Similarly, the archaic tradition understood certain things about light and color (Goethe being its last modern representative), or electricity and gravity, that modern science has left out; but it is no longer possible for us to see these phenomena in teleological terms, or as direct manifestations of God or a life-force. Nor would a purely spiritual interpretation open up any fruitful line of inquiry in such cases.3 But as I suggested Chapter 6, analysis of these phenomena which proceeds in terms of a "detached observer" is also obsolete. Batesonian holism, on the other hand, could offer a nonspiritualist, process-oriented mode of investigation. One could see such phenomena cybernetically, or systemically, as part of a Mind that includes the investigator (including his or her affective responses) in it. A Batesonian analysis would study not just the quantitative relations but the qualitative ones: the essential arrangement present, the levels of Mind and the nature of their interaction.
It should also be noted that the essence of cybernetic explanation itself, the insistence on the relational nature of reality, which is absent from the Cartesian paradigm, is also present in the archaic tradition. Traditional cultures had an intuitive grasp of the cybernetic concept of circuitry through practices such as totemism and nature worship, and in this way managed to preserve and protect their enviromnent. By explicating the interrelations between the sub-Minds around us on a Batesonian model, we could learn not to pollute Lake Erie because the resulting chain reaction would be immediately evident to us. The advantage here is sane, holistic behavior without a return to complete mimesis. In a Batesonian framework, as opposed to archaic consciousness, we can actually focus on the circuit, not just be immersed in it. The hope is that archaic knowledge, especially the recognition of Mind, will emerge under an aesthetic rubric, so that our science (knowledge of the world) will become artful (artistic). The hope is that we can have both mimesis and analysis, that the two will reinforce each other rather than generate a "two cultures" split. Only through a mimetic relationship with your environment (or anything you address, for that matter), can you obtain the insight into reality which will then form the center of your analytical understanding. Fact and value merge and Mind is revealed as both a value and a mode of analysis.
Finally, Bateson's concept of Learning III, the psychological breakthrough to a "vast ecology," is nearly identical to the religious conversion of the archaic tradition, whether in Christian mysticism, the Zen satori, or the final stage of alchemical transmutation. Bateson does not explicitly advocate any of these practices, yet it is clear that in Learning III, as in these traditions, the central event is a redefinition of personality. One breaks through to a new level and gets a perspective on his or her own character and world view. There is, however, an important difference between Bateson's notion of Learning III and traditional self-realization: Bateson's concept is an integral aspect of the search for community and fraternity, not (as in Norman O. Brown, for example) merely a personal ecstatic vision. In Bateson's study of Alcoholics Anonymous, the Higher Power to which the alcoholic finally surrenders is not only "God" (or the unconscious), but the other members of AA. He makes himself a part of their social reality, their common struggle. Thus no matter how or where you discover Mind, says Bateson, "it is still immanent in the total interconnected social system and planetary ecology."4
I wish now to turn to a critique of Bateson's work, but must first share with the reader a quandary I have about doing so. In attempting to draw up a critique, I quickly discovered that it was not possible to construct one in an abstract, conceptual way. The critique rapidly became political, and perhaps this is not surprising. Historically, politics and epistemology have had an uncanny way of reinforcing each other; and in the case of Bateson's work, the union of fact and value is so close that to explicate epistemology is necessarily to explicate ethics, and thus unavoidably, politics. As I am sure the reader understands, much of my interest in Bateson stems from the hope of finding a liberatory epistemology; which also means, as far as I am concerned, a liberatory politics. Although liberation is clearly implied in the Batesonian paradigm, its formal similarities to the dialectical tradition make it liable to the type of political ambiguity which has bedeviled this tradition historically. One gets a left-wing Reich and a right-wing Jung; the revolutionary religious cults described by Christopher Hill,5 and the authoritarian self-realization groups ("est," the "Moonies," the Church of Scientology) which currently plague the American scene. Although Bateson personally had no truck with right-wing politics, a number of his concepts are double-edged; they have the potential for oppression as well as liberation. Political ambiguity and epistemological ambiguity go hand in hand here, and it is this ambiguity that is the focus of my critique. Before the critique can be made with any clarity, then, it will be necessary to sketch out the liberatory political vision that is consonant with the Batesonian paradigm.6
One of the most obvious characteristics of a future "planetary culture" will be the straightforward revival and elaboration of analogue modes of expression, a process that will involve the deliberate cultivation and preservation of (digital) incompleteness. Such a culture will be dreamier and more sensual than ours. The inner psychic landscape of dreams, body language, art, dance, fantasy, and myth will play a large part in our attempt to understand and live in the world. These activities will now be seen as legitimate, and ultimately crucial, forms of knowledge, and will be accompanied by a direct cultivation of psychic faculties: ESP, psychometry and psychokinesis, aura reading and healing, and others.7 Simultaneously, there will be a strong shift in medical practice toward popular and natural healing; an avoidance of drugs and chemical manipulation; and a near merger with ecology and psychology, since it will be widely recognized that most disease is a response to a disturbed physical and emotional environment. Birth will not take place on the "assembly line" of the modern hospital, but at home, so that the gentle birth practices described in Chapter 6 can once again shape childhood development.8 In general, the body will be seen as part of culture, not a dangerous libido to be kept in check, a change in perception which will involve a drastic reduction in sexual repression, and a greater awareness of ourselves as animals. This future culture will also see a revival of the extended family, as opposed to the competitive and isolating nuclear family that is today a seedbed of neurosis. The elderly will be mixed in with the very young, rather than dumped in old-age homes for the "unproductive," and their wisdom will be a continuing part of cultural life.
