LP+Annotation+3


 * Full citation? **

Bateson, Gregory, and Mary Catherine Bateson. //Steps to an Ecology of Mind //. Vol. 988. New York: Ballantine Books, 1972.


 * Where are the author/s located, what are their backgrounds and what kinds of expertise do they have? **

Gregory Bateson was an English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician and cyberneticist. His notable works include // Steps to an Ecology of Mind // (1972) and // Mind and Nature // (1979).


 * List of at least three details or examples from the text that point to something important about culture, education and/or the challenge of environmental sustainability in the United States. **

Bateson coined the term schismogenesis to mark the rivalry, or literally creation of division, that occurs between categorical equals as their cultures clash.

Bateson suggests that art can be an expression of the unconscious - or play - whose function is to communicate in a way that the creator could not do verbally. Specifically, he quotes Isadora Duncan: "If I could tell you what it meant, there would be no point in dancing it." "It is, in fact, precisely the sort of message which would be falsified if communicated in words, because the use of words (other than poetry) would imply that this is a fully conscious and voluntary message, and this would be simply untrue." (147) It's significant to point out here that artistic expression still requires skill - garnered through some form of habituation or practice. It is only after this practice and conditioning that space for creative expression opens up.


 * What three quotes capture the critical import of the text? **

//"Definition: A metalogue is a conversation about some problematic subject. This conversation should be such that not only do the participants discuss the problem but the structure of the conversation as a whole is also relevant to the same subject."//

"F: Yes - it was about the muddles that we get into in these talks and how getting into muddles makes a sort of sense. If we didn't get into muddles, our talks would be like playing rummy without first shuffling the cards." D: Yes, Daddy - but what about those things - the ready-made sticks of letters? F: The cliches? Yes - it's the same thing. We all have lots of ready-made phrases and ideas, and the printer has ready-made sticks of letters, all sorted out into phrases. But if the printer wants to print something new - say, something in a new language, he will have to break up all that old sorting of the letters. In the same way, in order to think new thoughts or to say new things, we have to break up all our ready-made ideas and shuffle the pieces." (26)

"D: But is it a game, Daddy? Do you play against me? F: No. I think of it as you and I playing together against the building blocks - the ideas. Sometimes competing a bit - but competing as to who can get the next idea into place. And somethings we attach each other's bit of building, or I will try to defend my built-up ideas from your criticism. But always in the end we are working together to build the ideas up so that they will stand." (27)

"F: Let's go back to the question which you asked and which I said was too difficult to answer today. We were talking about the printer breaking up his cliches, and you said that he would still keep some sort of order among his letters - to keep from going mad. And then you asked "What sort of order should we cling to so that when we get into a muddle we do not go mad?" It seems to me that the "rules" of the game is only another name for that sort of order.... F: Yes. The point is that the purpose of these conversations is to discover the "rules." It's like life - a game whose purpose is to discover the rules, which rules are always changing and always undiscoverable." (29)

"I want to emphasize that whenever we pride ourselves upon finding a newer, stricter way of thought or exposition; whenever we start insisting too hard upon "operationalism" or symbolic logic or any other of these essential systems of tramlines, we lose something of the ability to think new thoughts. and equally, of course, whenever we rebel against the sterile rigidity of formal thought and exposition and let our ideas run wild, we likewise lose. As I see it, the advances in scientific thought come from a combination of loose and strict thinking, and this combination is the most precious tool of science." (85)


 * What is the main argument of the text? **

Throughout his essay Bateson makes clear that he sees the world as a series of systems - level of context - all interacting and creating instances of both dependency and conflict. These systems thus form an ecology of contexts that both depend upon and push up against each other. Importantly, he sets forth that these systems are directed by the Mind. As the systems clash against one another, the extent to which the Mind has been molded to deal with the resulting binds marks the extent to which the individual can then navigate through contradictory situations. This capacity occurs in a hierarchy of steps - each step marking a strenghtening in an individual's ability to respond.


 * Describe at least three ways that the main argument is supported. **

Bateson outlines his term - double binds - "inner conflicts of Logical Typing." He describes double binds to arise out of repeated exposure to some contradictory external injunctions that produce some sort of internal anxiety or sense of paralysis. Double binds arise out of an individual's "transcontextual syndromes," where aspects of competing contexts collide to cause conflict or expose the individual to a cognitive paradox.

