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News That Stayed News
Ten Years of CoEvolution Quarterly EDITED BY ART KLEINER AND STEWART BRAND
6“
COEVOLUTION QUARTERLY,” writes Stewart Brand in his afterword to this anthology, ‘was founded to see what would happen if an editor were totally un- leashed. I would print anything that kept me turning its pages.”
Through forty-three issues and ten years of pub- lishing, COEVO earned a reputation as one of the most free-spirited, wide-ranging, and challenging ventures in American journalism; it was a partici- patory project in which editors, contributors, and readers engaged in a continuing interchange that occasioned some of the most vital writing of the de- cade since the magazine’s founding in 1974. Its pages were home for many of the period’s leading writers and artists, including Paul Ehrlich, Ursula Le Guin, Jerry Brown, Wendell Berry, R. Crumb, Dan O’Neill, Gary Snyder, Ivan Illich, and Ken Kesey— all of whom are represented in this collection of COE- vo’s most enduring articles. Topics range from the biology of communities and human DNA damage to animal stories and the Amanda Madison Memorial Nonsense Box at Smitty’s Bar.
The term coevolution was introduced by Paul Ehr- lich and Peter Raven in their study of the predator— prey relationship of caterpillars and plants. They found that eaters and the eaten progressively evolved in close response with each other—cevolved. The CoEvolution Quarterly was just that: a quarterly that chronicled, through its writers and its readers, the dynamic evolution of what was best and liveliest in contemporary cultural thought and practice.
In this volume are examples of reporting and story- telling that truly meet Ezra Pound’s definition of lit- erature: “news that stays news.” “Every day of the five years I worked {as editor of COEVOLUTION QUAR- TERLY},” writes Art Kleiner, coeditor of this collec- tion, “I was conscious that we were printing material that could last long beyond the lifespan of a typical magazine issue. . . . Here is the best of that mate- rial.”
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Ten Years of
(@FVOLUTION
Quarterly
News That
1974-1984
Stayed News
EDITED BY ART KLEINER AND STEWART BRAND
NORTH POINT PRESS 1986 SAN FRANCISCO
Copyright © 1986 by The Point Foundation, Inc. Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number:85-60865 ISBN:0-86547-201-7 (cloth) / 0-86547-202-5 (paper)
North Point Press 850 Talbot Avenue Berkeley, California 94706
Cover design by David Bullen
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments Art Kleiner
Introduction Art Kleiner
CoEvolution and the Biology of Com- munities (Spring 1974) Paul R. Ehrlich
Salons and Their Keepers (Summer 1974) Stephanie Mills
The Atmosphere as Circulatory System of the Biosphere—the Gaia Hypothesis (Summer 1975)
Lynn Margulis and James E. Lovelock
For God’s Sake, Margaret: A Conversa- tion with Gregory Bateson and Mar- garet Mead (Summer 1976)
Stewart Brand
The Sun Riots (Spring 1975) and The B & G (Summer 1976) Steve Baer
Some Mice (Summer 1976) Robert Horvitz
The Space Crone (Summer 1976) Ursula Le Guin
Poem for the Living (Fall 1979) Theodora Kroeber-Quinn
Winning (Summer 1976) Ron Jones
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Table of Contents
Biogeographical Provinces (Fall 1976) Raymond Dasmann
The Lefthanded Bear and Other Animal Stories (Fall 1976) J.D. Smith
Animal Story Letters
How to Run the Arms Race Backwards
(Spring 1977) Stewart Brand
The New Class (Spring 1977) Herman Kahn, Jerry Brown, and Amory Lovins
Yellow Diamonds (Winter 1977/78) Malcolm Wells
Earl Butz versus Wendell Berry (Spring 1978)
I Was Armand Hammer (Spring 1978) J. Baldwin
First Week of November, 1978—
and More Anne Herbert (Winter 1978-— Fall 1982)
Anne Herbert
Human Harm to Human DNA (Spring 1979)
Stewart Brand, with extensive quotes from Bruce Ames
A Short History of America (Fall 1979) R. Crumb
Six Days of Dying (Winter 1980) Mary Catherine Bateson
‘““Where’ve You Been, Stranger?” (Summer 1981) Bryce and Margaret Muir
How Not to Commit Suicide (Summer 1981) Art Kleiner
vi
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74
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83
89
113
116
130
133
142
165
170
178
183
Feminism and Sadomasochism (Spring 1982) Pat Califia
The Legend of Great Uncle Jim and the Woman Behind It All (Spring 1982) Will Baker
How I Became a Human Being (Spring 1982) Mark O’Brien
Don’t Beg: Take Control (Summer 1982) Tom Parsons
Doing a Job (Summer 1982) Admiral Hyman G. Rickover
On Farting (Summer 1982) Michael Kimball
A Friend to the Children (Fall 1982) Dan O'Neill
Born to Fail (Winter 1982) J. Baldwin
Kokopelli—The Humpbacked Flute Player (Spring 1983) Gary Nabhan
Rachelann: A Remembrance (Spring 1983) Leo Dreu
Good, Wild, Sacred (Fall 1983) Gary Snyder
Handfast (Winter 1983) Sallie Tisdale
Silence Is a Commons (Winter 1983) Ivan Illich
Events Are the Teacher (Winter 1983) Katy Butler
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228
241
245
251
267
277
282
291
293
298
Table of Caments
Surviving in Small Business (Spring 1984) Paul Hawken
Coffee Hour: America’s True Religion (Spring 1984) Jim Burklo
Burying Jed Kesey (Summer 1984) Ken Kesey
The Difference Between Writing and Building Racing Engines (Summer 1984)
Harry and Larry Ingham
309
313
316
324
Who Do You Think You Are? (Fall 1984) Freddy Bosco
Afterword: Outtro Stewart Brand
Appendix: A History of CoEvolution Quarterly Art Kleiner
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329
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Acknowledgments
Decisions to do this book were made independently but simultaneously at Whole Earth (between me and Kevin Kelly) and at North Point Press. Those two decisions were melded into one project with uncommon ease and courtesy. I’m grateful to North Point editors Jack Shoemaker and Tom Christensen for their sup- port and help. Stewart Brand and I selected the material, making our ar- duous choices by give-and-take over the Electronic Information Exchange System computer network (which al- lowed me to do most of the editing of this book at home). Kevin Kelly was also involved in that process. We had useful suggestions from J. Baldwin and Richard Nilsen. Levi Thomas, Jonathan Evelegh, and Cindy Craig helped with some of the clerical work of the project; Andrea Sharp and David Cohn put in some accounting/negotiating support.
I’m grateful and indebted to the people I have known and worked with at Whole Earth over the years, who have taught me what making a magazine is about. These people in- clude the other editors I worked with at CQ: Stewart Brand, Anne Her- bert, Stephanie Mills, Jay Kinney,
Richard Nilsen, Joe Kane, and Kevin Kelly. They include the de- signers and artists: Kathleen O'Neill, Don Ryan, Rebecca Wil- son, James Donnelly, Isabella Kirk- land, John Prestianni. They include the guardians of consistency—type- setters and proofreaders: Evelyn Eld- ridge-Diaz, Susan Erkel Ryan, James Donnelly, Ted Schultz, Hank Rob- erts, Nancy Dunn, Kara Adanalian, Annette Jarvie, Angela Gennino. They include people who supported the readers, or supported the opera- tion: Andrea Sharp, David Burnor, Dick Fugett, Ben Campbell, Lorrie Gallagher, Jonathan Evelegh, Arnie Kotler, Debbie Hopkins, David Cohn, Lyn Gray, Jim Stockford, Ka- thy Parks, Matthew McClure, Cindy Craig. And they include contribu- tors from Whole Earth past and pres- ent: J. D. Smith, Rick Fields, An- drew Fluegelman, J. Baldwin, Peter Warshall, Tom Ferguson, Mike Phil- lips, Paul Hawken, Barbara Robert- son, Steven Levy. Also thanks to Rob Garross, who introduced me to the magazine in the first place. . . .
A.K.
Art Kleiner
pens, COEVOLUTION QUARTERLY was started in 1974 with proceeds from the Catalog.) Stewart Brand has two talents common to all great magazine editors: the ability to gather together a family of brilliant contributors, and the ability to piss them all off from time to time.* CO- EVOLUTION’s extended family in- cluded luminaries and arrogant ex- hippies (‘‘some of us are famous and some are smug, Stewart once wrote in the magazine’s Gossip section)— but the magazine was rarely cowed by any of them. Stewart’s first loy- alty was always to the readers, as rep- resented by his own emphatic but open-minded judgment.’ COEVOLUTION experimented con- stantly, in ways that a magazine with advertising can’t. Stewart was always trying something that no other mag- azine publisher would dream of
were quarterlies, and their recommendations were compiled in 1972 into the 452-page Last Whole Earth Catalog, a National Book Award winner, best-seller, and culture chang- er. A 1974 addendum, the Whole Earth Epilog, and COEVOLUTION QUARTERLY it- self, continued to cover how-to books, tools, and more with Whole Earth-style reviews; in 1980 Stewart and the rest of us Whole Earth staffers recompiled the Catalog into the gar- gantuan 608-page Next Whole Earth Catalog.
