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Runaway: Gregory Bateson, the Double Bind, and the Rise of Ecological Consciousness
The anthropologist Gregory Bateson has been called a lost giant of twentieth-century thought. In the years following World War II, Bateson was among the group of mathematicians, engineers, and social scientists who laid the theoretical foundations of the information age. In Palo Alto in 1956, he introduced the double-bind theory of schizophrenia. By the sixties, he was in Hawaii studying dolphin communication. Bateson's discipline hopping made established experts wary, but he found an audience open to his ideas in a generation of rebellious youth. To a gathering of counterculturalists and revolutionaries in 1967 London, Bateson was the first to warn of a "greenhouse effect" that could lead to runaway climate change.
Blending intellectual biography with an ambitious reappraisal of the 1960s, Anthony Chaney uses Bateson's life and work to explore the idea that a postmodern ecological consciousness is the true legacy of the decade. Surrounded by voices calling for liberation of all kinds, Bateson spoke of limitation and dependence. But he also offered an affirming new picture of human beings and their place in the world—as ecologies knit together in a fabric of meaning that, said Bateson, "we might as well call Mind."
Blending intellectual biography with an ambitious reappraisal of the 1960s, Anthony Chaney uses Bateson's life and work to explore the idea that a postmodern ecological consciousness is the true legacy of the decade. Surrounded by voices calling for liberation of all kinds, Bateson spoke of limitation and dependence. But he also offered an affirming new picture of human beings and their place in the world—as ecologies knit together in a fabric of meaning that, said Bateson, "we might as well call Mind."
320 pages, Hardcover
Published October 2, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
April 8, 2018
Isn’t it odd that one of the 20th century's most visionary breakthroughs has not been able to enter the mainstream and decisively change our intellectual landscape? Systems science is still very much a fringe phenomenon. It has barely penetrated primary and secondary school curricula, and very few are the centers of learning that have established a dedicated systems research unit. Most often it is folded into a larger operations research, engineering, information management, or ecology department. In the wider world systems science lives on in a watered-down version known as systems thinking. System dynamics - with its toy-like assortment of archetypes, causal-loop diagrams and 'flight simulators’ - has been able to foreground itself in this area, suffocating other shoots of the bountiful systems tree. As a result, we’re risking collective amnesia as regards the original impulse behind (and scope of) the systems project.
In this context a new book on the life and work of Gregory Bateson (1904-1980) is all the more welcome. Bateson was one of the protagonists in an intellectual movement that wanted to get out of the epistemological and ethical cul-de-sac in which we had been led by our Newtonian worldview. He was a wayward personality who resisted the shackles of rigid institutions, fixed disciplines and traditional publishing formats. ’Steps to an Ecology of Mind’, his magnum opus published in 1972, is a mosaic-like collection of essays and papers that defies classification.
Anthony Chaney, the author of this intellectual biography, worked eight years on this book and it shows. It is, on the whole, a dense and beautifully crafted narrative. Runaway is a novel of ideas of sorts, in which an intriguing cast of personalities interacts with a fascinating set of ideas at the core of the systems paradigm. Admittedly, there are occasional longueurs, and Chaney pursues a few lines of thought - drawing in a motley crowd of secondary figures such as Albert Camus, Reinhold Niebuhr and Kurt Vonnegut - that I feel do not really add much to the narrative. But, on the whole, the book offers a fascinating read and an excellent opportunity to reconnect with the excitement, urgency and ambiguities of the systems movement.
The narrative traces an arc from Bateson’s earliest anthropological research to his mature thought that connected with the nascent environmental movement in the early 1970s. Then Bateson finally found an audience in the countercultural youth that revolted against the institutional fossilization of the post-war era. The book zooms in on key ideas and writings of Bateson and how they resonated (or clashed) with broader intellectual currents and ambitions for societal change. Chaney foregrounds the ‘double bind’ paradox as a pivotal element that provided a focal point and conceptual lever for much of the cybernetician's thought. It injected a sense of paradox, tragedy and limitation into the sixties’ utopian mainstream conversation.
Early on in the book Chaney evaluates Bateson’s thinking today as ‘far from revolutionary’ but his whole book is a refutation of that claim. These ideas are as fresh, counterintuitive and groundbreaking as they were fifty years ago. And, yes, it is understandable that our collective psyche resists them precisely because of their subversive character. However, there is a renewed urgency to put a deep, genuine systems perspective at the center of our societal debate as our sense of alarm, disenchantment and powerlessness is peaking. We need to get another shot at the ‘Umwertung aller Werte’ (revaluation of all values) that Bateson was aiming for.
In this context a new book on the life and work of Gregory Bateson (1904-1980) is all the more welcome. Bateson was one of the protagonists in an intellectual movement that wanted to get out of the epistemological and ethical cul-de-sac in which we had been led by our Newtonian worldview. He was a wayward personality who resisted the shackles of rigid institutions, fixed disciplines and traditional publishing formats. ’Steps to an Ecology of Mind’, his magnum opus published in 1972, is a mosaic-like collection of essays and papers that defies classification.
