> 01:12:53,200
tried to do that. And of course it comes out sideways, but but that's

1444
01:12:52,200 --> 01:12:55,300
something that's hiding in that question. I think what are

1445
01:12:55,300 --> 01:12:58,900
the hierarchies what are the structures? What are the institutions through

1446
01:12:58,900 --> 01:13:01,800
which we can build a world in which the many locals

1447
01:13:01,800 --> 01:13:04,300
can actually talk to one another and exist as

1448
01:13:04,300 --> 01:13:07,300
a benevolent as the kind of benevolent hole that beats an imagined.

1449
01:13:07,700 --> 01:13:10,600
Well, I guess to build up. Okay, what's strange

1450
01:13:10,600 --> 01:13:13,700
is that he was almost taking your side

1451
01:13:13,700 --> 01:13:16,300
in a correspondence with Paul Goodman who is

1452
01:13:16,300 --> 01:13:19,600
someone who is should be mentioned here anyway,

1453
01:13:19,600 --> 01:13:22,500
because Paul Goodman was very

1454
01:13:22,500 --> 01:13:25,500
influential in this period perhaps more

1455
01:13:25,500 --> 01:13:29,100
influential in some ways than baits and

1456
01:13:29,100 --> 01:13:33,400
toward the new communitarians and a lot of the sort

1457
01:13:32,400 --> 01:13:36,400
of counterculture that I

1458
01:13:35,400 --> 01:13:38,200
think he was extremely in.

1459
01:13:39,200 --> 01:13:42,200
Influential and Bates and actually

1460
01:13:42,200 --> 01:13:46,900
argue again. Goodman's saying

1461
01:13:45,900 --> 01:13:48,300
that you should do everything with

1462
01:13:48,300 --> 01:13:51,600
the local saying some systems may not just be able to handle that

1463
01:13:51,600 --> 01:13:55,000
you're not may not be able to have for example

1464
01:13:54,500 --> 01:13:57,400
a hospital if it's going to have certain

1465
01:13:57,400 --> 01:14:00,900
machines has to serve, you

1466
01:14:00,900 --> 01:14:03,300
know certain wider area. You can't have a

1467
01:14:03,300 --> 01:14:06,600
lot of little hospitals if you're going to have an MRI. I don't

1468
01:14:06,600 --> 01:14:09,500
know they had those then but even whatever they had that

1469
01:14:09,500 --> 01:14:12,000
so there are

1470
01:14:12,100 --> 01:14:15,100
all these sort of systemic constraints as to the size of

1471
01:14:15,100 --> 01:14:18,300
whatever you're dealing with and even at that level

1472
01:14:18,300 --> 01:14:21,200
you can't be as local as Paul Goodman

1473
01:14:21,200 --> 01:14:24,300
wanted to be and so I think that

1474
01:14:24,300 --> 01:14:27,300
he was very aware of this tension. I don't think he

1475
01:14:27,300 --> 01:14:30,300
resolved it. But I think he was in he was

1476
01:14:30,300 --> 01:14:33,300
in court, you know, he's in correspondence literally they were

1477
01:14:33,300 --> 01:14:36,300
good friends. They stated each other's houses

1478
01:14:36,300 --> 01:14:36,900
and so on.

1479
01:14:37,800 --> 01:14:39,000
But that's interesting.

1480
01:14:39,700 --> 01:14:43,100
Often think just to build on that point briefly that

1481
01:14:42,100 --> 01:14:45,900
the paper that was already referenced the

1482
01:14:45,900 --> 01:14:50,200
flexibility and ecology. You're you're

1483
01:14:49,200 --> 01:14:52,600
muted. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. The

1484
01:14:52,600 --> 01:14:55,100
John Natalia is trying to get in. Yeah. She's trying to

1485
01:14:55,100 --> 01:14:58,300
say something. Yeah, Natalia you can you could kind

1486
01:14:58,300 --> 01:14:59,000
of elaborate.

1487
01:15:01,800 --> 01:15:02,300
She's gone again.