4. That ability to anger contributors yet hold them seems to be endemic to magazine edi- tors; see James Thurber’s The Years With Ross, for instance. Stewart and New Yorker founder Harold Ross seem to have had the same two techniques for infuriating people: blithe in- consistency about detail, and not listening to what other people thought they should do with the magazine.
5. Not that Stewart was the on/y influence. As CQ evolved, more and more people con- tributed in great and small ways to its overall creativity; many of their names are listed in the Acknowledgments to this book. CQ was blessed with a warmhearted, capable, consis- tent staff which made possible much of the flavor and value of the magazine.
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doing. Guest editors, for instance: every four issues or so, Stewart would relinquish his normal ironclad con- trol over the entire magazine, find someone with a special topic to cover, put the staff into their hands for the quarter, and disappear. Or the financially unsuccessful Bold/ Lite experiment: to avoid offending readers with explicit sex, yet not feel hamstrung, Stewart created a “Bold” section of the magazine with raun- chy material intact, and gave sub- scribers a choice of CQ with or with- Out it.
CQ opened up many debates and topics for the first time. Space colo- nies: By printing Gerard O’Neill’s and his own arguments in their fa- vor, Stewart annoyed many of his ecologically minded contributors and readers. So he printed thezr argu- ments. The controversy lingered for several issues (some old CQ readers can still get angry when they think of it) and ultimately modified the ideas of some of the space-colony planners. Other themes got early no- tice in CQ before becoming promi- nent elsewhere. The Gaia hypothe- sis. Voluntary simplicity. Argu- ments against metric conversion. Personal computers. The resurgence of the antiwar movement. The flat tax. Critical evaluation of maga- zines. The effects of chemicals on the human gene pool.
Most importantly, COEVOLUTION published a lot of material—essays, reporting, and story-telling—that will endure as “news that stays news,” to quote Ezra Pound’s def- inition of literature.° Hence this
6. In ABC of Reading, 1934, published by William Morrow & Co., Inc. The definition was quoted in the review of ABC of Reading in both the Last and Next Whole Earth Catalog.
Introduction
book—a collection, in one place, of what we think is the most lasting work COEVOLUTION published. You'll find little of purely historical interest—for instance, although space colonies were debated fer- vently, we didn’t include any of that material, already reprinted in a book that Stewart edited (Space Colonies, Penguin, 1978). If you’re interested in the history of the magazine (its life is, after all, tied intimately with many cultural and political move- ments of the sixties, seventies, and eighties, particularly in California) you'll find an issue-by-issue discog- raphy in the Appendix.
If you’re familiar with COEVOLU- TION, you'll notice a few enduring pieces are missing in this bbok— Ron Jones’s “The Third Wave,” Carol Van Strum’s “The Most Un- usual Letter We've Ever Received,” and ““Trees’” by Jean Giono. That’s because these pieces, and others, ap- peared already in the Next Whole Earth Catalog (Random House, 1980). With the limited space avail- able (we could easily have compiled a volume twice this size and stz// left good material out), we chose to re- print very few pieces from the Cata- log. That pruning has allowed sun- light to nurture more forgotten
blossoms—like Ron Jones’s other story, “Winning” (p. 60). Similarly, a few articles—Wendell Berry’s ‘‘Po- etry and Marriage,” for instance— were left out because they subse- quently saw publication in other books (in this case, Standing
By Words, North Point, 1983).
This is a book I’ve wanted to see published since I was first introduced to COEVOLUTION QUARTERLY in 1976; a friend handed me a copy and said, “I think you'll like this.” I quickly became a fan; ordered the back issues that were still in print; searched for earlier ones in used bookstores. When I began writing journalism, COEVOLUTION was the first place I submitted my ideas (I suspected, correctly, that they’d be responded to with understanding and high spirits). Later I was hired by Stewart Brand—first to help re- search the Next Whole Earth Catalog, then as editor of COEVOLUTION it- self. Every day of the five years I worked there, I was conscious that we were printing material that could last long beyond the lifespan of a typical magazine issue (even COEVO- LUTION, whose perfect-bound back issues are kept on many people’s bookshelves). Here is the best of that material.
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Pek. EMRLICH
CoEvolution and the Biology of Communities
COEVOLUTION got its title and its bent partly because I was bit early on by a series of biologists—Ed Rick- etts (via John Steinbeck’s Monterey books), Aldous Huxley (in print and person), Paul Ehrlich, and last and deepest, Gregory Bateson. Assistant Professor Ehrlich supervised my ta- rantula “research” at Stanford in 1959, when the Stanford Biology Department was still mostly molecu- lar biology and an ecologist was hard to find. (In truth they’re still hard to find, amid the proliferation of “ecologists.”’)
Starting with The Population Bomb (1968), on through Ecoscience (1977) and Extinction (1981) and numerous appearances on the Johnny Carson Show and the lecture circuit, Ehrlich has been the hard-science spokes- man for population control. Unbe- knownst to most of his fans, Paul is basically a butterfly freak. He’s a first-rate population biologist with a reputation that has grown steadily through his career. His original
1965 paper on coevolution, coau- thored with botanist Peter Raven (“Peter and I did the whole thing over coffee; didn’t look at a single or- ganism’’) is one of the most cited in the literature.
This later paper of Ehrlich’s* is still one of the best scans of coevolu- tion as idea and as natural history that I’ve seen, and it sounds like Paul talking, that is, like Walter Win- chell. How better to start this book than with its founding metaphor, from Issue 1 (Spring 1974).
Stewart Brand
In recent years ecologists have been focusing more and more attention on the properties of communities of organisms. There has been a renaissance of what we used to call “‘synecol- ogy, and several new schools of community ecologists have emerged. One school has fo- cused its interests on the concepts of niche, species diversity, and related topics. Members of this school often deal with questions such as: “Why are there more species of lizards on is- land X than on island Y?”’; “What simple en- vironmental measures can I use to predict the number of bird species in a grassland?”; or “What limits the similarity of sympatric spe- cies?” Another approach to communities which has gained prominence recently is a ho- listic-mathematical approach. Many measure- ments are made of a complex ecological sys- tem. Then the analytic and simulation
* This paper was the introduction to a symposium at the twenty-ninth Annual Biology Colloquium, 1968, pub- lished in Biochemical Coevolution, 1970, Oregon State Uni- versity Press, Corvallis, Or., Kenton L. Chambers, ed.
Paul R. Ehrlich
techniques of systems analysis are used to iden- tify important variables and predict future states of the system.
This colloquium deals with another new way of looking at the properties of communi- ties. This way consists of examining the pat- terns of interaction not in an entire community but between two groups of organisms, groups which do not exchange genetic information but which do have a close and evident ecologi- cal relationship. Peter Raven and the author called the evolutionary interactions within such systems “coevolution” in order to empha- size the reciprocal nature of the relationship. This reciprocity is abundantly evident in the butterfly-plant systems which we investigated and in herbivore-plant systems in general.
PLANTS AND HERBIVORES
Many of the characteristics of plants, such as spines, pubescence, nutrient-poor sap, and so- called ‘secondary plant substances,” have evolved in large part in response to selection pressures created by herbivores. The chemicals seem to be especially important, serving as both repellents and pesticides. Herbivores, on the other hand, have responded to the defenses of plants in diverse ways. Many obviously have adopted detoxifying systems to deal with the noxious compounds produced by the plants. For instance, the plant Lotus corniculatus occurs in populations polymorphic for the presence of cyanogenic glucosides. The plants containing the cyanogenic glucosides produce hydrogen cyanide when they are injured. Not surpris- ingly, these plants are much less bothered by herbivores than their noncyanogenic cohorts. Some herbivores, however, eat both kinds of plant with equal gusto. One of these is the blue butterfly Polyommatus icarus. Lane sug- gested that the larvae of the butterfly detoxify the cyanide by converting it into thiocyanate with the enzyme rhodanase.