Through introducing his hierarchies of learning, Bateson suggests that there is a trajectory towards being able to achieve more critical modes of thinking. Early hierarchies of learning involve repetition, habit formation, and conditioning. Later hierarchies involve students being able to work around disruptions to habit formation and think critically. It increases logically - first students learn, and then they learn to learn, and then they learn to learn to learn. This processual understanding of learning, on the surface, seems to contradict Bateson's call for play as a mode of working through problematic situations. Yet, on the contrary, play is what allows students to strengthen their capacities and achieve new levels.

Aside for clarification: I think his point became clearer for me as we worked with the 1st grade students on writing creative stories. The ability to play in the sense of forming some sort of creative narrative was, to an extent dependent on the student's capacity for literacy. And the ability to read and write must be practiced and become a form of habit - it takes some form of skill. Mastery of reading and writing is a prerequisite to both being able to apply the skills for creative means and challenge the skills to imagine different modes of communicating.

The metalogues identified in the quotes above, both in content and structure, highlight a mode for approaching the systems clashes - or binds - that individuals find themselves within. As stated explicitly in the conversations and made apparent by the flow and adaptiveness of the conversations, escaping the messy "muddles" requires that there be flexible rules for approaching the subjects, accompanied with collaborative building. To an extent, there must be deconstruction - the breakdown of cliches - but there also must be a reshuffling of the cards, allowing for a reimagination of the conversation's trajectory. "Operationalism" or over-structuration never allows for the entry of new modes of thought or discovery. I want to emphasize that the metalogue itself is an approach to working through problematic issues. The conversation is not bounded by rules - it is permitted to examine, to question, to veer, and to transform.


 * What parts of the argument did you find most and least persuasive, and why? **

I'm totally drawn to Bateson's metaphor of the unshuffled deck of cards. Shuffling the deck is what makes the game of rummy different each time. Playing with an unshuffled deck makes the game predictable - they players can make the same "best plays" each time and this produces similar outcomes each time. By following the same types of conversation patterns, we consistently reconstitute the same modes of thinking. If we mix up the conversations, allowing them to veer and be challenged - allowing an embracing of muddles and messiness - then, like the shuffled deck of cards, we put new thought combinations into the students hands that they can go on to play in multiple different ways.

//Aside for experimentation: I wonder what it would be like to literally make a deck of cards, with each card having a paragraph of a UERP student's final report on it.//
 * // Then we could hand the deck of cards to the student and ask him or her to shuffle the cards. //
 * // We could ask the student to deal 5 cards to a group of other students. //
 * // We could then ask the students to use their deck as a starting point for talking across the subjects. //
 * // Would this be a good experiment for the making connections week? //


 * What kinds of corrective action are suggested by the text (either overt or implied)? **

Bateson draws attention to the competing contexts that students find themselves within. They must figure out ways to navigate through them in order to strengthen a capacity for critical thinking, and part of the role of the teacher is to open up spaces - not close them - for navigating through competing contexts.

I think that Bateson sets forth that working through double binds by approaching them head on, strengthens the capacity to have critical modes of thought. And upon getting there, collaborative building, challenging, reconceptualizing, experimenting, and maneuvering, allow students to approach messiness in a way that opens up the capacity for new modes of thought.


 * <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Explain how the argument and evidence in the text relates to our effort to conceptualize, design and deliver EcoEd? **

See above asides.


 * <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">What additional information has this text compelled you to seek out? (Describe what you learned in a couple of sentences, providing at least two supporting references). **

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: Arial,sans-serif;">Star, Susan Leigh, and Karen <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Ruhleder. "Steps toward an ecology of infrastructure: Design and access for large information spaces." Information systems research 7, no. 1 (1996): 111-134.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">"If we, in large-scale information systems implementation, design messaging systems blind to the discontinuous nature of the different levels of context, we end up with organizations which are split and confused, systems which are unused or circumvented, and a set of circumstances of our own creation which more deeply impress disparities on the organizational landscape."

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Susan Leigh Star and Karen Ruhleder adopt Bateson's theories of logical types and double binds in their ethnography of an interdisciplinary information system. Ultimately, they set forth an outline for designing systems while considering the conflicting contexts that users consistently find themselves within.