Such changes will enable a parallel shift in the ideal of personality, specifically a shift in focus from the ego to the self, and they will encourage the interaction of this self with other selves. The result will be an emphasis on community rather than competition, on individuation rather than individualism, and an end to the "false-self system" and role-playing that have so badly desecrated (desacralized) human relationships. As for power, it will be the equivalent to centeredness, inner authority, and not the ability to make others do what you want them to against their will. Power will be defined as the ability to influence others without pressure or coercion; the phrase "position of power" will be recognized as a contradiction in terms, for it will generally be understood that if a person needs a position to feel his or her power, then what he or she is really feeling is impotence.9
The future culture will have a greater tolerance for the strange, the nonhuman, for diversity of all sorts, both within the personality and without. This increase in tolerance implies a shift from the Freudian-Platonic to the alchemical notion of sanity: the ideal will be the "many-aspect" person of kaleidoscopic traits, who has a greater fluidity of interests, working and living arrangements, sexual and social roles, and so on. All behavior will be seen as having at least one complement, or "shadow," in need of legitimate expression. There may also be experimentation with modes of thought and relationship which are non-schismogenic -- an attempt to create behavior patterns that are not cumulative and which are inherently satisfying rather than dependent upon del
ayed gratification.10 The principle of diversity will require the preservation of endangered species and endangered cultures, as factors that enlarge the gene pool of possibilities and thereby make life more stable, durable, and interesting.
Human culture will come to be seen more as a category of natural history, "a semipermeable membrane between man and nature."11 Such a society will be preoccupied with fitting into nature rather than attempting to master it. The goal will be "not to rule a domain, but to release it"; to have, once again, "clean air, clean clear-running rivers, the presence of Pelican and Osprey and Gray Whale in our lives; salmon and trout in our streams; unmuddied language and good dreams."12 Technology will no longer pervade our consciousness and its presence will be more in the form of crafts and tools, things that lie within our control rather than the reverse.13 We will no longer depend on the technological fix, whether in medicine, agriculture, or anything else, but instead favor solutions that are long-term and adddress themselves to causes rather than symptoms.
Politically, there will be a tremendous-emphasis on decentralization, which will extend to all the institutions of society and be recognized as a prerequisite to planetary culture itself. Decentralization implies that institutions are small-scale and subject to local control, and that political structures are regional and autonomous. Characteristic of such decentralization are community hospitals and food cooperatives, the cultivation of neighborhood spirit and autonomy, and the elimination of such destroyers of community as television, automobiles, and expressways. Mass production will yield to craftsmanship, agribusiness to small, organic, labor-intensive farming, and centralized energy sources -- especially nuclear power plants -- to renewable energy options appropriate to their own regions. Mass education centers teaching essentially one type of knowledge as preparation for a career will be replaced by direct apprenticeship, in the form of a lifelong education that follows one's changing interests. One will not have a career, but a life. The blight of suburbs and urban sprawl, truly the antithesis of city life, will be replaced by a genuine city culture, one native to its own region rather than reflecting an international world of mass communication. The city will once again become a center of life and pleasure, an 'agora' (that fine Greek word), a market place and meeting place, Philippe Ariès' "medley of colors." People will live closer to their work, and in general there will not be much distinction between work, life, and leisure.14
The economy, finally, will be steady state, a mixture of small-scale socialism, capitalism, and direct barter. This will be a "conserver" society, with nothing wasted and a great emphasis, to the extent that it is possible, on regional self-sufficiency. There will be little interest in profit as an end in itself. The posture toward others, and toward natural resources, will be one of harmony rather than of exploitation or acquisition. As ecologists Peter Berg and Raymond Dasmann have written, economics will become "ecologics," a subbranch of ecology.15
How are we going to get there? From the present vantage point, the vision of a future in which fact and value are once again reunited, in which men and women have control over their own destinies, and in which ego-consciousness is more reasonably situated within a larger context of Mind, seems utopian in the extreme. Yet as Octavio Paz observed, the only alternative is suicide. Western industrial society has reached the limits of its own deutero-learning, and much of it now is in the midst of the social analogue of either madness or creativity, that is, re-creation (Learning III). Given this situation, how utopian is such a vision? Of course, if one believes that only violent revolution produces substantive change, and that such a transformation can be accomplished within a few decades, then planetary culture does not have much of a chance. If, however, we are talking of a change on the scale of the disintegration of the Roman Empire, such as has been suggested by Theodore Roszak, Willis Harman, and Robert Heilbroner, among others, then our utopian vision starts to appear increasingly realistic.16 In fact, one of the most effective agents of this set of changes is the decay of advanced industrial society itself. Thus Percival Goodman writes in "The Double E" that the conserver society will not come about because of voluntary effort, but because the planet simply cannot support the world of an ever-expanding Gross National Product. Industrial economies are starting to contract. We may choose to make a virtue out of what has been called "Buddhist economics," but we shall have to return to a steady-state economy whether we like it or not.17
