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== Personal life ==
== Personal life ==
⚫
Bateson's life was greatly affected by the death of his two brothers. John Bateson (1898-1918), the eldest of the three, was killed in World War I. Martin Bateson (1900-1922), the second brother, was then expected to follow in his father's footsteps as a scientist, but came into conflict with William over his ambition to become a poet and playwright. The resulting stress, combined with a disappointment in love, resulted in Martin's public suicide by gunshot under the statue of [[Anteros]] in [[Piccadilly Circus]], on 22 April 1922, which was John's birthday. After this event, which transformed a private family tragedy into public scandal, all William and Beatrice's ambitious expectations fell on Gregory Bateson, their only surviving son.<ref>Schuetzenberger, Anne. ''The Ancestor Syndrome''. New York, Routledge. 1998.</ref>


⚫
Bateson's first marriage, in 1936, was to American cultural anthropologist [[Margaret Mead]].<ref name="Britannica">Encyclopædia Britannica (2007). "Gregory Bateson". Britannica Concise Encyclopedia, 5 August 2007. Retrieved from http://concise.britannica.com/ebc/article-9356738/Gregory-Bateson.</ref> Bateson and Mead had a daughter, [[Mary Catherine Bateson]] (born 1939), who also became an anthropologist.{{fact}}
⚫
Bateson's life was greatly affected by the death of his two brothers. John Bateson (1898-1918), the eldest of the three, was killed in World War I. Martin, the second brother (1900-1922), was then expected to follow in his father's footsteps as a scientist, but came into conflict with William over his ambition to become a poet and playwright. The resulting stress, combined with a disappointment in love, resulted in Martin's public suicide by gunshot under the statue of [[Anteros]] in [[Piccadilly Circus]] on April 22, 1922, which was John's birthday. After this event, which transformed a private family tragedy into public scandal, all William and Beatrice's ambitious expectations fell on Gregory, their only surviving son.<ref>Schuetzenberger, Anne. ''The Ancestor Syndrome''. New York, Routledge. 1998.</ref>


⚫
Bateson decided to separate from Mead in 1947, and they were formally divorced in 1950.<ref>''To Cherish the Life of the World: Selected Letters of Margaret Mead''. Margaret M. Caffey and Patricia A. Francis, eds. With foreword by Mary Catherine Bateson. New York. Basic Books. 2006.</ref> Bateson then married his second wife, Elizabeth "Betty" Sumner (1919-1992), in 1951.<ref>Idem.</ref> She was the daughter of the [[Anglican|Episcopalian]] Bishop of Chicago, Walter Taylor Sumner. They had a son, John Sumner Bateson (born 1952), as well as twins who died in infancy. Bateson and Sumner were divorced in 1957, after which Bateson married his third wife, therapist and social worker Lois Cammack (born 1928), in 1961. They had one daughter, Nora Bateson (born 1969).<ref>Idem.</ref> Nora is married to drummer [[Dan Brubeck]], son of jazz musician [[Dave Brubeck]].{{fact}}
⚫
Bateson's first marriage, in 1936, was to American cultural anthropologist [[Margaret Mead]].<ref name="Britannica">[http://concise.britannica.com/ebc/article-9356738/Gregory-Bateson "Gregory Bateson."] Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. 5 Aug. 2007</ref> Bateson and Mead had a daughter [[Mary Catherine Bateson]] (b. 1939), who also became an anthropologist.

⚫
Bateson and Mead separated in 1947, and were divorced in 1950.<ref>''To Cherish the Life of the World: Selected Letters of Margaret Mead''. Margaret M. Caffey and Patricia A. Francis, eds. With foreword by Mary Catherine Bateson. New York. Basic Books. 2006.</ref> Bateson then married his second wife, Elizabeth "Betty" Sumner (1919-1992), in 1951.<ref>Idem.</ref> She was the daughter of the [[Anglican|Episcopalian]] Bishop of Chicago, Walter Taylor Sumner. They had a son, John Sumner Bateson (b. 1952), as well as twins who died in infancy. Bateson and Sumner were divorced in 1957, after which Bateson married therapist and social worker Lois Cammack (b. 1928) in 1961. Their daughter, Nora Bateson, was born in 1969.<ref>Idem.</ref> Nora is married to drummer [[Dan Brubeck]], son of jazz musician [[Dave Brubeck]].


== Work ==
== Work ==

Revision as of 16:21, 23 January 2010

Gregory Bateson
Born(1904-05-09)9 May 1904
Grantchester, UK
DiedJuly 4, 1980(1980-07-04) (aged 76)
San Francisco, USA
Known forDouble Bind, Ecology of mind, deuterolearning, Schismogenesis
Scientific career
Fieldsanthropology, social sciences, linguistics, cybernetics, systems theory

Gregory Bateson (9 May 1904 – 4 July 1980) was a British anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician and cyberneticist whose work intersected that of many other fields. Some of his most noted writings are to be found in his books, Steps to an Ecology of Mind (1972) and Mind and Nature (1979). Angels Fear (published posthumously in 1987) was co-authored by his daughter Mary Catherine Bateson.

