Encroaching flexibility
Encroaching flexibility
Gregory Bateson wrote in various places about the need for flexibility in living systems in order to preserve adaptability of the whole system to new circumstances. Indeed, having this flexibility is core to survival. For example, our body needs the flexibility to regulate breathing frequency and heart rate to adapt to strenuous activity and ensure that carbon dioxide is transported out of the cells and the body at sufficient rates, and at the same time oxygen transported to the cells. Hence, the flexible variables of breathing frequency and heart rate make sure that other deeper variables like the level of carbon dioxide in the blood or, indeed, our ability to be alive, can remain at acceptable levels of stability. Another example Bateson uses is the acrobat on the high wire. She uses the long pole, which she can flexibly tilt from one side to the other, to preserve the stability of herself on the wire. Bateson describes this extensively in the chapter The Role of Somatic Change in Evolution (Bateson 2000). Bateson also touched on it during his Orders of Change lecture at the Naropa Institute (Bateson 1975) and also in the paper Restructuring the Ecology of a Great City (Bateson 1971).
An important point Bateson makes is that there is always a threat that the flexibility of variables is eaten up by other processes. We can see that for example in the increased regulation of almost all areas of human life; everything needs to be very tightly defined rather than to give people flexibility to respond to the context. However, to remain adaptable, the flexibility of the fast variables needs to be preserved in order to allow for the deeper, slower variables to adapt slowly to new circumstances. Retaining flexibility requires the faster variables to use their flexibility regularly - do a sort of stress test or regular workout, really. If we don’t exercise our bodies, for example, we loose the ability of the body to respond to strenuous activities as the flexibility of the lungs and heart have been encroached by other processes like the deposition of fat or the decomposition of muscle tissue that is not being used.
The ecological analyst faces a dilemma: on the one hand, if any of his recommendations is to be followed, he must first recommend whatever will give the system a positive budget of flexibility; and on the other hand, the people and institutions with which he must deal have a natural propensity to eat up all available flexibility He must create flexibility and prevent the civilization from immediately expanding into it.
It follows that while the ecologist’s goal is to increase flexibility, and to this extent he is less tyrannical than most welfare planners (who tend to increase legislative control), he must also exert authority to preserve such flexibility as exists or can be created. At this point (as in the matter of unreplaceable natural resources), his recommendations must be tyrannical. (Bateson 1971, 4)
Where this has come up for me recently is in organisations. I work with various organisations in which people are all super-busy. They don’t seem to have time for anything yet they are always doing something. They have almost no flexibility to respond to a pressing need in the moment as they are always reactive to incoming general demands from the organisation. They have almost no agency to decide what they want to work on. If we take Bateson’s logic, then the flexibility of the individual member of the organisation to respond to contextual shifts would need to be ensured for the deeper and slower variables in the organisation to be kept stable (e.g. cash flow to pay running costs like salaries, strategic longer-term changes, etc.). This leads to a situation in which the organisation becomes less resilient to change. The problem is that being busy or at least appearing to be busy is a status symbol in today’s professional world. Somebody putting his feed up and reading a book would look strange indeed, even though it might be more productive than the constant scrambling around and the constant busyness. But beyond that, there is always stuff to do. Being busy is one of these runaway processes Bateson mentions that keep encroaching on the flexibility in one’s work schedule. Following Bateson’s advice, managers need to both create spaces to keep the flexibility, encourage people to actively use the flexibility regularly, but at the same time also defend these spaces against encroaching processes that want to make people busy.
References: - Bateson, Gregory. 1971. “Restructuring the Ecology of a Great City.”Radical Software_1 (3). - ———. 1975._Orders of Change. Naropa Institute. - ———. 2000.Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology. University of Chicago Press.
The Paper Museum
Today’s Paper Museum snippet is in German. Apologies to the ones who cannot read German. You can always use DeepL to help you …
Es ist der spannendste intellektuelle Slapstickmoment meines bisherigen Lebens. Emblematisch dafür erscheint mir der bekannte Philosoph Sam Harris, der sich im Podcast-Interview mit Lex Fridman vor einigen Tagen ausgiebig darüber wunderte, dass er sich nicht wundert. Von offizieller Seite zu erfahren, dass es Fluggeräte gibt, die täglich in unseren Luftraum eindringen und von denen wir nicht im Geringsten sagen können, was sie sind und woher sie kommen, das sollte uns doch eigentlich zu denken geben, so Harris. Aber er wisse leider auch nicht, was er mit der Information wirklich anfangen solle.
Es ist logischerweise eine der bedeutsamsten Offenbarungen der jüngeren Geschichte. Und zugleich eine totale Non-Information. Als man noch Verschwörungstheoretiker sein musste, um es zu glauben, war alles schön und gut. Aber jetzt, wo man die Tatsache auch in der Schule lernen könnte, ja, was jetzt? Alle staunen nur, in einer kuriosen Komödie der Unbeeindruckbarkeit, über die eigene Unfähigkeit zu staunen. Irgendeine große kosmische Bedeutung erscheint ihnen eher als Witz. Denn da es schon so viele fiktive Filme und Geschichten über Ufos gibt, bleiben Ufos auch weiterhin hartnäckig fiktiv, selbst jetzt, wo sie auf einmal real sind. Vielleicht werden sie für unsere Generation niemals ganz real werden können, nicht einmal dann, wenn sie in großer Zahl direkt über uns erscheinen. Das wäre dann wohl so, wie einem echten Vampir zu begegnen. Man hätte viel zu oft schon von ihm gelesen, um ihn wirklich wahrnehmen zu können. (Setz 2021)
Why have I added this to my Paper Museum? I found it fascinating how the author describes that, after the US Government started to publicly admit that there have indeed been loads of UFO sightings in early 2020, nobody is really surprised. Indeed, most people are surprised by their not being surprised. At the same time, not many seem to really be adding the existence of UFOs as a fact to their believe system. It is just too far away from the individual and collective world views of most of us. And even the UFO enthusiast Setz writes further down that he himself struggles to now count what he used to see as a conspiracy as the reality.
Reference: Setz, Clemens J. 2021. “Und es gibt sie doch!”Die Zeit, June 2, 2021, 23/2021 edition, sec. Kultur. https://www.zeit.de/2021/23/ufos-pentagon-barack-obama-60-minutes-ausserirdische/komplettansicht.
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- A super interesting episode of the On the Edge podcast by Roland Harwood with Gemma Mortensen. Lots of what Gemma said resonated with me. In general, super-interesting podcast, well-worth subscribing to!