1488
01:15:09,300 --> 01:15:10,700
He was trying to talk. Yeah, okay.

1489
01:15:11,500 --> 01:15:13,400
Then John Sheila.

1490
01:15:14,400 --> 01:15:17,700
The Charlie if you want to come in after I've done if you're gonna come back for apologies, I

1491
01:15:17,700 --> 01:15:20,100
didn't realize I was just going to add that

1492
01:15:20,100 --> 01:15:20,800
in the flexibility.

1493
01:15:22,400 --> 01:15:26,000
The urban civilizations paper that actually with surprising

1494
01:15:25,400 --> 01:15:28,500
Clarity he tries to set out, you know, he says

1495
01:15:28,500 --> 01:15:31,300
what is it that we're going to try and protect them and

1496
01:15:31,300 --> 01:15:34,900
he talks about maintaining a technologically High civilization.

1497
01:15:35,900 --> 01:15:38,200
It makes money. Yeah, this isn't about

1498
01:15:38,200 --> 01:15:41,500
going that was anyway, but then talks about this need to maintain.

1499
01:15:41,500 --> 01:15:44,500
Yeah the amount

1500
01:15:44,500 --> 01:15:47,400
of variety it talks about you that the

1501
01:15:47,400 --> 01:15:50,000
civilization should match the variety of

1502
01:15:52,500 --> 01:15:55,400
I'm seeing the title is just become the co-host. So to

1503
01:15:55,400 --> 01:15:58,600
build us that idea of diversity and

1504
01:15:58,600 --> 01:16:01,500
how to promote diversity and the differences between

1505
01:16:01,500 --> 01:16:01,800
different.

1506
01:16:03,000 --> 01:16:04,000
civilizations

1507
01:16:05,800 --> 01:16:08,900
The unit fee-for-earth initiative created inaugural

1508
01:16:08,900 --> 01:16:11,600
youth Council and the idea is very much that how to mobilize

1509
01:16:11,600 --> 01:16:14,100
young people across different faiths to work

1510
01:16:14,100 --> 01:16:17,300
on the triple planetary crisis of biodiversity and climate change. So there

1511
01:16:17,300 --> 01:16:20,200
are these parallel imaginaries that are emerging the

1512
01:16:20,200 --> 01:16:24,600
very much our puzzling with that question. And I

1513
01:16:24,600 --> 01:16:27,600
guess one of the reasons why I was asking about his role

1514
01:16:27,600 --> 01:16:30,300
with the militaries if that is what his origin was and if towards

1515
01:16:30,300 --> 01:16:34,500
the end of his life, he's moving towards this idea of Peace as well.

1516
01:16:34,500 --> 01:16:38,800
I'm hearing peace when he's talking about love it's partially

1517
01:16:38,800 --> 01:16:42,500
because my own bias is coming as a peace fellow and

1518
01:16:41,500 --> 01:16:45,000
understanding peace as Johan

1519
01:16:44,300 --> 01:16:47,300
Galton does which is not just the absence of violence but

1520
01:16:47,300 --> 01:16:50,400
the presence of justice and so very much

1521
01:16:50,400 --> 01:16:54,300
looks like he's looking at how to design that in differentiating

1522
01:16:53,300 --> 01:16:57,500
and then so if that is the case could

1523
01:16:56,500 --> 01:16:59,300
it have been possible that if you were alive today,

1524
01:16:59,300 --> 01:17:02,700
he'd be looking at say planetary security and imagining

1525
01:17:02,700 --> 01:17:05,300
how the Army could be contributing to something.

1526
01:17:05,800 --> 01:17:08,200
Is more about mitigation adaptation instead of

1527
01:17:08,200 --> 01:17:11,200
what is currently happening with climate change and the

1528
01:17:11,200 --> 01:17:14,000
way that Army's currently contribute to that in terms of fossil fuel

1529
01:17:14,000 --> 01:17:14,400
consumption.