Anthony Chaney, the author of this intellectual biography, worked eight years on this book and it shows. It is, on the whole, a dense and beautifully crafted narrative. Runaway is a novel of ideas of sorts, in which an intriguing cast of personalities interacts with a fascinating set of ideas at the core of the systems paradigm. Admittedly, there are occasional longueurs, and Chaney pursues a few lines of thought - drawing in a motley crowd of secondary figures such as Albert Camus, Reinhold Niebuhr and Kurt Vonnegut - that I feel do not really add much to the narrative. But, on the whole, the book offers a fascinating read and an excellent opportunity to reconnect with the excitement, urgency and ambiguities of the systems movement.
The narrative traces an arc from Bateson’s earliest anthropological research to his mature thought that connected with the nascent environmental movement in the early 1970s. Then Bateson finally found an audience in the countercultural youth that revolted against the institutional fossilization of the post-war era. The book zooms in on key ideas and writings of Bateson and how they resonated (or clashed) with broader intellectual currents and ambitions for societal change. Chaney foregrounds the ‘double bind’ paradox as a pivotal element that provided a focal point and conceptual lever for much of the cybernetician's thought. It injected a sense of paradox, tragedy and limitation into the sixties’ utopian mainstream conversation.
Early on in the book Chaney evaluates Bateson’s thinking today as ‘far from revolutionary’ but his whole book is a refutation of that claim. These ideas are as fresh, counterintuitive and groundbreaking as they were fifty years ago. And, yes, it is understandable that our collective psyche resists them precisely because of their subversive character. However, there is a renewed urgency to put a deep, genuine systems perspective at the center of our societal debate as our sense of alarm, disenchantment and powerlessness is peaking. We need to get another shot at the ‘Umwertung aller Werte’ (revaluation of all values) that Bateson was aiming for.
April 3, 2018
I really enjoyed this book. I have a good familiarity with Bateson’s later work from the 1970’s and this book gave me the deep background from his prior years to fill in what I didn’t know and give me greater context for understanding what I did.
There was a great deal of information about Bateson’s place in the changes that took place in science, psychotherapy, and even politics. The author, Anthony Chaney, showed how Bateson’s theory developed and held strong through the years and changing contexts.
I came away with a greater appreciation for Bateson, someone who I greatly admired before. And I appreciated the authors attention to detail which, mostly, was not a drag on the flow of the reading experience. At a later point in the book Chaney writes that to go on into Bateson’s later years would double the size of the book, so he stopped where he did. I, for one, would love to see the sequel.
There was a great deal of information about Bateson’s place in the changes that took place in science, psychotherapy, and even politics. The author, Anthony Chaney, showed how Bateson’s theory developed and held strong through the years and changing contexts.
I came away with a greater appreciation for Bateson, someone who I greatly admired before. And I appreciated the authors attention to detail which, mostly, was not a drag on the flow of the reading experience. At a later point in the book Chaney writes that to go on into Bateson’s later years would double the size of the book, so he stopped where he did. I, for one, would love to see the sequel.
April 10, 2018
This is better than a biography of Bateson or the ecology movement. Rather it's a history of ideas, a critique of our modern culture, and a challenge to how we think about ourselves in a complex world. Be prepared to think deeply about the nature of reality.
November 1, 2018
An incredibly smart book about a fascinating human being. The argument is expansive and nuanced. The book punches above its weight, and has appeal for environmentalists, philosophers, intellectual historians, and, well, everyone!
December 29, 2017
Enter the world of a thinker not many have heard of....a thinker well ahead of his time in many, many ways. A great food for thought book.
May 28, 2018
This book explains why the sixties went long. I also liked the two William James references.
May 28, 2023
This was such an interesting book. So many times I had to stop reading just to take a day or two thinking about the ideas, and chat them over with my wife. In the end, it had a large impact on me. When I wrote a book about teaching biology 'Biology Made Real', I cited this book many times, and showed how the ideas shaped my thinking and teaching.
Highly recommended reading. Thank you Anthony for writing it.
Highly recommended reading. Thank you Anthony for writing it.
May 26, 2022
Mind blowing, staggering, magisterial, Tour de Force, need to buy a second copy to annotate over again. I'm in a Summer II oceanography and sustainability class covering ecological consciousness!
September 9, 2024
Outside of Bateson's own writings i.e. ;Steps to an Ecology of Mind', 'Mind and Nature', there have been few other writers who could write in an accessible and accurate way about Bateson's contribution. Anthony Chaney is one of those few, in fact I'd safely say the leading one of the few in terms of the ground he covers. Bateson's main ideas are clearly conveyed in this part biographical book that focuses on the historical context of Gregory Bateson's development as a thinker and writer. In the main however I was most impressed by the way the author clarifies the concept of 'runaway' in cybernetic terms relation to pathology on an individual and social level.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews