The Reenchantment of the World (40 page)

 

 

Much of the ethics implicit in Bateson's world view emerges quite
explicitly when his epistemology is applied to living systems. Although
it would be too much of a digression to discuss Bateson's writings on
biology, including his radical revision of Darwin's evolutionary theory,
we can nevertheless point to four crucial themes in that body of work
which have immediate ethical implications:

 

 

(1) All living systems are homeostatic, that is, they seek
to optimize rather than maximize certain variables.

 

 

(2) What we have identified as the unit of Mind turns out
to be identical to the unit of evolutionary survival.

 

 

(3) There is a fundamental physiological distinction between
addiction and acclimation.

 

 

(4) Species diversity is preferable to species homogeneity.

 

 

Let us consider each of these themes in turn.

 

 

Although it is not at first evident, points (1) and (2) turn out to be
variations on the cybernetic themes of circuitry and incompleteness. To
review these notions briefly, we might think of Mind as a circle
intersected by a plane, such that most of the circle is below the plane
and only a small arc remains visible. The Cartesian paradigm holds that
this visible portion -- mind, or conscious awareness -- is the sum total
of nonmaterial reality. (Alternatively, it is seen as epiphenomenal,
reducible to matter, and thus not really even there.) In the Freudian
version of this paradigm, the larger reality is recognized, but regarded
as dangerous, and the goal of the human system is to maximize the control
exerted by the arc to include the entire circle. Ultimately, the Freudian
goal is to transform the entire portion below the plane into the type
of thinking which exists above the plane; in short, to eradicate it.

 

 

In Jungian, Reichian, or Batesonian terms, the goal of the human system
is to make this plane highly osmotic. For Jung, what is below the plane
is the unconscious. For Reich, it is the body, the true body, ecstatic
and unarmored. For Bateson, it is tacit knowing, the complex set of
informational pathways (including the social and natural environment)
which constitute any system characterized by Mind. For all three,
to make the plane completely permeable is to achieve wholeness, or
"grace." This achievement does not dissolve the ego, the visible arc,
but rather puts it in context, sees it as a small portion of a larger
Self. Wisdom, in Bateson's terms, is the recognition of circuitry, the
recognition of the limits of conscious control. The part can never know
the whole, but only -- if wisdom prevails -- put itself at its service.

 

 

The relation between these notions and point (1) is that the circuit
is a homeostatic system, and should there be an attempt to maximize
any single variable, including the one alternatively called "mind,"
"conscious awareness," or "purposive rationality," the system will go into
runaway, stroying itself and its immediate environment in the process.14
Physiological systems are inherently structured in this way. The human
body, for example, needs only so much calcium. We do not say, "the more
calcium I have in my body, the better," because we understand that past
a certain point any chemical element becomes toxic to an organism, no
matter how essential it is to its health. In biogical terms, the value
systems of living entities are always biased toward optimization.

 

 

Somehow, although Western society is aware of this truth in biological
terms, it pays very little attention to it otherwise. We cannot have
too much rational consciousness, too much profit or power, too many
accomplishments, too gross a Gross National Product. In cybernetic
terms, such thinking is self-destructive, unwise. Bateson notes that the
cybernetic nature of the self gets obscured to the extent that we become
mesmerized by considerations of purpose. Cybernetics has a significant
insight into the nature of stability and change. It understands that
change is part of the effort to maintain stability. Purposive behavior,
or maximizing behavior, on the other hand, limits the awareness of
circuitry and complexity and leads to progressive change -- runaway.

 

 

What is an example of an optimizing system, one that understands the facts
of circuitry, and successfully preserves its own homeostasis? In response
to this question, Bateson draws on his knowledge of Bali. The Balinese
recognize that stability requires change and flexibility, and have created
a society that Bateson appropriately calls "steady state." The emphasis is
on balance -- no variable is deliberately maximized -- and the ethics of
the situation is "karmic," that is, it obeys a law of nonlinear cause and
effect, especially with respect to the environment. As Bateson puts it,
"lack of systemic wisdom is always punished." If you fight the ecology
of a system, you lose -- especially when you "win."

 

 

Our second point, that the unit of Mind is identical to the unit of
evolutionary survival, is a variation on point (1). In cybernetic theory
the circuit is not a single individual, but the network of relations in
which he or she is embedded. Of course, any living organism satisfies
Bateson's criteria of Mind, but there are always Minds within Minds
(see Plate 19). A man by himself is a Mind, but once he picks up an
axe and starts to chop down a tree, he is part of a larger Mind. The
forest around him is a larger Mind still, and so on. In this series
of hierarchical levels, the homeostasis of the largest unit must be
the issue, as the evolution of species has demonstrated. The species
that cannot adapt to changes in its environment becomes extinct. Thus
"person" or "organism" has to be seen as a sub-Mind, not as an independent
unit. Western individualism is based on a confusion between sub-Mind
and Mind. It regards the human mind as the only mind around, free to
maximize any variables it chooses, free to ignore the homeostasis of the
larger unit. Batesonian ethics, in contrast, is based on
relationship
, the recognition of the complex network of
pathways. The posture of "Invictus," of the independent self so clear to
Western thought, is foreign to Bateson's way of thinking. He regards this
independence as a superficial freedom that, once surrendered, reveals a
different sort of freedom which is much more comprehensive. Thus he holds
that Darwin's theory of natural selection was correct -- the fittest
do survive -- but that Darwin misidentified the unit of survival. "The
unit of survival," writes Bateson, " -- either in ethics or evolution
-- is not the organism or the species but the largest system or 'power'
within which the creature lives. If the creature destroys its environment,
it destroys itself."