1530
01:17:16,400 --> 01:17:19,500
There's a lot in there. So a number of points of it. We're very directly

1531
01:17:19,500 --> 01:17:22,400
suitable for Philip to pick up

1532
01:17:22,400 --> 01:17:22,900
on other than

1533
01:17:23,600 --> 01:17:26,300
The questions around peace and you can answer

1534
01:17:26,300 --> 01:17:29,300
the his history regarding the military as

1535
01:17:29,300 --> 01:17:29,300
well.

1536
01:17:31,800 --> 01:17:32,100
you

1537
01:17:33,300 --> 01:17:36,900
Well, he came from science actually, his

1538
01:17:36,900 --> 01:17:40,100
father was invented the

1539
01:17:40,100 --> 01:17:43,900
word genetics and was a major biologist and Victoria and

1540
01:17:43,900 --> 01:17:44,700
era.

1541
01:17:45,200 --> 01:17:46,100
and then

1542
01:17:47,400 --> 01:17:51,200
He came out of anthropology the connection

1543
01:17:50,200 --> 01:17:53,900
with the military was shared by

1544
01:17:53,900 --> 01:17:56,200
at least two, you know it at least

1545
01:17:56,200 --> 01:18:00,400
two of these Architects by

1546
01:17:59,400 --> 01:18:02,600
all at least two of

1547
01:18:02,600 --> 01:18:05,700
the other. You know, Marcus was

1548
01:18:05,700 --> 01:18:08,700
in that I mean everyone was in the OSS that

1549
01:18:08,700 --> 01:18:11,400
but and everyone was in

1550
01:18:11,400 --> 01:18:14,400
this anti of fascist project.

1551
01:18:14,400 --> 01:18:17,900
This was really a mobilization of the intellectuals

1552
01:18:17,900 --> 01:18:20,400
that was extremely wide. So it doesn't mean he has

1553
01:18:20,400 --> 01:18:23,300
specifically at military background but it's

1554
01:18:23,300 --> 01:18:27,800
interesting. He wasn't shy to advise President

1555
01:18:26,800 --> 01:18:29,800
Kennedy science advisor this

1556
01:18:29,800 --> 01:18:32,700
going to my book where talking about

1557
01:18:32,700 --> 01:18:36,100
the Cuban Missile Crisis where

1558
01:18:35,100 --> 01:18:38,400
he wanted. I think

1559
01:18:38,400 --> 01:18:41,400
Kennedy to recognize as arguably he

1560
01:18:41,400 --> 01:18:45,000
did the openings that the Russians had

1561
01:18:44,000 --> 01:18:46,000
toward.

1562
01:18:47,300 --> 01:18:50,800
Possibility of trust but

1563
01:18:50,800 --> 01:18:53,200
he didn't think trust could be automatic. He was

1564
01:18:53,200 --> 01:18:57,400
not a pacifist. He didn't think you led withdraw. So

1565
01:18:56,400 --> 01:18:59,100
it was really a very

1566
01:18:59,100 --> 01:19:00,500
nuanced argument.

1567
01:19:01,700 --> 01:19:05,000
And although I love and respect

1568
01:19:04,700 --> 01:19:07,400
Johann Dalton's type of work very

1569
01:19:07,400 --> 01:19:11,000
much personally. I see

1570
01:19:10,500 --> 01:19:12,000
Bates and as

1571
01:19:13,600 --> 01:19:16,900
He wasn't pitching it. That way I contrast

1572
01:19:16,900 --> 01:19:17,400
it to.

1573
01:19:20,500 --> 01:19:24,300
Other figures who were more openly

1574
01:19:23,300 --> 01:19:26,500
pacifist in that

1575
01:19:26,500 --> 01:19:30,400
movement. He was really trying to do something

1576
01:19:30,400 --> 01:19:34,000
that would be relevant to Kennedy as

1577
01:19:33,100 --> 01:19:37,000
a policy maker and and

1578
01:19:36,400 --> 01:19:39,600
given that the situation was a

1579
01:19:39,600 --> 01:19:43,600
wartime situation. How could you recognize openings

1580
01:19:42,600 --> 01:19:45,600
for trust that could

1581
01:19:45,600 --> 01:19:48,900
help that situation and those openings

1582
01:19:48,900 --> 01:19:51,500
for Trust might emerge out of the very

1583
01:19:51,500 --> 01:19:54,400
sometimes said violence just to

1584
01:19:54,400 --> 01:19:57,600
be provocative, but I would say the very conflict situation

1585
01:19:57,600 --> 01:19:59,500
that exists.

