The Reenchantment of the World (32 page)

 

 

One sees here a mixture of the two types of schismogenesis. Relations
between 'wau' and 'laua' are complementary, while the link between
brothers-in-law is symmetrical. The 'wau-laua' relationship thus acts as
a brake on symmetrical schismogenesis. In naven, the 'wau' insists on the
complementary aspects of his relationship with his 'laua' at the expense
of the symmetrical aspects of the family setup. He acts as "mother" or
"wife" to the 'laua,' thus denying his real position as a (classificatory)
brother-in-law, which is the symmetrical aspect of the relationship. Naven
also prevents a cultural breakdown along sexual lines by allowing men
and women to "become" each other even to the point of switching roles
in simulated intercourse, thereby releasing the tension accumulated by
progressive personality distortion. Naven thus defuses the climacteric
that builds in both symmetrical and complementary schismogenesis; and
once the ritual drama has ended, the whole process is ready to begin anew.

 

 

In general, Bateson defined schismogenesis as "a process of
differentiation in the norms of individual behavior resulting from
cumulative interaction between individuals." But he soon realized that the
concept was more broadly applicable, for cumulative, or "progressive,"
behavior seemed to be inherent in numerous types of human social and
psychological organization. Bateson did not use "progressive" in its
familiar Western sense, which has a melioristic connotation, but instead
used the term to describe any type of behavior which built to a climax. In
progressive change of this sort, the absence of stabilizing elements
usually means that the process will end in explosion or deterioration
(a "runaway" situation). To take the most general case, consider two
social groups, which we shall label "A" and "B." (These could be men
and women, parents and children, two nations, two political factions,
etc.) Symmetrical schismogenesis occurs when the two groups get into a
relationship that resembles the rivalry at an auction. The two behaviors
are identical, with each group attempting to do the opposition one better:
"Well, top
this
, then." This sort of rivalry can be seen at work in
situations of culture contact, interpersonal competition, and in the
whole arena of politics, as the tiresome game of Pentagon-Kremlin arms
race clearly shows.

 

 

In the case of complementary schismogenesis, the rivalry is reciprocal;
the aggressive behavior of A, let us say, provokes submissive behavior
on the part of B, encouraging more aggression from A in what becomes
an escalating spiral. The classic example is perhaps the traditional
marriage, in which the pattern of dominant husband/submissive wife is
initially satisfactory to both parties involved. Over time, however, the
roles distort one another. The wife's submission provokes the husband's
assertion, in turn encouraging her submission, and so on. No one is
by nature completely assertive or submissive, but the dynamics of the
relationship increasingly repress one side of each partners personality,
until each recognizes the stunted aspect of his or her own personality
overdeveloped in the personality of the other. Ultimately each becomes
unable to see the others viewpoint. They have lost all interest in
making the relationship work, while reciprocal tensions continue to
accumulate. Finally, the husband may be goaded into totally despotic
behavior in an attempt to provoke a counterreaction, and the wife may
decide to blow her brains out -- or his. More typically, she will leave
the marriage. This single example illuminates the mechanism of a number
of other types of interpersonal or political situations. Complementary
schismogenesis can be seen at work in certain cases of culture contact,
in numerous types of group behavior (e.g., the reinforcing of one member's
"deviant" pattern by the actions of the other members), and in situations
such as class conflict or racial oppression.

 

 

As in the case of the Iatmul, we must ask why the whole world is not
exploding; and again, we are forced to reply: it is. Nevertheless,
as Bateson recognized, things do not always escalate to breakdown. Some
marriages stabilize, though few are happy. The Pentagon and Kremlin may do
us in yet, but have managed to avoid Armageddon thus far. Class rivalries
are often bitter, but as Marxists have found, industrial societies are
not fertile ground for proletarian revolution. Trying to explain why,
Bateson theorized that, as in the Iatmul situation, schismogenic tensions
were being eased by admixtures. Medieval principalities sometimes had
one day a year in which serfs became kings and the king a subject --
a single brief role reversal that was often enough to keep the whole
system going. The traditional marriage has been feasible up to recent
times because the wife could at least be mistress of the kitchen, even
if subservient everywhere else. Internal rivalties tear at industrial
societies between wars, only to be resolved at a stroke by the appearance
of a common enemy, which switches the internal symmetrical tensions
into a complementary mode and provides a target on which to focus
symmetrical schismogenesis. (Labor and management, for example, now
share complementary roles in the effort to defeat a common enemy.)