Some insects have been so successful in deal- ing with plant poisons that they now recognize and are attracted to compounds which repel most herbivores. Indeed one “herbivore,” Homo sapiens, consumes large quantities of plants be- cause of the many uses he has found for “plant
4
pesticides.” He uses them in the role for which they evolved—as herbivore poisons (e.g., pyre- thrum) and as herbivore intoxicants (various hallucinogens) and in roles unrelated to their original purpose (pepper, quinine, tobacco). Perhaps the best all-around response to plant defenses is found in aposematic organisms (those that advertise their defensive abilities by conspicuous patterns and coloration, such as the monarch butterfly). These organisms take up the plant chemical defenses and use them for their own protection. The monarch butter- fly, for instance, is avoided by most birds be- cause it contains vertebrate heart poisons. These poisons are obtained directly from the monarch’s milkweed foodplants. Monarchs and similar organisms gain additional advantage from the avoidance of their foodplant by other herbivores.
Many herbivores have adopted strategies to avoid plant defenses rather than overcome them. Some, for instance, may feed on parts of the plant which have relatively weak mechani- cal or chemical defenses. An example of this may be flower-feeding or pollen-feeding by many lycaenid butterflies, bees, and various beetles including scymnine coccinellids, der- mestids, cantharids, and so forth. Other herbi- vores time their attacks carefully to avoid plant defenses. Paul Feeny reports that the larvae of the winter moth Operophtera brumata will not mature satisfactorily on oak leaves two weeks older than those on which the larvae normally feed. Larval development in nature is com- pleted rapidly, early in the season before the tannins are laid down in the young oak leaves.
Plant-herbivore coevolutionary systems usu- ally involve “selectional races.” Strong selec- tion pressure is put on plant populations by herbivores, and any improvement in plant de- fenses is at a selective premium. Herbivores, in response, must find ways of dealing with the plant defenses or they will starve. The tight- ness of the situation is exemplified by the win- ter moth case described by Feeny. The timing mechanism of the moths must be extremely precise to guarantee that the larvae hatch just as the young leaves are appearing. If they hatch too early, they starve before the leaves appear;
CoEvolution and the Biology of Communities
if they hatch too late, they are defeated by the tannins and other plant defenses. If the oaks can evolve ways of depositing tannins even ear- lier, or produce other defenses, the moths will lose the race, unless the moths can evolve a way of dealing with the oaks’ defenses.
Perhaps the most unusual coevolutionary system related to herbivory is that composed of swollen-thorn acacias and obligate acacia ants, brilliantly investigated by Janzen. In this sys- tem, ants serve as substitutes for the usual de- fensive mechanisms of acacias. The ant acacias, for instance, lack the bitter-tasting chemicals which are characteristic of other acacias. The ants live in the swollen thorns of the acacias and feed on specially modified leaf tips. If the ants are removed, the acacias are killed by her- bivorous insects. As long as the ant colony per- sists, the ants attack the herbivores and keep them from eating the acacias; the ants also de- stroy plant competitors of the acacias.
PREDATOR—PREY RELATIONSHIPS
A coevolutionary system which is the homo- logue of the plant-herbivore system is the predator-prey system. Like the plant-herbivore system, it, in essence, is a selectional race. The prey is selected for predator avoidance and the predator for prey finding. This system is much more familiar to us than the plant-herbivore system; for some strange reason most biologists seem to have the impression that plants just sit around defenseless, waiting to be devoured! All biologists, however, are familiar with the sharp senses and speed of the antelope, the stealth and fangs of the tiger, the spines of the porcupine, and the eyes and talons of the hawk. This is hardly the place to go into the vast literature on this subject, but I do want to point out that the relationship between preda- tor and prey is all too often viewed as static, in spite of the evolutionary work done on Bzston, Cepaea, Natrix, and mimetic assemblages. There is every reason to believe that most prey species are continually “evolving away” from their predators, and that the predators are either trying to catch up or get ahead. Extinc- tion may very often be the result of a “win” by either side.
In investigating predator-prey systems, most of the emphasis has been placed on the nature and evolution of devices used by prey to avoid being eaten. There is, of course, a vast literature on protective coloration in both ver- tebrates and invertebrates. An equally impres- sive literature is accumulating on biochemical defense mechanisms in arthropods as a result of the work of Thomas Eisner and his associates. Although some research has been done on predator behavior—such as the classic work on orientation in bats by Griffin—much less work has focused on this side of the relationship. Recently, however, there has been an upsurge of interest in the functioning of predators in general, due in particular to the work of Holl- ing in analyzing the components of predation. Once we understand predation more thor- oughly, it should be far easier to investigate the reciprocal aspects of predator-prey systems. Perhaps those most amenable to analysis would be systems involving parasitoid wasp predators and their insect prey. Various components of attack and defense have been analyzed in these systems, but to my knowledge none of them have been approached from a coevolutionary standpoint.
PARASITE—HOST SYSTEMS
Parasite-host systems are similar to predator- prey systems in that one would expect a con- tinuous selectional ‘“‘race’’ between host and parasite. The race would be somewhat differ- ent, however. It is advantageous for the host, like the prey, to “escape.” But it is not advan- tageous for the parasite to kill its host, while killing is advantageous for the predator. The counter argument, that it is not advantageous for a predator to eat too many of its prey either, will not hold water. In the vast majority of cases, we must assume that group selection is not operating and that predators which are ef- fective killers leave more offspring than those which are not. There is anecdotal evidence that individual predators may kill far beyond their individual needs for consumption. More im- portantly, there is no known evidence that any predatory species except man does not feed to repletion, given the opportunity. Conservation
5
Paul R. Ehrlich
of prey resources, if it occurs, is not through the exercise of altruistic restraint by individual predators. With most parasites, however, re- straint is not altruistic. Reproductive or feed- ing behavior which results in the death of the host all too often results in the death of the parasite as well. The problem of the parasite, then, is somewhat more difficult than that of the predator. It must often take care that it does not overtax its resources—for the individ- uals which do overtax leave fewer offspring than those which do not.
Host-parasite relationships have been stud- ied evolutionarily in some instances, although the evolutionary response has usually been studied one side at a time. Some of the most widely known examples of evolutionary re- sponses involve man: hemoglobin responses to malaria and thalassemia as a host response and the development of drug-resistant bacteria as a parasite response. One host-parasite system is now being studied extensively from both sides by Dr. J. H. Camin and his associates at the University of Kansas. Working with rabbits and rabbit ticks (Haemaphysalis leporis-palus- tris), they have been able to demonstrate an immunity to tick attack developing in the rab- bits. Ticks that get on a rabbit after others are already feeding either cannot attach or can take much less blood. Therefore, they produce fewer eggs or none at all. Immunity 1s tempo- rary, only lasting ten to twenty days if it is not challenged. The ticks show a circadian rhythm in dropping off the rabbits which causes the ticks to concentrate in rabbit warrens and tends to synchronize the life cycles of the indi- vidual ticks. They, therefore, get on the rabbit en masse, rather than a few at a time. Many other aspects of the rabbit-tick system have been under investigation by the Camin group, including the fascinating question of why the rabbits have not evolved a long-term immu- nity. The circadian rhythm of the ticks is, by the way, relatively independent of the rabbit physiology (entrained by photoperiod), which makes an interesting contrast with the Euro- pean rabbit flea in which the reproduction of the flea and its transfer from the adult rabbit to
6
the young rabbits is controlled by the hor- monal changes in the pregnant female rabbit.
Many other evolutionary responses have been inferred in connection with host-parasite systems, usually as “adaptations” of the para- site to the host and host responses (of which various immune reactions are the outstanding examples). The intimate relationship between parasites and the hosts which we consider to be “vectors” have also received considerable atten- tion, but little evolutionary study. We know that vectors and vectored tend to occur to- gether at the right time and place, but we do not know in most cases what kinds of selective pressures each places on the other. For in- stance, are Wuchereria populations and mos- quito populations engaged in a perpetual dance in which a constant disruptive selection pres- sure occurs in both populations? Microfilariae tend to occur in the peripheral blood at the time that the mosquito vector is feeding. Pre- sumably the earliest and latest mosquitoes have the smallest chance of picking up the parasites. This could lead eventually to a polymorphism of feeding times in the mosquito population, followed by a similar response in the parasite. Or other selection pressures may make either early or late feeding hazardous, so that direc- tional selection would operate on feeding time. Or, other selective factors may override the ef- fects of parasite infection and maintain a rather rigid mosquito feeding time.
Even in situations where we have some idea of the evolutionary dynamics, as in the case of sickle-cell anemia in man, we have not been able to examine the entire pattern of coevolu- tion. For instance, although we know that hemoglobin S gives considerable protection against Plasmodium, we do not know the entire mechanism of protection or the exact kinds of selection pressures to which the parasites are subjected. The glutamic acid-valine residue substitution which changes hemoglobin A to hemoglobin S results in a fifty-fold increase in the viscosity of the hemoglobin. The phago- trophic feeding of the Plasmodium is inhibited, as the formation of food vacuoles becomes diffi- cult. Changes occur in the surface of infected
CoEvolution and the Biology of Communities
erythrocytes, making it possible for the liver to recognize them and remove them. The malaria parasite might evade this defense by evolving
a new feeding strategy, perhaps by developing an enzyme to reduce hemoglobin viscosity. Whether there is any trend in this direction is unknown. To my knowledge, there has not been an attempt to compare features of strains of, say, Plasmodium falciparum, from areas of high and low Hb* frequency.