1586
01:20:00,400 --> 01:20:03,400
I wouldn't say violence. He defines violence very differently

1587
01:20:03,400 --> 01:20:03,700
else.

1588
01:20:05,100 --> 01:20:08,900
So it puts the question of pacifism a

1589
01:20:08,900 --> 01:20:11,500
little bit to the side and yet it

1590
01:20:11,500 --> 01:20:14,100
is something that's very important in the

1591
01:20:14,100 --> 01:20:17,700
question of how do you recognize opportunities for peacemaking

1592
01:20:17,700 --> 01:20:20,500
given that conflict in

1593
01:20:20,500 --> 01:20:24,100
some hopefully not nuclear or even you

1594
01:20:23,100 --> 01:20:26,800
know, if we could help it Armament sort

1595
01:20:26,800 --> 01:20:29,400
of way but conflict will always exist in

1596
01:20:29,400 --> 01:20:32,500
some way. So how do you look search that for

1597
01:20:32,500 --> 01:20:34,700
openings for trust?

1598
01:20:40,300 --> 01:20:43,400
Just as a brief final anecdote to follow up

1599
01:20:43,400 --> 01:20:46,500
on on some of those questions. I'd

1600
01:20:46,500 --> 01:20:49,300
ever friend and colleague who

1601
01:20:49,300 --> 01:20:52,200
could make today better is involved actually in peace

1602
01:20:52,200 --> 01:20:52,900
studies and and

1603
01:20:54,300 --> 01:20:57,100
looking at how Military Intelligence works.

1604
01:20:58,200 --> 01:21:02,200
And he actually mentioned a couple of times either a couple of the documents

1605
01:21:01,200 --> 01:21:04,700
that the Bates and produced for

1606
01:21:04,700 --> 01:21:07,200
the OSS which

1607
01:21:07,200 --> 01:21:10,400
were actually reflecting upon how the post-war situation

1608
01:21:10,400 --> 01:21:12,600
my involve might evolve.

1609
01:21:13,200 --> 01:21:17,100
and which were apparently surprisingly astute and

1610
01:21:16,100 --> 01:21:19,600
a still, you know referred to

1611
01:21:19,600 --> 01:21:22,300
today and actually more widely just that the way

1612
01:21:22,300 --> 01:21:22,900
in which

1613
01:21:23,600 --> 01:21:25,000
paradoxically, this is a

1614
01:21:26,400 --> 01:21:29,400
Super Friends work is actually partly

1615
01:21:29,400 --> 01:21:32,500
based on this is looking at how military and if

1616
01:21:32,500 --> 01:21:36,200
you like, you know just State intelligence operatives and

1617
01:21:36,200 --> 01:21:39,300
so on are amongst the some of

1618
01:21:39,300 --> 01:21:42,700
the clearest examples of a certain kind of ecological intelligence and

1619
01:21:42,700 --> 01:21:43,600
a certain kind of

1620
01:21:45,400 --> 01:21:48,300
you know, they're really read through their pass and their based

1621
01:21:48,300 --> 01:21:51,300
on and they they're thinking about yeah, how can they abduct information

1622
01:21:51,300 --> 01:21:54,600
out of you know messy environments

1623
01:21:54,600 --> 01:21:57,000
in various ways. And so there's there's

1624
01:21:58,800 --> 01:22:01,300
Yeah, I mean the complications of this kind

1625
01:22:01,300 --> 01:22:03,300
of material and the richness of it I guess.