Biography

Bateson was born in Grantchester, UK on 9 May 1904, the youngest of three sons of distinguished geneticist William Bateson and his wife, [Caroline] Beatrice Durham. He attended Charterhouse School from 1917 to 1921. He obtained a BA in biology at St. John's College, Cambridge in 1925 and continued at Cambridge from 1927 to 1929. Bateson lectured in linguistics at the University of Sydney 1928. From 1931 to 1937 he was a Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge[2] and then moved to the United States.

In Palo Alto, Gregory Bateson and his colleagues Donald Jackson, Jay Haley and John H. Weakland developed the double bind theory (see also Bateson Project).[3]

One of the threads that connects Bateson's work is an interest in systems theory and cybernetics, a science he helped to create as one of the original members of the core group of the Macy Conferences. Bateson's take on these fields centres upon their relationship to epistemology, and this central interest provides the undercurrents of his thought. His association with the editor and author Stewart Brand was part of a process by which Bateson’s influence widened — for from the 1970s until Bateson’s last years, a broader audience of university students and educated people working in many fields came not only to know his name but also into contact to varying degrees with his thought.

In 1956, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States. Bateson was a member of William Irwin Thompson's Lindisfarne Association. In the 1970s, he taught at the Humanistic Psychology Institute in San Francisco--which is now Saybrook University[4]--and also served as a lecturer and fellow of Kresge College at the University of California, Santa Cruz. In 1978, California Governor Jerry Brown appointed Bateson to the Board of Regents of the University of California, in which position he served until his death.

Personal life

Bateson's life was greatly affected by the death of his two brothers. John Bateson (1898-1918), the eldest of the three, was killed in World War I. Martin Bateson (1900-1922), the second brother, was then expected to follow in his father's footsteps as a scientist, but came into conflict with William over his ambition to become a poet and playwright. The resulting stress, combined with a disappointment in love, resulted in Martin's public suicide by gunshot under the statue of Anteros in Piccadilly Circus, on 22 April 1922, which was John's birthday. After this event, which transformed a private family tragedy into public scandal, all William and Beatrice's ambitious expectations fell on Gregory Bateson, their only surviving son.[4]

Bateson's first marriage, in 1936, was to American cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead.[5] Bateson and Mead had a daughter, Mary Catherine Bateson (born 1939), who also became an anthropologist.[citation needed]

Bateson decided to separate from Mead in 1947, and they were formally divorced in 1950.[6] Bateson then married his second wife, Elizabeth "Betty" Sumner (1919-1992), in 1951.[7] She was the daughter of the Episcopalian Bishop of Chicago, Walter Taylor Sumner. They had a son, John Sumner Bateson (born 1952), as well as twins who died in infancy. Bateson and Sumner were divorced in 1957, after which Bateson married his third wife, therapist and social worker Lois Cammack (born 1928), in 1961. They had one daughter, Nora Bateson (born 1969).[8] Nora is married to drummer Dan Brubeck, son of jazz musician Dave Brubeck.[citation needed]

Work

The anthropologists Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead contrasted first and Second-order cybernetics with this diagram in an interview in 1973.[9]

Double bind

Main article: double bind

In 1956 in Palo Alto Gregory Bateson and his colleagues Donald Jackson, Jay Haley and John Weakland [3] articulated a related theory of schizophrenia as stemming from double bind situations. The perceived symptoms of schizophrenia were therefore an expression of this distress, and should be valued as a cathartic and transformative experience. The double bind refers to a communication paradox described first in families with a schizophrenic member.

Full double bind requires several conditions to be met:

  1. The victim of double bind receives contradictory injunctions or emotional messages on different levels of communication (for example, love is expressed by words, and hate or detachment by nonverbal behaviour; or a child is encouraged to speak freely, but criticised or silenced whenever he or she actually does so).
  2. No metacommunication is possible – for example, asking which of the two messages is valid or describing the communication as making no sense .
  3. The victim cannot leave the communication field
  4. Failing to fulfill the contradictory injunctions is punished, e.g. by withdrawal of love.

The double bind was originally presented (probably mainly under the influence of Bateson's psychiatric co-workers) as an explanation of part of the etiology of schizophrenia. Currently it is more important as an example of Bateson's approach to the complexities of communication.