 

 

The concept of schismogenesis also enabled Bateson to reply to the most
trenchant criticisms of Ruth Benedict's type of anthropology. Of what
real value were the concepts of "configuration," standardization," and
"modal personality," it was asked, if it were obvious that any single
society possessed a greater divergence of social types
within
itself
than existed between it and other societies? How, for example, would you
explain the deviant personality, the individual who has clearly escaped
the pressures of his or her context?14

 

 

As early as 1942, Bateson pointed out that both individuals and
societies are organized entities. In the Iatmul researches, it had not
been enough to say that the character structure of one sex was very
different from the character structure of the opposite sex. The point
was that the ethos of one
cogged into
the ethos of the other; that
the behavior of each promoted the habits of the other.
All social,
personal, and biological life has its own "grammar," or code.
You
can react
against
your particular code; but you can hardly behave
in a way that is totally irrelevant to it. Furthermore, these patterns
tend to be bipolar. If you are trained in one half of such a pattern,
it is a fair guess that the seeds of the other half are sown somewhere
in your personality. Thus, argued Bateson, it is not that husband and
wife are trained, respectively, in dominance and submission. Dominance
and submission are integrally (dialectically, alchemically) related;
there is no pure dominance or pure submission. The couple was instead
trained in dominance/submission, as a total pattern, and given enough
dominance from the husband, the wife may assert her repressed dominance
in the form of homicide. The fact that the 'mbora' can vigorously ape
the male sexual role in naven suggests that submission was not all her
society taught her. Hence, Bateson concluded that when we deal with
relatively stable differentiation within a community, we are justified
in speaking of a modal, or standardized, personality if we describe it in
terms of the motifs of relationships familiar to the entire community. The
deviant personality has not escaped the pressures of its community, for
its deviance is a reaction to those motifs. The deviate's behavior may
not follow social norms, but it is acquired with respect to those norms,
and even if the behavior is the opposite of those norms, it still retains
its relevance to them. The relationship of agent/tool, for example, is
absent in New Guinea; Iatmul deviates do not behave in these ways. Or,
to take a more famous example from Bateson's work, insanity is just such
a reaction to cultural norms. Rather than being a "disease" that descends
on the victim from out of the blue, it is a patterned, "logical" response
that meshes quite efficently with the surrounding family structure.15

 

 

Is schismogenesis truly inherent in human behavior? It is a compelling
thesis, yet one that was completely disproved by Bateson's next
anthropological investigation, that of Balinese society.16 Without going
into too much detail here, it is important to note that Bateson found the
nondialectical situation of the Balinese totally unprecedented. Their
culture was not, he realized, susceptible to any type of Hegelian or
Marxist analysis. Balinese music and art are characterized by balance, not
by tension and resolution, as in the West; and indeed, balance seems to
be a metaphor that extends to every phase of Balinese life. The emphasis
is on present enjoyment; the Balinese have no concept of future reward,
and things are done in and for themselves. Life itself is seen as a
work of art. The best metaphor for the Balinese way of life might be a
tightrope walker constantly adjusting his balancing pole so as to turn
out a graceful and pleasurable performance.