1626
01:22:04,300 --> 01:22:07,700
I'm I'm aware that we're well actually

1627
01:22:07,700 --> 01:22:10,600
I'm aware of two things one is is we were

1628
01:22:10,600 --> 01:22:13,300
always talking internally about this being an hour and

1629
01:22:13,300 --> 01:22:17,500
a half session and we're kind of hitting and that

1630
01:22:17,500 --> 01:22:20,500
Mark now and I'm aware that

1631
01:22:20,500 --> 01:22:23,200
friend of the other days to be getting on with and

1632
01:22:23,200 --> 01:22:23,800
they're like

1633
01:22:25,400 --> 01:22:28,200
On the are there any burning before we do close and and

1634
01:22:28,200 --> 01:22:31,600
to apparently on the conference timetabling it

1635
01:22:31,600 --> 01:22:34,200
was yeah as a two and a half hour thing. So

1636
01:22:34,200 --> 01:22:37,500
that was a product of some

1637
01:22:37,500 --> 01:22:39,300
automatic timetabling from what we understand but

1638
01:22:40,200 --> 01:22:43,300
But also yeah, are there

1639
01:22:43,300 --> 01:22:46,200
any more questions and do keep in mind that there's like

1640
01:22:46,200 --> 01:22:50,300
a series of events also happening and dialogues within

1641
01:22:49,300 --> 01:22:52,600
the conference and I think some links

1642
01:22:52,600 --> 01:22:54,300
have been provided here on the chat.

1643
01:22:55,100 --> 01:22:57,600
and but nevertheless I mean if you have

1644
01:22:58,800 --> 01:23:01,500
One more question. Perhaps we have time but if

1645
01:23:01,500 --> 01:23:01,800
not

1646
01:23:04,300 --> 01:23:06,600
And seem like right? Yeah.

1647
01:23:08,400 --> 01:23:12,300
So if not, I I guess we can close this session. We

1648
01:23:11,300 --> 01:23:14,100
have it's gonna start to wrap

1649
01:23:14,100 --> 01:23:17,600
up but I don't feel it and it's been

1650
01:23:17,600 --> 01:23:20,600
a fantastic thing. I've got a whole bunch

1651
01:23:20,600 --> 01:23:21,000
of I'm

1652
01:23:21,700 --> 01:23:24,500
raised questions that I can say for for

1653
01:23:24,500 --> 01:23:27,300
a follow-up session, but it's

1654
01:23:27,300 --> 01:23:30,800
been incredibly rich and and interesting and

1655
01:23:30,800 --> 01:23:33,200
as we'd hoped it would be

1656
01:23:33,200 --> 01:23:36,900
thanks everyone for attending as well. Were there

1657
01:23:36,900 --> 01:23:37,300
any closing?

1658
01:23:38,400 --> 01:23:39,800
comments or Reflections that you

1659
01:23:41,200 --> 01:23:44,400
And that's a very glad to be here. I'm glad we're having this conversation. And I

1660
01:23:44,400 --> 01:23:47,700
I just I want to reflect on something that I think is an undertone

1661
01:23:47,700 --> 01:23:50,200
in our conversation. And that's the moral dimension of

1662
01:23:50,200 --> 01:23:53,500
design, you know, as we live in a world where design becomes

1663
01:23:53,500 --> 01:23:56,400
ever more ubiquitous many of

1664
01:23:56,400 --> 01:23:59,300
our moral dilemmas are carried out in relation to design and

1665
01:23:59,300 --> 01:24:02,700
Bateson was early to understanding that and modeled it

1666
01:24:02,700 --> 01:24:05,100
in his life and and live some of the paradoxes that are

1667
01:24:05,100 --> 01:24:08,200
what we live now, and and so I feel especially grateful to

1668
01:24:08,200 --> 01:24:11,200
be in a room. So to speak full of people who are

1669
01:24:11,200 --> 01:24:13,200
wrestling with those paradoxes. So, thanks.

1670
01:24:18,300 --> 01:24:21,700
That's that's a lovely statement and very very

1671
01:24:21,700 --> 01:24:22,700
true to what?

