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Comment by benbreen | Hacker News Reader

Anyone who's interested in Mead and Bateson's relationship should check out the novel Euphoria by Lily King - it's narrated by a lightly fictionalized version of Bateson and is about how he and Mead fell in love, in New Guinea in the 30s. Great book and really captures their personalities. Both were truly exceptional people who deserve to be better known than they already are.

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Couldn't agree more. It's a pity that Mead and Bateson's work, particularly Bateson's, seems to have never made it to the mainstream. If more techies and psychiatrists understood their kind of systems thinking, the world would be a better place IMO.

> If Gregory lives long enough he will get his Nobel for the Double Bind Theory of Schizophrenia.

Also not sure who was the author of this bit at the top (probably Stewart Brand?) but I also agree 100%. Double bind theory is brilliant.

I've actually just started work on an academic book project that will involve Bateson (focusing more on his relationship with John C. Lilly and early psychedelic drug researchers). I went to the Library of Congress last month to look at his letters with Mead. One unexpected takeaway from that trip was that he was a bit of a war hero, albeit a secret one (undercover mission to Southeast Asia with OSS). I also liked this from a letter that Bateson wrote to a friend during WW2:

“M[argaret] says that you have ‘grown up.' I wonder - I suppose I would be said to have ‘grown up’ too - respectably working at a desk from 9 to 5:30, doing some teaching, married and with young, and so on. But is it in us really to alter after our 20s? I think not in fundamentals. I am sure that I shall go to my grave with my shoes untied, my trousers unpressed, my hair overdue for a cut, and probably imperfectly shaven. I shall still leave undone those things which I ought to have done — and shall still feel unhappy and guilty about it.”

I had no idea Bateson was connected to psychedelic drug research, in addition to being a war hero/secret agent, but I guess I'm not surprised given the interdisciplinary nature and general excellence of his work.

Interesting letter. For my own sake I really hope my hero Bateson is wrong about the whole not being able to change after your 20s thing, heh.

Good luck with the book project, sounds fascinating.

I'm in general an admirer of Bateson (and Stewart Brand), but the Double Bind theory is crap and not taken seriously any more. Schizophrenia is an organic brain disease with genetic and probably other material causes; it's not caused by bad family interactions or confusions around type theory.

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