MIMICRY
Closely paralleling the host-parasite case would be the coevolutionary interactions involved in Batesian mimicry. The mimic, of course, plays the role of the parasite. Its strategy is to take advantage of the model without destroying it. The model gains nothing—and faces the dan- ger of a “credibility gap” developing in its po- tential predators. For at some point, if the mimics get too common, most predators will associate only happy experiences with what originally was an aposematic pattern in the model. Such a development, of course, ruins the game for both players. One would expect that the model would evolve away from the mimic at a maximum rate, everything else being equal. It is to the mimic’s advantage to maintain a maximum of resemblance to the model, until that critical point mentioned above is reached. Then the advantage becomes a disadvantage—the mimic is conspicuously patterned, but predators now associate that pattern with tastefulness. As a result, selection would tend to move the mimic away from the model into a more cryptic pattern. It is not in- conceivable that imperfect resemblances, now attributed to mimicry in the process of being perfected, are quite the opposite. They may represent mimics moving away from the model of mimics in an equilibrium situation between perfect mimicry and cryptic coloration. Devel- opment of a polymorphism in which one or more forms are nonmimetic may also be the re- sult of such a reversal of the selective situation. As Ehrlich and Raven pointed out, there is no sharp line between Batesian and Mullerian mimicry. (In Batesian mimicry a palatable spe-
cies resembles an unpalatable one {the model]; in Mullerian mimicry, two different unpalata- ble species resemble each other.) In all cases
it obviously is of advantage to the Batesian mimic to become distasteful if it is physiologi- cally possible to do so. In butterflies, at least, it appears that the usual source of noxious compounds is plant biochemicals, so that food- plant relationships must play a large role in the evolutionary dynamics of any given situation. A butterfly has several different routes to ob- noxiousness open to it. If it occurs on a food- plant which does not produce an appropriate compound, it may switch foodplants. If it is feeding on a plant with an appropriate com- pound or its precursors, the butterfly may evolve the ability to use the compound or syn- thesize a noxious compound from precursors. Finally the foodplant of the butterfly may evolve an appropriate compound, which then may be picked up by the butterfly. In the latter case the mimetic butterfly would be involved in a complex of “selectional races” involving the model, the foodplant, and predators. As the foodplant becomes more and more obnox- ious, the butterfly must find ways of “breaking even” by avoiding poisoning or “winning” by turning the poison to its own advantage. Pred- ators may simultaneously be undergoing selec- tion for ability to discriminate between model and mimic, and for “resistance” to the obnox- ious properties of the model. Of course the presence or strength of such selection will de- pend on many variables. For instance, in some cases butterflies in a single population may make up such a small proportion of the targets of a single predator that selective influence on the predator will be negligible.
In many ways mimetic assemblages make ideal subjects for the study of coevolution—as has been amply demonstrated by the Browers, Phillip Sheppard, and others. We understand a great deal about them, and yet there are many questions unanswered. For instance, detailed studies of putative Mullerian complexes are needed to answer a variety of questions. One would expect that the various members of the complex would have different effects on preda-
7
Paul R. Ehrlich
tors since they presumably are picking up poi- sons from different sources. As an example, one Mullerian butterfly complex consists of a Lyco- rea species, presumably feeding on Asclepiada- cae or Apocynaceae, several Ithomiines on So- lanaceae, two Heliconius on Passifloraceae, and a Perrhybris with an unknown foodplant. Ideally, of course, each member of the complex would give strong and similar reinforcement to all lo- cal predators, so that multivalent noxiousness might evolve in various members. It would be particularly interesting if biochemical mimicry could be detected in some of these organ- isms—that is, two quite different chemical compounds obviously selected to give similar effects in the same predator. Rothschild has suggested that this occurs with defensive odors.
Although it is clear that, in general, Bate- sian complexes should evolve toward Mullerian complexes, the fate of Mullerian complexes is less obvious. It would probably be unwise to think of them as stable “end points” of evolu- tionary sequences. If this were the case, one might picture all of the diurnal Lepidoptera (and perhaps many other herbivores and small predators) in an area eventually being recruited into one large complex. It would really save the memories of the birds, but the birds would not have to remember for long because they would starve to death. Obviously, the larger a Muller- ian complex gets, and the more similar the defenses of its members become, the more “profit” accrues to a predator which devises a way of consuming the Mullerian mimics. Thus a large selective premium is placed on a strong stomach, and one would expect predators evolving rapidly to deal with the entire com- plex. If this happens, the advantages of be- longing are reduced and one might expect the complex to break up.
PLANTS AND POLLINATORS
Mullerian mimicry is one good example of mutualism. There are many others, many of which doubtless would provide good materials for coevolutionary studies. Perhaps the most widely studied mutualistic coevolutionary sys- tem is that of flowering plants and their polli-
8
nators. Relationships in this system range from extremely close and clearly reciprocal to casual and possibly unidirectional. Best known of the “tight” relationships are those of the yucca and the yucca moth and of the fig and the fig wasp. In the latter case, both insect and plant are to- tally dependent on one another—the relation- ship is obligate in both directions. A wide variety of intimacy has been revealed in the re- lationships of bees and Onagraceae by the ele- gant investigations of Linsley, MacSwain, and Raven. A large number of bee species visiting Ocnothera were found to be oligolectic, collect- ing pollen for their larval cells exclusively from plants of that genus. Many others, however, were polylectic, collecting pollen from Oenothe- ra and from plants of other genera and fami- lies. The tightest relationship discovered was that of the bee Andrena rozeni and Camissonia claviformis. The plant, which has a flower well suited for bee pollination, presents its pollen and nectar in the late afternoon (it is presum- ably derived from a morning-opening species). Andrena rozeni only gathers pollen in the late afternoon, even though residual pollen is avail- able early in the morning. The mouthparts of A. rozeni are elongated, permitting it to ex- tract both nectar and pollen simultaneously, and these are very rarely taken from other plants. Mating likewise takes place at the flow- ers of Camissonia claviformis, the males cruising over them before the first appearance of the fe- males. Of course, many pollination systems have been studied from the point of view of floral morphology, color, and odor in relation to attracting the proper pollinators: long co- rolla tubes for hawkmoths, red color for hum- mingbirds, huge widemouthed nocturnal flow- ers for bats, chemical attractants in orchids, orchids shaped as females to lure male insects, and so forth. It is not clear in most cases, how- ever, what evolutionary responses in pollinators have been elicited by the vast smorgasbord with which they are presented. It would bea mistake to assume that the response has not been considerable, if subtle. It behooves a pol- linator to get the job of feeding done with as little energy and risk as possible. Each pollina- tor is presumably programmed genetically to
CoEvolution and the Biology of Communities
respond to a “‘proper”’ series of stimuli—an ex- act odor, color, or shape, or a series of odors, colors, or shapes. Each pollinator has adopted a strategy—in essence specialist or generalist. Similarly, each plant has adopted a strategy. As floras and faunas evolve together, the utilities of the various strategies are going to change. The specialist pollinator may find its food source becoming too rare, or the generalist pollinator may find the competition too stiff at many of its sources. Conversely, the specialist plant may find its pollinator going extinct, or the generalist plant may find it is not getting enough accurate transport. The end result of any of these anthropomorphized possibilities is a choice of “evolve or go extinct.” When the behavior patterns of pollinators are more thor- oughly understood, we shall appreciate more fully the reciprocal nature of most pollination systems.
COEVOLUTIONARY COMPLEXES AND COMMUNITY STUDIES
It seems appropriate now to discontinue the survey of coevolutionary complexes and return briefly to the question of the consequences of their study for community biology in general. Community biology is concerned with the composition of communities and the dynamics of that composition. Community composition is, in part, determined by physical tolerance limits on the distribution of species. Deter- mining the factors limiting distributions and the ways in which organisms ‘“‘adapt”’ to the areas they occupy is the preoccupation of a branch of “physiological ecology.” Someone once said that the usual conclusion of a study in this field is the determination that the or-
ganism can indeed live where it lives. The question of why those limits exist—that is, why the organisms have not transgressed those limits evolutionarily—is rarely investigated. In some cases the answers may lie in the rela- tionship of the organism to its physical envi- ronment. For instance, many butterflies may not have penetrated temperate regions simply because they have been unable to develop satis- factory diapause mechanisms. (This, of course, immediately raises the question of why some species have developed satisfactory mechanisms while others have not.) In other cases the an- swers probably lie in the area of coevolutionary interactions. The presence of a “winning pred- ator’ or the absence of a “‘beatable”’ foodplant may limit a herbivore. A model may be, in es- sence, “chased” by a mimic into an area which the mimic cannot penetrate (perhaps because of the distribution of its foodplant). We do know that mimetic species often extend their range beyond that of the model, ordinarily with a rapid loss of mimetic pattern. However, we do not know whether in any cases the mimetic species is restricted to the range of the model because of mimetic relationships.
