From Bateson and Blake to Hugh Palmer: Fourfold Vision and the Art of Seeing Systemically

Hugh, as a kind of s- a starting question, could you maybe tell us a little bit about your, uh, your, um, understanding of Bateson's connection to kind of ecology? And wh- where, where does this kind of...

What, what was Bateson really trying to kind of say really about this stuff that somehow has been kind of forgotten or lost in the systemic field, but what was that kind of original messages?

I, I think that if, if, if, if you, if you were to read Bateson, particularly Steps to an Ecology of Mind, you, you would see that there are several, um, pieces of writing in there that, that, that kind of reflect his view that the way that we think isn't conducive to our survival as a species.

Um, that our use of technology, um, and, uh, and, and, and our very purposive way of, of being in the world, which is, you know, I- if I want something, I'll go and get it, and I'll go and do it without thinking necessarily of the consequences.

Or if I have a problem, um, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll go for the, the, the most direct route to solve it.

So for example, um, let's get rid of waste, so we'll, you know, fill the rivers with sewage.

Mm.

To get, gets rid of the waste.

Or Lake Erie, for example, was an example that Bateson used.

Um, the, the, the, the, the way we think isn't, isn't, isn't particularly wise because it's not systemic.

It's lineal.

Very first order kind of thinking as a species.

Um, and, [clears throat] and, and Bateson was, was very clear that this wasn't gonna do us any good.

Uh, so there's, there's several sort of references to that, um, [clears throat] that, that, that, that I think, um, that if you, if you were to, if you were to read Steps to an Ecology of Mind or Mind and Nature, A Necessary Unity, or, or, or, or, uh, Sacred Unity, um, you, you would, you'd v- immediately see that, that Bateson was, was intensely concerned about- Uh, the environment and ecology.

And I think that was possibly sparked by his reading, um, Rachel Carson's Silent Spring back, that, in the '60s.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, and I think that because of the way that he thinks and his systemic way of thinking, that, that, that he, he, he, he realized that w- that as a s- you know, we, we were in trouble.

Mm-hmm.

And I guess now in 2024, so we're looking at, you know, decades after Bateson was writing, we're seeing floods in Spain, we're seeing wildfires, we're seeing...

Well, not just in Spain, a- across Europe.

We're seeing, um, the potential of large areas of the, uh, the planet becoming uninhabitable.

We're seeing melting of the, um, uh, of ice in the, uh, uh, in, in, in the Arctic and Antarctic, which is increasing the amount of water that's w- set free in the, in the, in the s- in the, in the Earth systems, along with rising temperature of the oceans.

Um, it's, it's, it's not really, it's not really looking good.

And, and couple that with, with warfare, um, again, which is all about exploitation of resources, people, place.

It, it's, it's really looking very grim.