Other terms used by Bateson

  • Abduction. Used by Bateson to refer to a third scientific methodology (along with induction and deduction) which was central to his own holistic and qualitative approach. Refers to a method of comparing patterns of relationship, and their symmetry or asymmetry (as in, for example, comparative anatomy), especially in complex organic (or mental) systems. The term was originally coined by American Philosopher/Logician Charles Sanders Peirce, who used it to refer to the process by which scientific hypotheses are generated.
  • Criteria of Mind (from Mind and Nature A Necessary Unity):[10]
  1. Mind is an aggregate of interacting parts or components.
  2. The interaction between parts of mind is triggered by difference.
  3. Mental process requires collateral energy.
  4. Mental process requires circular (or more complex) chains of determination.
  5. In mental process the effects of difference are to be regarded as transforms (that is, coded versions) of the difference which preceded them.
  6. The description and classification of these processes of transformation discloses a hierarchy of logical types immanent in the phenomena.
  • Creatura and Pleroma. Borrowed from Carl Jung who applied these gnostic terms in his "Seven Sermons To the Dead".[11] Like the Hindu term maya, the basic idea captured in this distinction is that meaning and organization are projected onto the world. Pleroma refers to the non-living world that is undifferentiated by subjectivity; Creatura for the living world, subject to perceptual difference, distinction, and information.
  • Deuterolearning. A term he coined in the 1940s referring to the organization of learning, or learning to learn:[12]

See also

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Publications

Books
  • Bateson, G. (1958 (1936)). Naven: A Survey of the Problems suggested by a Composite Picture of the Culture of a New Guinea Tribe drawn from Three Points of View. Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-804-70520-8. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
  • Bateson, G., Mead, M. (1942). Balinese Character: A Photographic Analysis. New York Academy of Sciences. ISBN 0890727805.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  • Ruesch, J., Bateson, G. (1951). Communication: The Social Matrix of Psychiatry. W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 039302377X.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  • Bateson, G. (1972). Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology. University Of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-03905-6.
  • Bateson, G. (1979). Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity (Advances in Systems Theory, Complexity, and the Human Sciences). Hampton Press. ISBN 1-57273-434-5.
  • (published posthumously), Bateson, G., Bateson, MC. (1988). Angels Fear: Towards an Epistemology of the Sacred. University Of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0553345810.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  • (published posthumously), Bateson, G., Donaldson, Rodney E. (1991). A Sacred Unity: Further Steps to an Ecology of Mind. Harper Collins. ISBN 0-06-250110-3. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: checksum (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
Articles, a selection
  • 1956, Bateson, G., Jackson, D. D., Jay Haley & Weakland, J., "Toward a Theory of Schizophrenia", Behavioral Science, vol.1, 1956, 251-264.
  • Bateson, G. & Jackson, D. (1964). "Some varieties of pathogenic organization. In Disorders of Communication". Research Publications. 42. Association for Research in Nervous and Mental Disease: 270–283.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  • 1978, Malcolm, J., "The One-Way Mirror" (reprinted in the collection "The Purloined Clinic"). Ostensibly about family therapist Salvador Minuchin, essay digresses for several pages into a meditation on Bateson's role in the origin of family therapy, his intellectual pedigree, and the impasse he reached with Jay Haley.
Documentary film

Trivia

  • Bateson is often given as the origin of the story concerning the replacement of the huge oak beams of the main hall of New College, Oxford with trees planted on college land several hundred years previously for that express purpose[15]. Although the precise facts do not entirely match the story, it is commonly cited as an admirable example of planning ahead.[16]

References

  1. ^ Thomas Hylland Eriksen, "Bateson and the North Sea Ethnicity paradigm" [1]
  2. ^ NNBD, Gregory Bateson, Soylent Communications, 2007.
  3. ^ a b Bateson, G.; Jackson, D. D.; Haley, J.; Weakland, J. (1956), "Toward a theory of schizophrenia", Behavioral Science, 1: 251–264
  4. ^ Schuetzenberger, Anne. The Ancestor Syndrome. New York, Routledge. 1998.
  5. ^ Encyclopædia Britannica (2007). "Gregory Bateson". Britannica Concise Encyclopedia, 5 August 2007. Retrieved from http://concise.britannica.com/ebc/article-9356738/Gregory-Bateson.
  6. ^ To Cherish the Life of the World: Selected Letters of Margaret Mead. Margaret M. Caffey and Patricia A. Francis, eds. With foreword by Mary Catherine Bateson. New York. Basic Books. 2006.
  7. ^ Idem.
  8. ^ Idem.
  9. ^ Interview with Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead, in: CoEvolutionary Quarterly, June 1973.
  10. ^ Bateson, Gregory (1972). Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology. University Of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-03905-6.
  11. ^ Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Vintage Books, 1961, ISBN 0-394-70268-9, p. 378
  12. ^ Visser, Max (2002). Managing knowledge and action in organizations; towards a behavioral theory of organizational learning. EURAM Conference, Organizational Learning and Knowledge Management, Stockholm, Sweden.
  13. ^ Form, Substance, and Difference, in Steps to an Ecology of Mind, p. 448-466
  14. ^ [2] [3]
  15. ^ Brand, Stewart, How Buildings Learn; what happens after they're built, Penguin, 1994, pp130-1
  16. ^ http://msgboard.snopes.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=99;t=000102;p=1

Further reading

Wikiquote has quotations related to Gregory Bateson.
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