Gregory Bateson: From Versailles to Cybernetics (1966)
This lecture by the anthropologist Gregory Bateson blending themes in history & mythology with modern cybernetics is not only profoundly insightful about the consequences of human deception but is also prophetic about the possibilities & dangers of the age of information technology. It is a neglected masterpiece which is worth a hundred volumes of scholarship - Aseem Shrivastava.
NB - Gregory Bateson (1904 -1980) was an English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician & cyberneticist. He was married to Margaret Mead. In the 1940s he helped extend systems theory/cybernetics to the social/behavioral sciences, and spent the last decade of his life developing a "meta-science" of epistemology.. his most noted writings are Steps to an Ecology of Mind and Mind and Nature.
Extract: I have to talk about recent history as it appears to me in my generation and to you in yours and, as I flew in this morning, words began to echo in my mind. These were phrases more thunderous than any I might be able to compose. One of these groups of words was, "The fathers have eaten bitter fruit and the children's teeth are set on edge." Another was the statement of Joyce that "history is that nightmare from which there is no awakening." Another was, "The sins of the fathers shall be visited on the children even to the third and fourth generation of those that hate me." And lastly, not so immediately relevant, but still I think relevant to the problem of social mechanism, "He who would do good to another must do it in Minute Particulars. General Good is the plea of the scoundrel, hypocrite, and flatterer."
We are talking about serious things. I call this lecture From Versailles to Cybernetics, naming the two historic events of the twentieth century. The word "cybernetics" is familiar, is it not? But how many of you know what happened at Versailles in 1919?The question is, what is going to count as important in the history of the last sixty years? I am sixty-two, and, as I began to think about what I have seen of history in my lifetime, it seemed to me that I had really only seen two moments that would rate as really important from an anthropologist's point of view. One was the events leading up to the Treaty of Versailles, and the other was the cybernetic breakthrough. You may be surprised or shocked that I have not mentioned the A-bomb, or even World War II. I have not mentioned the spread of the automobile, nor of the radio and TV, nor many other things that have occurred in the last sixty years. Let me state my criterion of historical importance...
Most of you probably hardly know how the Treaty of Versailles came into being. The story is very simple. World War I dragged on and on; the Germans were rather obviously losing. At this point, George Creel, a public relations man—and I want you not to forget that this man was a granddaddy of modern public relations—had an idea: the idea was that maybe the Germans would surrender if we offered them soft armistice terms. He therefore drew up a set of soft terms, according to which there would be no punitive measures. These terms were drawn up in fourteen points. These Fourteen Points he passed on to President Wilson. If you are going to deceive somebody, you had better get an honest man to carry the message. President Wilson was an almost pathologically honest man and a humanitarian. He elaborated the points in a number of speeches: there were to be "no annexations, no contributions, no punitive damages ..." and so on. And the Germans surrendered... Read on:
http://sacw.pagesperso-orange.fr/docbin/GregoryBateson.FromVersaillestoCybernetics.pdf
NB - Gregory Bateson (1904 -1980) was an English anthropologist, social scientist, linguist, visual anthropologist, semiotician & cyberneticist. He was married to Margaret Mead. In the 1940s he helped extend systems theory/cybernetics to the social/behavioral sciences, and spent the last decade of his life developing a "meta-science" of epistemology.. his most noted writings are Steps to an Ecology of Mind and Mind and Nature.
Extract: I have to talk about recent history as it appears to me in my generation and to you in yours and, as I flew in this morning, words began to echo in my mind. These were phrases more thunderous than any I might be able to compose. One of these groups of words was, "The fathers have eaten bitter fruit and the children's teeth are set on edge." Another was the statement of Joyce that "history is that nightmare from which there is no awakening." Another was, "The sins of the fathers shall be visited on the children even to the third and fourth generation of those that hate me." And lastly, not so immediately relevant, but still I think relevant to the problem of social mechanism, "He who would do good to another must do it in Minute Particulars. General Good is the plea of the scoundrel, hypocrite, and flatterer."
We are talking about serious things. I call this lecture From Versailles to Cybernetics, naming the two historic events of the twentieth century. The word "cybernetics" is familiar, is it not? But how many of you know what happened at Versailles in 1919?The question is, what is going to count as important in the history of the last sixty years? I am sixty-two, and, as I began to think about what I have seen of history in my lifetime, it seemed to me that I had really only seen two moments that would rate as really important from an anthropologist's point of view. One was the events leading up to the Treaty of Versailles, and the other was the cybernetic breakthrough. You may be surprised or shocked that I have not mentioned the A-bomb, or even World War II. I have not mentioned the spread of the automobile, nor of the radio and TV, nor many other things that have occurred in the last sixty years. Let me state my criterion of historical importance...
Most of you probably hardly know how the Treaty of Versailles came into being. The story is very simple. World War I dragged on and on; the Germans were rather obviously losing. At this point, George Creel, a public relations man—and I want you not to forget that this man was a granddaddy of modern public relations—had an idea: the idea was that maybe the Germans would surrender if we offered them soft armistice terms. He therefore drew up a set of soft terms, according to which there would be no punitive measures. These terms were drawn up in fourteen points. These Fourteen Points he passed on to President Wilson. If you are going to deceive somebody, you had better get an honest man to carry the message. President Wilson was an almost pathologically honest man and a humanitarian. He elaborated the points in a number of speeches: there were to be "no annexations, no contributions, no punitive damages ..." and so on. And the Germans surrendered... Read on:
http://sacw.pagesperso-orange.fr/docbin/GregoryBateson.FromVersaillestoCybernetics.pdf