Taking a coevolutionary approach to prob- lems of community biology lessens the chance of being seduced into “explanations,” such as “competition from X limited the distribution of Y.” If the limitation of X is due to Y, then the two usually make up a coevolutionary sys- tem. In order to understand the limitation, it is necessary to understand the system. This means that questions about selection, such as were asked earlier, must be posed, and field and laboratory experiments must be carried out to find the answers.
STEPHANIE MILLS
Salons and Their Keepers
From the original introduction
(Summer 1974):
The most powerful instrument of in- tellectual community organizing is the salon. I’m convinced of this after seeing the effects of two small grants from the Point Foundation {publish- ers of CQ and the Whole Earth Cata- /og} to Stephanie Mills for the pur- pose of giving dinners.
When talk is intended to be good instead of merely efficient, meta- business gets transacted. Something gels. The abbot of the San Francisco Zen Center says that culture is what happens when a number of people know each other well. Maybe that’s what gels.
A hostess with wit, culinary skill, and access to people who ought to know each other is all it takes.
Stewart Brand
The author is the same Stephanie Mills who became a living symbol of the movement for international pop- ulation control, after giving a vale- dictorian speech at Mills College in 1969 in which she said “I am terri-
IO
bly saddened that the most humane thing for me to do is to have no chil- dren at all.” She later edited Not Man Apart and COEVOLUTION QUAR- TERLY. In an essay in the Winter 1980 CQ called “Learning to Live with Ambiguity,” she foreshadowed her shift from international to local, or bioregional, politics: “Eleven years after announcing the apoca- lypse Iam coming to realize that I probably won’t get to watch the End of the World in my lifetime. I. . . have learned that doing unalloyed, or sufficient good is {an} impossibility, unless that good is so specific that it may seem insignificant to the faith- less and invisible to the demogra- phers.” Now she lives on a farm in northern Michigan where she ts writ- ing a book, and involved in biore- gional organizing.
Art Kleiner
Salon: The reception room of a Parisian lady of fashion; hence a reunion of notabilities at the house of such a lady, also a similar gathering in other capitals. (Shorter Oxford English Dictionary)
Salons are spaces, psychic spaces created to draw the best talk from a gathering of minds. Since the Renaissance, they have been ostensi- bly agendaless gatherings for the sake of con- versation. At the time of their French flourish- ing, people were not so disillusioned with words as we. Conversation had the status of an art. Salons were its galleries.
. . words are not merely. . . a means to com-
Salons and Their Keepers
municate ideas, feelings and needs but an instrument one likes to play and which revives the spirit. . .
A certain way in which people act on one another, a quick give and take of pleasure, a way of speaking as soon as one thinks, of rejoicing in oneself in the immediate present, of being applauded without mak- ing an effort, of displaying one’s intelligence by every nuance of intonation, gesture, and look—in short, the ability to produce at will a kind of electricity. Quoth Madame de Staél, history’s most famous saloniére.
Salons still exist, but the conversational aes- thetic has vanished. Cocktail parties are not sa- lons. The talk that takes place at cocktail par- ties with its discontinuities and roving eyes cannot be called proper conversation. Talk shows might pass as a species of salon if they were less self-conscious and plug-oriented, but the quality of intelligence on talk shows is di- luted. While it abounds in sharpness, it often lacks the creative direction of good salon con- versation. Talk shows are promiscuous. Salons are organisms, collectivities which require friendship and intimacy to function.
Attendance at the great salons of eighteenth and nineteenth century Paris was habitual. Different saloniéres (most of whom were women) received on different evenings to avoid conflicts with their friends’ gatherings. Much of the brilliance and constancy of the salons derived from the presence of core groups of friends—the planets—who attended faithfully and warmed the parties with friendship. Brio and excitement were provided by rising and falling stars shooting through.
During the eras of Enlightenment and Rev- olution, Paris’ atmosphere was charged with the ideas of progress and reform, political de- bate, then intrigues—to depose the monarchy, to save the republic, then to resist Napoleon’s dictatorship. These philosophies and strategies were aired and developed in the salons; there cells of opinion throve and the French Revolu- tion was accomplished. The vehicle was not polemic, but conversation.
Julie de Lespinasse and Germaine Necker de Staél each presided over the most luminous and eagerly attended salon of her generation. Julie died in the springtime of 1776, when
Germaine was just ten. Their lives over- lapped—many of the members of Julie’s salon also attended Mme. Necker’s Fridays. Thus Germaine grew up surrounded by Julie’s con- temporaries. And the two women were linked by a lover—Hippolyte de Guibert, who may have been Madame de Staél’s first, and was Ju- lie’s last.
Julie de Lespinasse was the illegitimate child of the Comtesse d’Albon. Therefore she was propertyless. Her loving mother did at- tempt to provide her an inheritance, but when her mother died, Julie, in an excess of grief, turned the money over to her brother. Penni- less, she wound up serving her sister Diane and brother-in-law Gaspard de Vichy as a governess for four years, the last two of which were made rancorous by the discovery that Gaspard was likely her father.
Gifted with kindness, intelligence, and tact, made miserable by her domestic situa- tion, and unstimulated in the remote chateau, she was ready to be rescued. At which point Gaspard’s sister, the Marquise du Deffand, ap- peared at Champrond for a visit. Here was a witty, civilized woman, keeper of a notable Pa- risian salon, sadly going blind. She perceived in Julie a potentially charming companion, and began to consider bringing her to Paris.
After about a year of negotiations with the de Vichys, who feared that Julie might try to claim some of her mother’s inheritance, Julie took up residence with Madame du Deffand in the convent of St. Joseph. (At that time French convents provided a refuge for single women of reduced means and were not very cloistered. The residents could maintain apartments and their particular lives within their hospitable shelter.) In her correspondence regarding the move, the Marquise had written a prophetic word of warning: “I am naturally distrustful, and all those in whom I detect slyness become suspicious to me to the point of no longer feel- ing the slightest confidence in them.”
At twenty-two, then, Julie de Lespinasse became part of Madame du Deffand’s distin- guished company of intellectuals with a grace and ease that amazed them all. She was out- wardly plain, but possessed, Grimm said,
JE At
Stephanie Mills
“The difficult and precious art of drawing out the best intelligence of others.” Her relation- ship with the Marquise lasted ten years, until it was severed by a terrible schism.
Julie had begun to hold a small salon of her own an hour or so before the Marquise’s six P.M. arrival. When she descended early and discovered Julie skimming the cream of the conversation, she exploded in a fit of jealousy and drove the usurper out. Furthermore, she insisted that her friends declare their loyalty either to her or to Julie. Many of the regulars, including D’Alembert, went with Julie, and set about arranging for her to have a salon of her own. Such independence, for a woman of her means and status, was unheard of at the time. The novelty of their idea is testimony to Julie’s genius as a salonieére.
Various friends provided the money to rent a small house, furnish it, and pay servants. Among the most generous of these was Ma- dame Geoffrin, another saloniére, who sold her most valuable paintings to provide Julie an annuity.
While most Parisian salons offered lavish dinners and feasts, Julie’s on the Rue Belle- chasse was modest to the point of spartanism. She was the enticement. In one of many pane- gyrics on her skill as a hostess Marmontel said, “She gathered her people here and there in so- ciety, but she chose them so well that when they assembled it was like an experienced hand striking the chords of an instrument. To con- tinue the simile, I might add that she played on that instrument with an art that knew no bounds.” Her gatherings verified the nickname bestowed on her by Madame du Deftand— “Muse of the Encyclopedia.”
While reigning as one of Paris’ luminaries she was racked by two hopeless love affairs. To one of her lovers she wrote, “Mon ami, society offers me now but two interests. I must love, or I must be enlightened.” The futility of her loves made a personal hell undetected by her friends. D’Alembert, who lived with her for years, was shocked by the revelation of them some years after her death.