 

 

Competition and rivalry are thus absent in Bali. Should a quarrel arise
between two members of the society, they will go to a local official
and register the fact that they have a quarrel. There is no attempt
at reconciliation and, in effect, they have drawn up a contract of
enmity. Still, the two enemies are able to recognize their relationship
as it is, to accept its existence at that particular plateau, and as a
result, climactic interaction is obviated. The Balinese, like the Iatmul,
recognize no central authority, but unlike the Iatmul they do not regard
offences as personal. If, says Bateson, a casteless person fails to
address a prince formally, the prince sees not a personal insult but
an offence against the natural order of the universe, a violation of
postural balance. In everything they do,
optimization
is the issue,
not maximization. Balinese economics, for example, cannot be described in
terms of a profit motive, nor can the Balinese social structure be seen
as a collection of individuals or groups vying for status or prestige.

 

 

The Balinese apparently achieve this balance through their child-rearing
practices, teasing their offspring into cumulative interaction and then
deliberately losing interest just shy of the point of climax. In most
cultures this technique would produce psychotic individuals, but in
Bali the totality of the pattern reinforces the practices and produces
adults who distrust cumulative involvement. Still, we must resist our
Western assumption that life in Bali must be one tedious attempt to
preserve the status quo. Like the Iatmul, we are trapped in the notion
that schismogenic situations, which are in fact profoundly neurotic,
are exciting, and that anything else must be dull. In one of his best
passages in "One-Dimensional Man," Herbert Marcuse correctly characterized
the apparent dynamism of advanced industrial culture as fraudulent:
"Underneath its obvious dynamics this society is a thoroughly static
system of life: self-propelling in its oppressive productivity and in its
beneficial coordination."17 Factory life, consumer life, business life,
executive life -- all of these are, from the inside, boring, repetitive,
and characterized by an absence of any real adventure or exploration.

 

 

The situation in Bali is just the reverse. It looks like a "cool" society,
but is in fact very active. The Balinese, says Bateson, extend attitudes
based on body balance to human relations. They generalize the idea that
motion is essential to any type of balance. Their society is a very
complex and busy one, but not in our sense, for theirs is steady state
maintained by continual nonprogressive change. In his essay "Style, Grace
and Information in Primitive Art," Bateson analyzed a Balinese painting,
showing that it had as its message the idea that "to choose either
turbulence or serenity as a human purpose would be a vulgar error." The
Balinese recognize that these poles are mutually dependent in art, sex,
society, and death, but they have come to terms with this reality by
means of a nonschismogenic solution. Although Bateson never believed in
"primitive" solutions for the West, Bali served as an important model
for him, acting as a kind of mirror in which the folly of most human
interaction was sharply revealed and contrasted.

 

 

Schismogenesis, then, is
learned
: if is as much an acquired habit as
is the nonschismogenic behavior characteristic of Bali. Yet it seems so
fundamental that we are forced to ask what learning itself consists of,
if it so inseparably links cognition and emotion (eidos and ethos). What
does it mean to learn something, to "know" something? After the Macy
Conferences on cybernetics, Bateson made this question the subject of
his next major investigation.

 

 

Bateson began his study of learning theory with an ostensibly nonsensical
question: Is there such a thing as a "true error"? More broadly, is
there such a thing as a true ideology? Ideologies are cultural things
learned in cultural contexts, but they usually work for the cultures
that believe in them. The Balinese believe certain things about the
world that to us, or to the Iatmul, seem almost inconceivable. Bateson
had regarded cumulative interaction as an inherent trait, but Bali
showed him that an entire nation could learn to do something quite
different. Furthermore, Balinese society was far more stable than Iatmul
or Western European society, and thus in some sense its "crazy" premises
had to be more true. Put in this way, the crucial question became,
How are ideologies (perceptions, world views, "realities")and emotive
patterns (dominance/submission, succor/dependency) formed within the
mind of an individual or his society? In response, Bateson followed
Benedict's notion of configuration and returned to the concept of the
"grammar," or code. Individuals and societies are organized entities;
they are "coded" in a certain way that is coherent, that makes sense in
both emotional and cognitive terms. Since it was this process of coding
which rendered them stable (so long as the code continued to work),
it was essential to explain that process more fully.18