Social change is also being generated by millions of individuals who have no interest in change per se, but have effectively undertaken an "inner migration," or withdrawal. Both Harman and Heilbroner have pointed to the fact that the industrial economies are going to face a severe economic crunch at the very time that their workers, both blue and white collar, have found their work so devoid of intrinsic value that they are increasingly finding meaning elsewhere, and privately withdrawing their allegmnce from their jobs. The Protestant work ethic, the spiritual support of our present way of life, will not be there when the economy needs it most. A 1975 report of the Trend Analysis Program of the American Institute of Life Insurance predicts a weakening of "industrial era philosophy" during the next two decades, with concomitant worker alienation, slowdowns, sabotage, and riots. "We may," concludes the report, "be somewhere in the middle of a turbulent transition to a new, or at least somewhat different culture," beginning about 1990.18
On the political level, decay will probably take the form of the breakup of the nation-state in favor of small, regional units. This trend, sometimes called political separatism, devolution, or balkanization, is by now quite widespread in all industrial societies. The number of new nations has risen dramatically since 1945, ahd other societies are beginning to fragment into provincial and sectarian subunits. Leopold Kohr predicted this trend (enthusiastically) as early as 1957 in his book, "The Breakdown of Nations"; official culture, such as "Harper's", is now terrified of it. More soberly, a group of about 200 European experts, in the book "Europe 2000," sees the revolt of a regional periphery as very likely.19 There are now strong separatist movements not only in the United States (Northern California, Upper Michigan, Idaho's Panhandle), but in Scotland, Brittany, Pays Basque, and Corsica; and many other countries are also experiencing strong regional sentiments, so much so that the Europe of 2000 A.D. may well look like a mosaic of very small states. This process represents a reversion to original political boundaries that existed prior to the rise of modern nation-states: not France, but Burgundy, Picardy, Normandy, Alsace, and Lorraine; not Germany, but Bavaria, Baden, Hesse, Hanover; not Spain, but Valencia, Aragon, Catalonia, Castile; and so on. In general, writes Peter Hall, what at all levels
used to be called separatism and is now usually called regionalism -- fundamentally the desire and willngness to assume more direct control over one's own destiny -- is perhaps the strongest political drive now operating: it is the main cause of the "crisis of authority" and the weakening of centralized control.20
Holistic society is thus coming upon us from a variety of sources that cut across the traditional left-right political axis. Feminism, ecology, ethnicity, and transcendentalism (religious renewal), which ostensibly have nothing in common politically, may be converging toward a common goal. These holistic movements do not represent a single social class, nor can they even be analyzed in such terms, for by and large they represent the repressed "shadows" of industrial civilization: the feminine, the wilderness, the child, the body, the creative mind and heart, the occult, and the peoples of the nonurban, regional peripheries of Europe and North America -- regions that have never bought into the ethos of the industrial heartland and never will. If there is any bond among the elements of this "counterculture," it is the notion of recovery. Their goal is the recovery of our bodies, our health, our sexuality, our natural environment, our archaic traditions, our unconscious mind, our rootedness in the land, our sense of community and connectedness to one another. What they advocate is not merely a program of "no growth" or industrial slowdown,
but the direct attempt to get back from the past what we lost during the last four centuries; to go backward in order to go forward. In a word, they represent the attempt to recover our future.
What is remarkable in many of these developments, also, is the attempt to create a politics that does not substitute one set of rulers for another, or even one political structure for another, but which reflects the basic needs of mind, body, sexuality, conmmunity, and the like. The goal, notes that ancient Chinese oracle, the "I Ching," is
a satisfactory political or social organization of mankind. [Therefore] we must go down to the very foundations of life. For any merely superficial ordering of life that leaves its deepest needs unsatisfied is as ineffectual as if no attempt at order had ever been made.21
In various ways, this has become the goal of all holistic politics; a politics that would be the end of politics, at least as, we know it today.
If all of these changes, or even a third of them, came to pass, the anomie of the modern era would surely be a closed chapter in our history. Such a planetary culture would of necessity erase our contemporary feeling of homelessness, and the sense that our personal reality is at odds with official reality. The infinite spaces whose silence terrified Pascal may appear to men and women of the future as extensions of a biosphere that is nurturing and benevolent. Meaning will no longer be something that must be found and imposed on an absurd universe; it will be given, and, as a result, men and women will have a feeling of cosmic connectedness, of belonging to a larger pattern. Surely, such a world represents salvation, but only in the sense that there is no need to be saved in the first place. A loss of interest in the traditional opiates would likely follow, and even psychoanalysis would be seen as superfluous. What would be worshipped, if anything, is ourselves, each other, and this earth -- our home, the body of us all that makes our lives possible.
The Reenchantment of the World Page 31