Julie’s first great love was a gifted young Spanish noble, the Marquis de Mora, who
12
struggled for years to obtain parental consent to marry her. He struggled also with consump- tion and was away from Paris for long stretches of time. She began to console herself in his ab- sence with the friendship of Guibert, and be- gan the passionate, chiding correspondence, which survives as a complex lament of a soul tormented by remorse and unrequited love. As the affair with Guibert ripened, Mora’s health waned, and he died en route to see her. Julie blamed herself for Mora’s death, and perhaps masochistically threw herself into the pursuit of Guibert.
“My thought, my soul can henceforth be filled by you alone, and by my harrowing re- grets.” But Guibert had made no secret of his liaisons with other women, and married some- one else. Julie died twelve months later, her health slowly wasted by a cough, her anxieties, and her increasing use of opium. What was amazing, wrote her friend Morrelet, was that “You would still find her interesting and ani- mated in the midst of her daily increasing weakness.”
Germaine de Staél had almost been hybrid- ized to keep a salon. Jacques Necker, her fa- ther, was Louis X VI’s Controller General. One of the richest and most powerful men in Eu- rope, he briefly held France’s fate in his hands. Suzanne Curchod Necker, her mother, main- tained a famous salon in Paris. Strict, ambi- tious and intense, she provided Germaine with an arduous education. Asa little girl, Ger- maine attended salons peopled by the likes of Diderot, D’Alembert, Gibbon, Marmontel, and Grimm. They challenged her wits—she responded with poise, and developed into the most brilliant conversationalist of her time. After her marriage in 1786, she began her own salon, which became a powerful influence on French politics thereafter.
When Napoleon’s star began to rise, she sought to include him in her gatherings, but Madame de Staél drove him up a wall; he couldn’t abide uppity women. Viz this ex- change between them at a dinner given by Talleyrand: De Staél: “Who is the greatest woman, alive or dead?’’ Bonaparte: ““The one who has made the most children.” She had dif-
Salons and Their Keepers
ficulty comprehending his aversion to her. Her excellent biographer, J. Christopher Herold, suggests an explanation in Mzstress to an Age: “The most prominent of her guests were drawn not from among the enemies of his regime but from its elite. . . . In Madame de Staél’s house the schoolboys were encouraged to be disre- spectful of their master; they unlearned the fear on which his power rested.”
De Staé] threatened him further with her writing. Her opus consists of more than thirty works: novels, essays, elegies, treatises, and dramas. De Staél, “The Empress of Mind,” was so influential that Napoleon, “The Em- peror of Matter,” exiled her after the publica- tion of Delphine and later suppressed the publi- cation of De /’A/lemagne.
Her base during her periods of exile was in Switzerland at Coppet, her father’s chateau. There she surrounded herself with her friends and lovers. The salon went on. Her life and the lives of her contemporaries were awash in words. Wherever she went, she carried a little green escritoire and wrote. The intelligentsia kept lengthy diaries, corresponded volumi- nously, and published their thoughts. De Staél’s guests at Coppet played a parlor game called petite poste in which they sat around a ta- ble and, not speaking, carried on conversations and flirtations by passing little notes.
When not thus occupied or conversing, they wrote, acted in, or watched theatrical produc- tions; or wrote letters to their friends down the hall. Charles-Victor de Bonstetten, one of the faithfuls, wrote, “I just returned from Coppet, and I feel completely stupefied . . . and ex- hausted by the intellectual debauches. More wit is expended at Coppet in a single day than in many a country during a whole year.”
Madame de Staél passed much of her exile in travel, being received by nobility and sages throughout Europe. It was said that there were three great powers in Europe: England, Rus- sia, and Madame de Staél. She was instrumen- tal in bringing about Napoleon’s downfall, compassionate enough to warn him of a subse- quent plot on his life. She had the temerity to demand absolute loyalty from her lovers, and practice a double standard (‘‘I do not like my
friends to get married”). She was funky enough to have lost the train of her gown during her presentation at the court of Louis XVI.
Socializing in those days was continuous— there was no distinction drawn between it and business. Human relationships were the ma- trix of a thriving life of the mind. Power was wielded more personally. Madame de Staél never held an office—she didn’t need to. Influ- ence was enough. There was a whole lot of nepotism going on, and it wasn’t always a bad thing.
Though it is bad taste to condone nepotism in a democratic society, it is one of the ways things work. Members of an elite make their way along the grapevine finding jobs and homes, meeting friends and getting breaks by word of mouth. Nepotism isn’t always reliable or fair, but it is human. The mechanistic de- vices that the free enterprise system uses to place people aren’t always reliable or fair either, and they can be dehumanizing. Perhaps instead of condemning nepotism (the soft un- acknowledged system) for the putative one, nepotism could be made more useful and elites diversified.
Thanks to nepotism, I received a foundation grant to keep a salon. A “Cookenheim,” Nick von Hoffman dubbed it. The foundation direc- tor who supported it most actively had known me for years. Another director who chipped in is a lover of mine. Like Julie de Lespinasse, I was subsidized by my friends to keep a salon. Funding a grasshopper-pauper writer like me to throw dinner parties catapulted that kind of entertaining out of the realm of the well-con- nected wealthy.
It started offhandedly. I’d been an environ- mental activist for a while, traveling, speechi- fying, making acquaintances. Eventually I got out of that and began to write.
Meanwhile, the United Nations was plan- ning its Conference on the Human Environ- ment in Stockholm. Hopes were that it might be a great occasion of world environmental consciousness raising. A number of California’s finest eco-freaks began making plans not just to attend, but to launch a veritable flotilla of counter-culturalists. Life Forum was the um-
13
Stephanie Mills
brella organization which transported some poets (Gary Snyder and Michael McClure), the Hog Farm complete with two buses, an estim- able writer (Mary Jean Haley, who produced a guidebook to the city and conference), Native American and white members of the Black Mesa Defense Fund, and its own staff to the gallery and apartments at Pilgatan 11 in Stockholm.
Many of this company were friends and sought to involve me, suggesting that I do my population schtick. But all I wanted to do was give dinner parties. Almost within minutes funding was available for me to join the gang and set up the salon.
I wandered around Stockholm with my transit map and phrasebook, breaking up gro- cers wherever I went with my futile attempts at Swedish. We had some fine parties there.
One of the best was the Whale Salon. It starred Joan MacIntyre, head of Project Jonah, who has made saving whales her life—she came to Stockholm and reminded everybody that it was living creatures being discussed; Willy Wiloya, an Inuit, who hunts whales for
a living; Lee Talbot, a White House advisor on wildlife conservation; a British cetologist; a Canadian marine biologist who made passion- ate entreaties that we not overlook the plight of the salmon; and Michael and Joanna McClure. Sundry members of Life Forum and Point Foundation rounded out the party.
The highlight of the evening was Michael’s reading of one of his Gargoyle Cartoons, a dia- logue between a Swedish garter snake and a Japanese garter snake on the relative merits of being a seal, mackerel, or whale on a nice day. This he did with deadpan vaudeville accents, and cracked us all up. The group was so diverse and alive that everybody delighted everybody else, and a good time was had by all.
Such a good time in fact, that I was funded to keep a salon in Berkeley for a year ‘“‘to bring people together who wouldn’t necessarily meet, to provide them with a leisurely gracious environment in which to become acquainted and intelligently converse, to encourage sky- larking,”’ as I said in my proposal. It worked, and did a fair amount of good. But that’s a year’s worth of other stories.
LYNN MARGULIS JAMES E. LOVELOCK
The Atmosphere as Circulatory System of
the Biosphere—
the Gaia Hypothesis
The Gaia Hypothesis (“Gaia”’ is pro- nounced to rhyme with papaya) treats the anomalous Earth atmo- sphere as an artifact of life and com- prehends the planet itself as a single life.
The two old puzzles—1) How does the bizarre Earth atmosphere maintain itself? and 2) How does fragile Earth life maintain itself ?— solve each other. It took two remark- able scientists—Margulis & Love- lock—meeting outside their special- ties to discover that convergence.
Lynn Margulis is a microbiologist at Boston University. Her best- known contribution is the symbiotic theory of the origin of complex cells
(in her book Origin of Eukaryotic Cells). Popularization of that theory in The Lives of a Cell won Lewis Thomas a National Book Award. He even perpetuated Dr. Margulis’ mis- spelling—‘“‘Myxotricha paradoxa”’ (should be Mixotricha, she notes).
James Lovelock is the envy of every scientist, a successful free- lancer. Working out of a thatched cottage in the Salisbury Plain, En- gland, this biospheric chemist has accumulated some sixty-nine pat- ents—most of them in what he calls “gas pornography —chromato- graphic analysis of gases at the parts- per-billion level. The New Scientist recently wrote of him, “In some ways, Jim Lovelock—begetter of the Gaia hypothesis—is one of the last of the old-style natural philosophers. A scientist who works from his own home because he believes that lack of security encourages creativity, he has invented—among other things—‘a magnificent Pandora’s box’, the electron capture/detector gas chromatograph. Most sensitive of the analytical chemist’s tools, it has been responsible for arousing concern about pesticide residues and Freons in the stratosphere, and may yet help to show that, thanks to Gaia, our fears of pollution-exter- mination are unfounded.”
