Gregory Bateson facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Gregory Bateson
Rudolph Arnheim (L) and Bateson (R) speaking at the American Federation of Arts 48th Annual Convention, 1957 Apr 6 / Eliot Elisofon, photographer American Federation of Arts records, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution
Born	(1904-05-09)9 May 1904 Grantchester, England
Died	4 July 1980(1980-07-04) (aged 76) San Francisco, California, U.S.
Known for	Double bind, ecology of mind, deuterolearning, schismogenesis
Spouse(s)	Margaret Mead ​ ​ (m. 1936; div. 1950)​ Elizabeth Sumner ​ ​ (m. 1951; div. 1957)​ Lois Cammack ​ ​ (m. 1961)​
Children	5, including Mary C. Bateson
Scientific career
Fields	Anthropology, social sciences, linguistics, cybernetics, systems theory
Influences	Margaret Mead, Conrad Hal Waddington, Warren McCulloch, Norbert Wiener, John von Neumann, Evelyn Hutchinson, Julian Bigelow Carl Jung
Influenced	John C. Lilly, Heinz von Foerster, Jerry Brown, Richard Bandler, Stewart Brand, Gilles Deleuze, John Grinder, Félix Guattari, Jay Haley, Don D. Jackson, Bradford Keeney, Stephen Nachmanovitch, William Irwin Thompson, R. D. Laing, Paul Watzlawick, Carl Whitaker, Niklas Luhmann, Sharon Traweek; biosemiotics, application of type theory in social sciences, communication theory, ethnicity theory, evolutionary biology, family therapy, brief therapy, neuro-linguistic programming, systemic coaching, anti-psychiatry, visual anthropology

Gregory Bateson (born May 9, 1904 – died July 4, 1980) was an English scientist. He studied many different fields. These included anthropology (the study of human societies), social sciences, linguistics (the study of language), and cybernetics (the study of control and communication in living things and machines).

Bateson's work often focused on systems theory. This is a way of understanding how different parts of a system work together. He was part of important meetings called the Macy conferences. There, he shared ideas about how social and behavior sciences connect to epistemology (the study of knowledge). He also helped create the idea of the double bind theory in Palo Alto, California.

Early Life and Education

Gregory Bateson was born in Grantchester, England, on May 9, 1904. He was the youngest of three sons. His father, William Bateson, was a famous scientist who studied genetics. Gregory was named after Gregor Mendel, who is known as the founder of modern genetics.

Gregory went to Charterhouse School from 1917 to 1921. He then studied biology at St. John's College, Cambridge, and earned his degree in 1925. He continued his studies at Cambridge until 1929.

Career Highlights

In 1928, Bateson taught about language at the University of Sydney in Australia. From 1931 to 1937, he was a Fellow at St. John's College, Cambridge. Before World War II, he spent time in New Guinea and Bali in the South Pacific. There, he did important research in anthropology.

During the 1940s, Bateson helped apply systems theory and cybernetics to how people and societies behave. He also worked for the OSS during World War II. He used his ideas, like schismogenesis, to understand how groups might create disagreements.

In Palo Alto, California, Bateson and his team developed the double-bind theory. This theory was part of the Bateson Project from 1953 to 1963. In 1956, he became a citizen of the United States.

Bateson was a key member of the Macy conferences on cybernetics. He represented the social and behavioral sciences in these meetings. In the 1970s, he taught at the Humanistic Psychology Institute in San Francisco. He also joined the faculty at Kresge College at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

In 1976, he became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was also appointed to the Regents of the University of California by Governor Jerry Brown. He held this position until his death.

Bateson spent his later years working on a "meta-science" of epistemology. He wanted to connect different ideas from systems theory across various science fields.

Personal Life and Family

From 1936 to 1950, Gregory Bateson was married to Margaret Mead, a famous American anthropologist. They had a daughter named Mary Catherine Bateson (1939–2021), who also became an anthropologist.

After divorcing Mead in 1950, Bateson married Elizabeth "Betty" Sumner in 1951. They had a son, John Sumner Bateson (1951–2015). They also had twins who sadly died soon after birth in 1953. Bateson and Sumner divorced in 1957.

In 1961, Bateson married Lois Cammack, a therapist and social worker. They had one daughter, Nora Bateson (born 1969). Bateson was an atheist throughout his life. He died on July 4, 1980, at the age of 76.

Bateson's Ideas

Gregory Bateson had a unique way of looking at the world. He often saw simple connections where others saw confusing details. He believed that even big historical events could be understood by looking at how relationships work. For example, he thought the Treaty of Versailles showed a pattern of bad human relationships. He saw cybernetics as a way to improve these relationships.