1672
01:24:23,800 --> 01:24:25,900
you know some of the paradoxes that he was

1673
01:24:27,100 --> 01:24:30,300
living and that he understood I one who

1674
01:24:31,300 --> 01:24:34,200
somehow bring in the whole question of the

1675
01:24:34,200 --> 01:24:38,400
natural world. It wasn't merely some sort

1676
01:24:38,400 --> 01:24:41,500
of Arcadian Vision. In fact, it wasn't that at all. He was

1677
01:24:41,500 --> 01:24:44,400
very familiar from a very early age

1678
01:24:44,400 --> 01:24:48,700
with how ecologies worked and whether

1679
01:24:47,700 --> 01:24:50,400
we you know,

1680
01:24:50,400 --> 01:24:53,600
not always things that we like happen in ecologies, but

1681
01:24:53,600 --> 01:24:56,500
he was very interested and always

1682
01:24:56,500 --> 01:24:58,400
use that as a way of modeling.

1683
01:24:59,200 --> 01:25:00,900
what happened because

1684
01:25:01,800 --> 01:25:05,200
He didn't think it was actually different to societies

1685
01:25:04,200 --> 01:25:07,400
and ecologies. He was

1686
01:25:07,400 --> 01:25:10,400
looking for the common threads just as like he would

1687
01:25:10,400 --> 01:25:15,400
look as a Common Thread in animals and

1688
01:25:14,400 --> 01:25:17,300
humans rather than

1689
01:25:17,300 --> 01:25:20,100
rather than reducing. He was

1690
01:25:20,100 --> 01:25:23,400
the opposite of a reductionist. He was willing to

1691
01:25:23,400 --> 01:25:26,300
see in animal behavior reflections of

1692
01:25:26,300 --> 01:25:29,500
what he observed in humans and then find

1693
01:25:29,500 --> 01:25:32,800
commonalities in what was going on and

1694
01:25:32,800 --> 01:25:35,200
the same between ecologies and societies and so

1695
01:25:35,200 --> 01:25:38,600
on. So this sense of continuity with

1696
01:25:38,600 --> 01:25:41,200
the natural world, which is a natural.

1697
01:25:41,200 --> 01:25:45,000
I mean, it's a continuity which is simply there in his

1698
01:25:44,000 --> 01:25:45,300
thought.

1699
01:25:45,900 --> 01:25:48,000
I think is something that I'd like to

1700
01:25:48,500 --> 01:25:51,200
emphasize no and always I thank you. Thank

1701
01:25:51,200 --> 01:25:54,400
you very fun and and always send on

1702
01:25:54,400 --> 01:25:58,200
a personality that the attention to Natural systems

1703
01:25:57,200 --> 01:26:00,600
going wrong. Oh, yeah

1704
01:26:00,600 --> 01:26:03,800
as it were, you know, the pathologist the pathological

1705
01:26:03,800 --> 01:26:06,600
potential conflict systems

1706
01:26:06,600 --> 01:26:07,100
is

1707
01:26:08,500 --> 01:26:11,500
Yeah, the nature of

1708
01:26:11,500 --> 01:26:12,800
the mess around us I guess.

1709
01:26:15,600 --> 01:26:18,500
Okay, should we I guess we should we really don't

1710
01:26:18,500 --> 01:26:21,000
know. Thank you. Thank you both and I know I know that you do need to

1711
01:26:21,100 --> 01:26:22,400
thank you very much.

1712
01:26:23,700 --> 01:26:25,400
And thank you to all three of you. So

1713
01:26:26,100 --> 01:26:29,800
thanks a lot and for all our participants and hopefully see

1714
01:26:29,800 --> 01:26:32,400
some of you know in the in the conference days.

1715
01:26:33,300 --> 01:26:37,700
Yeah, we've got the recording and I've just saved the chat. Thanks, John.

1716
01:26:37,700 --> 01:26:39,300
Thanks, Bill. Thanks Fred. Thanks everybody.