It was an honor for COEVOLU- TION, in Summer 1975, to be the first nonspecialist American publica- tion to carry the Gaia Hypothesis (it had earlier appeared in Britain’s New
Lynn Margulis and James E. Lovelock
Scientist and in Carl Sagan’s astron- omy journal Te//us; Sagan it was who put me in touch with Lynn Margu- lis). The topic still burns in our pages, and Lovelock and Margulis are frequent contributors. The best place to find a full discussion is in Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth, James E. Lovelock, Oxford Univer- sity Press, 1979.
Gaia is an old idea. She is one of the four primary divine beings of the Ancient Greeks—Chaos (Space), Gaia (Earth), Tartarus (the Abyss), and Eros (Love). But Gaia is still a new hypothesis, containing more questions than answers.
In Gaia we are—all—Tangled Up in Blue.
Stewart Brand
We would like to discuss the Earth’s atmo- sphere from a new point of view—that it is an integral, regulated, and necessary part of the biosphere. In 1664 Sachs von Lewenheimb, a champion of William Harvey, used the anal- ogy of the circulation of water between earth and air to illustrate the concept of the circula- tion of blood. Apparently the idea that water lost to the heavens is eventually returned to Earth was so acceptable in von Lewenheimb’s time that Harvey’s theory was strengthened by the analogy.‘”
Three hundred and ten or so years later, with the circulation of blood a universally ac- cepted fact, we find it expedient to revive von Lewenheimb’s analogy—this time to illustrate our concept of the atmosphere as circulatory system of the biosphere. This new way of viewing the Earth’s atmosphere has been called the “Gaia” hypothesis.” The term Gaia is from the Greek for “Mother Earth,” and it implies that certain aspects of the Earth’s atmo- sphere—temperature, composition, oxidation reduction state, and acidity—form a homeo- static system, and that these properties are themselves products of evolution. ®
From recent articles and books (e.g., refs. 5
16
and 6) one gets the impression that fluid dy- namics, radiation chemistry, and industrial pollution are the major factors determining the properties of the atmosphere. The Gaia hy- pothesis contends that biological gas exchange processes are also major factors, especially pro- cesses involving microorganisms. Man’s im- pact on the atmosphere may have been overes- timated. Man is only one of some three million species on Earth, all of which exchange gas and most of which exchange gas with the atmo- sphere. Man has been around for only a few million years while microorganisms have ex- isted for thousands of millions of years.
It seems to us that early twentieth-century nonmicrobiological analysis of the Earth’s lower atmosphere will one day be considered as ignorant as early nineteenth-century nonmi- crobiological analysis of fermentation or dis- ease is today.
In an excellent introduction to atmospheric science, Goody and Walker’ say, “There is a great difference between research in the labora- tory and studies of the Earth and planets. In the laboratory the scientist can perform con- trolled experiments, each carefully designed to answer questions of his own choosing. Except in minor respects, however, the Earth and planets are too large for controlled experimen- tation. All we can do is observe what happens naturally in terms of the laws of physics and chemistry.”
We agree that the laws of physics and chem- istry are basic to the understanding of atmo- spheric phenomena but insist that the laws of biology must be considered as well. It is our contention that the paucity of overall under- standing of certain aspects of the atmosphere, especially composition and temperature, is due to too narrow a paradigm: the idea that the at- mosphere is an inert part of the inorganic envi- ronment and therefore amenable to methods of study that involve only physics and chemistry.
In this paper we explore what is perhaps a more realistic view—that the atmosphere is a nonliving, actively regulated part of the bio- sphere. In our model atmospheric temperature and composition are regulated with respect to certain biologically critical substances: hydro-
The Atmosphere as Circulatory System of the Biosphere
gen ions, molecular oxygen, nitrogen and its compounds, sulfur and its compounds, and some others, whose abundance and distribu- tion in the atmosphere are presumed to be un- der biological control. Biological gas exchange processes, thought to be involved in possible control mechanisms, are discussed elsewhere. The purpose of this paper is simply to present our reasons for believing the atmosphere is ac- tively controlled.
Traditional atmospheric studies have left us with some strange anomalies. The atmosphere is an extremely complex blanket of gas in con- tact with the oceans, lakes, rivers (the hydro- sphere), and the rocky lithosphere. It has a mass of about 5.3 X 10” grams. (The mass of the oceans—the other major fluid on the sur- face of the Earth—is almost a thousand times heavier, being about 1.4 X 10” grams.) Since the atmospheric mass corresponds to less than a millionth of the mass of the Earth as a whole, one would expect small changes in the compo- sition of the solid earth to cause large changes in the composition of the atmosphere. Yet even in the face of a large number of potential per- turbations, the atmosphere seems to have re- mained dynamically constant over long periods of time.
Many facts about the atmosphere are known—its composition, its temperature and pressure profiles, certain interactions with in- coming solar radiation, and the like. Some of these are shown in Tables 1 and 2. However, as the efficacy of long-range weather forecasting attests, there is no consistent model of the at- mosphere that can be used for the purpose of prediction.© The Earth’s atmosphere defies simple description. From the point of view of chemistry it sustains such remarkable disequi- librium that Sagan “ was prompted to remark that given the temperature, pressure, and amount of oxygen in the atmosphere, ‘‘one can calculate what the thermodynamic equilibrium abundance of methane ought to be. . . . The answer turns out to be less than 1 part in 10°. This then is a discrepancy of at least 30 orders of magnitude and cannot be dismissed lightly.”
Table 2 shows that given the quantity of ox-
ygen in the atmosphere not only the major gases such as nitrogen and methane but also the minor atmospheric components are far more abundant than they ought to be accord- ing to equilibrium chemistry. Even though the minor constituents differ greatly in relative abundance, they sustain very large fluxes— comparable to those of the major constituents. The Earth’s atmosphere is certainly not at all what one would expect from a planet interpo- lated between Mars and Venus. It has too little CO,, too much oxygen, and is too warm. We believe the “Gaia” hypothesis provides the new approach that is needed to account for these deviations.
A new framework for scientific thought is justified if it guarantees new observations and experiments. The recognition that blood in mammals circulates in a closed, regulated sys- tem gave rise to meaningful scientific ques- tions such as: How is blood pH kept constant? By what mechanism is the temperature of mammalian blood regulated around its set point? What is the purpose of bicarbonate ion in the blood? What is the role of fibrinogen? If the blood were simply an inert environment (as the atmosphere is presently viewed) such ques- tions would seem irrelevant and never be asked at all.
Let us consider another analogy. Bees have been known to regulate hive temperatures dur- ing midwinter at about 31°C, approximately 59°C above ambient (10). Under threat of des- iccation they also maintain high humidities. While the air in the hive is not alive, it main- tains an enormous disequilibrium due to the expenditure of energy by the living insects— ultimately of course, solar energy. How is the hive temperature maintained? How does the architecture of the hive aid to reduce desicca- tion? How does the behavior of the worker bees alter temperature? These are all legitimate sci- entific questions, generated by the circulatory system concept.
The Gaia hypothesis of the atmosphere as a circulatory system raises comparable and useful scientific questions and suggests experiments that based on the old paradigm would never be asked, for example: How is the pH of the at-
17
Lynn Margulis and James E. Lovelock
TABLE 1. Reactive gases in the atmosphere (billions of tons/year)
How much of the gas comes from
Inorganic
W here does Cope iio sources Biological sources the gas Gas in parts Volcanic, Residence come from per million etc. ? Gaian?* Human? time principally? Nitrogen (N,) 790,000 0.001 I O 1-10 million bacteria from years dissolved nitrates in soil Oxygen (O,) 210,000 0.00016 II0 fo) 1000 years algae and green plants, given off in photosynthesis Carbon dioxide 220" "OOF 140 16 2-5 years respiration, (CO,) combustion Methane (CH,) i501 0 7 years fermenting bacteria Nitrous oxide 0.3 less than 0.6 IO years bacteria and fungi (N,O) 0.01 Carbon monox- 0.08 _ less than Teas 0.15 afewmonths from methane ide (CO) 0.001 oxidation (methane from bacteria) Ammonia (NH,) 0.006 5 O a week bacteria and fungi Hydrocarbons 0.001 0.2 0.2 hours green plants, industry (CH,), Methyl 0.00000I Oo G.O30aEO hours marine algae iodide (CH, I) Hydrogen ©.0000005 Oo ? ? 2 years bacteria, methane (H,) oxidation? Methyl O.0COO0O00000II4 O ? ? ? algae? chloride (CH,Cl)
*Gaian = nonhuman biological sources.
mosphere kept neutral or slightly alkaline? By what mechanism(s) has the mean midlatitude temperature remained constant (not deviated more than 15°C) for the last 1000 million years? Why are 0.5 X 10” tons nitrous oxide (N,O) released into the atmosphere by organ- isms? Why is about 2 X ro” tons of biogenic methane pumped into the atmosphere each year (representing nearly 10% of the total ter- restrial photosynthate)? What are the absolute
18
limits on the control mechanisms, i.e., how much perturbation (emanations of sulfur ox- ides, chlorinated compounds, and/or carbon monoxide; alterations in solar luminosity; and so forth) can the atmosphere regulatory system tolerate before all its feedback mechanisms
fail?