Key Research and Work

Studying People in New Guinea

Bateson started his anthropology work in New Guinea in 1927. He wanted to see how contact with white people affected the local groups. His first studies with the Baining were difficult. They did not share much about their culture. He then studied the Sulka, but felt their culture was disappearing.

He had more success with the Iatmul people along New Guinea's Sepik River. Here, he developed his idea of schismogenesis. In his 1936 book Naven, he explained it as a process where people's behaviors change and affect each other. It's like a "vicious circle" where one person's actions cause a reaction, which then affects the first person, and so on.

Bateson described two types of schismogenesis:

• Symmetrical relationships: Both sides act in similar ways, like competitors in a sport.
• Complementary relationships: One side acts one way, and the other acts differently, like a parent and child (dominance-submission).

His book Naven was very important in anthropology. Before this, most anthropologists just described cultures. Bateson argued that how an anthropologist studied a culture always shaped what they found. He showed that there was no single way to understand the Iatmul 'naven' ceremony. Instead, he looked at it from different angles: how it helped society, how it related to emotions, and how it connected to thought patterns.

Research in Bali

Bateson later traveled to Bali with his wife, Margaret Mead. They studied the people of Bajoeng Gede village. They used film and took many photographs, which was new for research at the time.

They noticed that Balinese parents raised their children differently from Western societies. Balinese mothers might ignore a child who was showing strong emotions, like anger or great affection. This led Bateson to describe Balinese interactions as "stasis" rather than schismogenesis. Their interactions were calmer and did not often lead to escalating competition or dominance.

Bateson and Margaret Mead contrasted first and second-order cybernetics with this diagram in an interview in 1973.

Double Bind Theory

In 1956, Bateson and his team in Palo Alto developed the double bind theory. This theory suggested that some communication patterns could lead to problems like schizophrenia.

A double bind happens when:

• Someone receives mixed messages (e.g., words say "I love you," but body language shows anger).
• They cannot talk about the mixed messages or ask for clarification.
• They cannot leave the situation.
• They are punished if they don't follow the confusing messages.

Bateson and his colleagues thought that the unusual behavior of people with schizophrenia might be a way of dealing with these confusing situations. Today, the double bind is seen as an important example of Bateson's ideas about how complex communication can be.

Evolution and Physical Changes

Bateson also wrote about how physical changes in the body happen during evolution. He introduced the idea of "economics of flexibility." This means that an organism's ability to adapt to new stresses is limited. He suggested that new environmental stresses don't automatically make an organism change physically to survive. Instead, these stresses can weaken the organism.

He also thought that changes in an organism's genetics (its inherited traits) often require the body to adjust. He believed that organisms that have changed recently might be more delicate. Over time, new "breeds" might become more resistant to environmental stresses.

Ecology and Cybernetics

In his book Steps to an Ecology of Mind, Bateson used cybernetics to understand ecological anthropology. He saw the world as a series of interconnected systems: individuals, societies, and ecosystems. These systems have competition and dependency. They adapt using feedback loops to keep things balanced.

Bateson believed that all these systems were part of one big cybernetic system, which he called "Mind." He thought that human consciousness, especially in Western cultures, often works against this "Mind." He argued that focusing only on goals and control, without understanding the whole system, could lead to problems for the environment and for humanity.

He suggested that humans need to be humble and accept the natural cybernetic system. He believed that combining conscious thought with unconscious feelings, like in religion and art, could lead to greater wisdom. This wisdom would help humans live in harmony with the "Mind" instead of being in constant competition with it.

Other Terms Used by Bateson

• Abduction: A way of thinking that compares patterns and their similarities or differences, especially in complex systems.
• Criteria of Mind: Bateson listed several points that describe what "Mind" is. For example, Mind is made of interacting parts, and it works by noticing differences.
• Creatura and Pleroma: Ideas borrowed from Carl Jung. Pleroma is the non-living world without differences, while Creatura is the living world where we see differences and meaning.
• Deuterolearning: Learning to learn, or how learning itself is organized.
• Schismogenesis: The process where divisions or differences emerge within social groups.
• Information: Bateson famously defined information as "a difference which makes a difference."

Continuing His Work

In 1984, his daughter Mary Catherine Bateson wrote a book about her parents, Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead.

His other daughter, Nora Bateson, made a documentary film called An Ecology of Mind. This film explores her father's ideas and premiered in 2011.

The Bateson Idea Group (BIG) was started in 2010 to continue discussing and sharing Bateson's ideas.

See also