 

 

 

 

Plate 19. M. C. Escher, Three Worlds (1955).
Escher Foundation, Haags Gemeentemuseum, The Hague.

 

 

 

Mind, he continues, is immanent in the ecosystem, in the total
evolutionary structure. "Survival" means something different if it is
extended to include the system of ideas in a larger circuit, not just the
continuation of something bounded by skin. The ecosystem, in short, is
rational
(in the sense of being reasonable), and there is no
violating its rules without suffering certain consequences. In pitting
his own
survival against the survival of the rest of the ecosystem, in adopting
the Baconian program of technological mastery, Western man has managed,
in a mere three centuries, to throw his own survival into question. The
true unit of survival, and of Mind, is not organism or species, but
organism + environment, species + environment. If you choose the wrong
unit, and believe it is somehow all right to pollute Lake Erie until
it loses its Mind, then you will go a little insane yourself, because
you are a sub-Mind in a larger Mind that you have driven a bit crazy. In
other words, says Bateson, the resulting insanity becomes part of
your
thought and experience, and there are clear limits to how
many times you
can create such situations before the planet decides to render you extinct
in order to save itself. The Judeo-Christian tradition sees us as masters
of the household. Batesonian holism sees us as guests in nature's home.

 

 

To conclude points (1) and (2), then, the world view advocated by Bateson,
in both its ethics
and
its epistemology, is in direct contrast with
secular humanism, the Renaissance tradition of individual achievement and
mastery over nature. Bateson regards this sort of arrogance as completely
unscientific. His own humanism, like that of Claude Lévi-Strauss,
is based on the lessons of myths, the wisdom of "primitives," and the
archaic algorithms of the heart. It is not opposed to the scientific
intellect, but only to the inability of that world view to locate itself
in a larger context.

 

 

The third point, that of the basic physiological distinction between
acclimation and addiction, describes what happens when a homeostatic
system is disturbed.15 Bateson illustrates acclimation as follows:

 

 

If a man is moved from sea level to 10,000 feet, he may begin to
pant and his heart may race. But these first changes are swiftly
reversible: if he descends the same day, they will disappear
immediately. If, however, he remains at the high altitude, a second
line of defence appears. He will become slowly acclimated as a result
of complex physiological changes. His heart will cease to race, and
he will no longer pant unless he undertakes some special exertion. If
now he returns to sea level, the characteristics of the second line
of defence will disappear rather slowly and he may even experience
some discomfort.

 

 

As Bateson points out, the process of acclimation manifests an impressive
similarity to learning, especially Learning II. In fact, acclimation
is a special case of the latter. The system becomes dependent upon the
continual presence of a factor that was initially regarded as extraneous;
it deutero-learns a new context. The same thing is true of addiction,
but the factor in that case is actually inimical to the survival of the
system, and -- as we have seen in the case of alcoholism -- reversibility
is impossible without undergoing severe symptoms of withdrawal or, when
the situation finally hits bottom, a shift in the entire world view
(Learning III).

 

 

The problem is that the line between the two types of learning,
acclimation and addiction, can prove to be somewhat blurry in the
long run. What began as an ingenious adaptation can evolve toward
pathology. The saber teeth of a tiger can have short-range survival
value, but they vitiate flexibility in other situations that ultimately
prove to be crucial. The rest of the system adapts so as to make the
innovation less and less reversible; interaction with other species
creates further innovations that push the situation towards runaway;
flexibility is destroyed, and finally, the "favored" species is so
"favored" that it destroys its own ecological niche, and disappears. In
addiction "the innovator becomes hooked into the business of trying to
hold constant some rate of change." What began as a gain at one level
became a calamity in a larger context.

 

 

Human social systems provide many illustrations of this problem, and
Bateson cites the history of DDT as a case in point. Discovered in 1939,
the pesticide was deemed essential to increase crop yield and to save
overseas troops from malaria. It was, Bateson says, "a symptomatic
cure for troubles connected with the increase of population." By 1950,
many scientists knew that DDT was toxic to many animals, but too many
other variables had rearranged themselves to enable us to get "unhooked"
from the pestidde. A vast industry had grown up around its manufacture;
the insects at which the chemical was directed were becoming immune;
the animals that fed on those insects were being exterminated; and in
general, the use of DDT permitted an increase in world population. So
now, we are addicted to its use, and nature is attempting a correction in
ways that are frightening. DDT is now appearing in mothers milk; fish,
if they do not become poisonous as carriers of mercury, may soon become
so as carriers of DDT; forty-three species of malaria-bearing mosquitoes
are now resistant to major insecticides, and the incidence of malaria
in some countries has increased a hundredfold during the past fifteen
years. What began as an ingenious ad hoc measure wound up exacerbating
the original problem, eventually plunging us into an addictive spiral
that now threatens our existence.16

 

 

For the time being, our reaction to this situation is to seek an
increasingly larger "fix." Like the alcoholic we still believe that the
answer lies in "rational mastery," and so escalate our insecticides to
greater levels of toxicity, thereby making more dangerous insects immune,
and so raising the battle to the next higher level. Perhaps when, as
in some science fiction horror movie, giant mantises come knocking at
the door, we shall finally comprehend that "rational mastery" was the
problem; but by then it will be too late.