The Gaia approach to atmospheric homeo- stasis has also led to a number of observations that otherwise would not have been made, for
The Atmosphere as Circulatory System of the Biosphere
TABLE 2. Composition of the atmosphere: gases in disequilibrium
Oxygen used up in the Source of gas oxidation of % contribution by - Flux these gases biological process (moleslyr Disequilibrium (moleslyy — Abtological Gas Abundance % 10'7) factor x 107?) process Human Gaian* Nitrogen 78% 3.6 igo ha LT .OOI O >99 Methane I.5 ppm 6.0 Toe 12 0.0 O 100 Hydrogen 0.5 ppm 4.4 Tou 2.2 ? fo) ? Nitrous oxide 0.3 ppm 1.4 107 3.5 102 ° >99 Carbon monoxide 0.08 ppm 27 KOR 1A Oo! IO gO Ammonia 0.01 ppm 8.8 167" 3.8 0.0 O° 100
*Gaian = nonanthropogenic biological sources; for details see Table 1.
? = quantities not known. ppm = parts per million.
example, an oceanic search was undertaken for volatile compounds containing elements that are limiting to life on the land, and large quan- tities of methyl iodide and dimethy] sulfide were in fact observed."”
Given the Gaia hypothesis one deduces that all the major biological elements (Table 3) must either be not limiting to organisms (in the sense that they are always readily available in some useful chemical form) or they must be cycled through the fluids on the surface of the earth in time periods that are short relative to geological processes. (Attempts to identify vol- atile forms of these elements are in progress.) The cycling times must be short because bio- logical growth is based on continual cell divi- sion that requires the doubling of cell masses in periods of time that are generally less than months and typically, days or hours. On life- less planets there is no particular reason to ex- pect this phenomenon of atmospheric cycling, nor on the earth is it expected that gases of ele- ments that do not enter metabolism as either metabolites or poisons will cycle rapidly; e.g., based on the Gaia hypothesis, nickel, chro- mium, strontium, rubidium, lithium, bar- ium, and titanium will not cycle, but cobalt, vanadium, selenium, molybdenum, iodine, and magnesium might.“” Because biological solutions to problems tend to be varied, redun-
dant, and complex, it is likely that all of the mechanisms of atmospheric homeostasis will involve complex feedback loops (see ref. 8 for discussion). Since, for example, no volatile form of phosphorus has ever been found in the atmosphere, and since this element is present in the nucleic acids of all organisms, we are considering the possibility that the volatile form of phosphorus at present is totally “‘bio- logical particulate.” Figures 1 and 2 rather fan- cifully compare the Earth’s atmosphere at pres- ent to what it might be if life were suddenly wiped out.
Ironically, it is the past history of the earth with its extensive sedimentary record (fraught, as it is, with uncertainties in interpretation) that might provide the most convincing proof for the existence of continued biological modu- lation. If one accepts the current theories of stellar evolution, the sun, being a typical star of the main sequence, has substantially in- creased its output of energy since the earth was formed some 4500 million years ago. Some es- timates for the increase in solar luminosity over the past history of the earth are as much as 100%; most astronomers apparently accept an increase of at least 25% over 4.5 billion years.” Extrapolating from the current atmo- sphere, given solar radiation output and radia- tive surface properties of the planet, it can be
19
Lynn Margulis and James E. Lovelock
TABLE 3. Some critical biological elements that may be naturally limiting
Element
Use in biological systems
Possible form of fluid transport
MAJOR ELEMENTS
CO,; food; organic compounds in solution; biological volatiles; carbonate, bicarbonate, etc.; usually not limiting
N,, N,O, NO;, NO; (often limiting) rivers, oceans, lakes
dimethyl] sulfide; dimethyl sulfoxide, carbonyl sulfide
unknown (biological volatiles? spores? birds? migrating salmon?)
usually not limiting except in certain
C (carbon) all organic compounds
N (nitrogen) all proteins and nucleic acids
O, H (oxygen, H,O in high concentration for all
hydrogen) organisms
S (sulfur) nearly all proteins (cysteine, methionine, etc.); key coenzymes
P (phosphorus) all nucleic acids; adenosine triphosphate
Na, Ca, Mg, K membrane and macromolecular
(sodium, calcium, function
magnesium,
potassium)
terrestrial habitats (27)
TRACE ELEMENTS I (iodine) thyroxine)
Se (selenium)
limited to certain animals (e.g.,
enzymes of fermenting bacteria
methyl iodide
unknown (dimethy] selenide?)
(production of ammonia, hydrogen;
animals (26))
Mo (molybdenum)
nitrogen fixation enzymes of bacteria
unknown
and blue-green algae; carbon dioxide
reductase (Clostridium)
concluded that until about 2000 million years ago either the atmosphere was different (e.g., contained more ammonia) or the earth was fro- zen. The most likely hypothesis is that the earth’s atmosphere contained up to about one part in 10° ammonia, a good infrared ab- sorber.“® Other potential ““greenhouse”’ gases apparently will not compensate for the ex- pected lowered temperature because they do not have the appropriate absorption spectra or are required in far too large quantities to be considered reasonable.“® (There are good argu- ments for the rapid photodestruction of any at- mospheric ammonia."”) However, it has been argued that ammonia is required for the origin of life,“° and there is good evidence for the presence of fossil microbial life in the earliest sedimentary rocks (3400 million years ago."”) There is no geological evidence that since the
20
beginning of the earth’s stable crust the entire earth has ever frozen solid or that the oceans were volatilized, suggesting that the tempera- ture at the surface has always been maintained between the freezing and the boiling points of water. The fossil record suggests that from an astronomical point of view, conditions have been moderate enough for organisms to toler- ate and the biosphere has been in continuous existence for over 3000 million years.°” '® At least during the familiar Phanerozoic (the last 600 million years of earth history for which an extensive fossil record is available) one can ar- gue on paleontological grounds alone that through every era the earth has maintained tropical temperatures at some place on the sur- face and that the composition of the atmo- sphere, at least with respect to molecular oxy- gen, could not have deviated markedly. That
The Atmosphere as Circulatory System of the Biosphere
CO2
O2 Ne
oe H3C(CHa)g-C-GCiCHa), CHICHy), Oo
/ CY POs
Figure 1. Earth’s atmosphere at present: examples of major volatiles. (Key: the following compounds and spores are in the picture. It is left to the reader to identify them. See ref. 28 for many details.) Spores of: ferns, club mosses, zygomycetes, ascomycetes, basidiomycetes, slime molds, bacteria. All contain nucleic acids and other organic phosphates, amino acids, and so forth. Animal products: butyl mercaptan. Plant products: myoporum, catnip (nepetalactone), eugenol, geraniol, pinene, isothiocyanate (mustard). Un-
known: PAN (paroxacety! nitrate), dimethyl sulfide, dimethyl sulfoxide. Gases: nitrogen, oxygen, methane,
carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, ammonia.
C02
O2
Na
cOz
O02
Ne
CO2 Ne
H20
O2
Ne
co
Ne
Oz
C02
H20
Figure 2. The present atmosphere were life deleted.
21
Lynn Margulis and James E. Lovelock
is, there are no documented cases of any meta- zoan animals (out of about 2 million species) that can complete their life cycles in the total absence of O,.°” All animals are composed of cells that divide by mitosis. The mitotic cell division itself requires O,.°° Thus it is highly unlikely that current concentrations of oxygen have fallen much below their present values in some hundreds of millions of years. By impli- cation, oxygen and the gases listed in Table 2 have been maintained at stable atmospheric concentrations for time periods that are very long relative to their residence times. (Resi- dence time is the time it takes for the concen- tration of gas to fall to 1/e or 37% its value; it may be thought of as “turnover time.”) Fur- thermore, since concentrations of atmospheric oxygen only a few per cent higher than am- bient lead to spontaneous combustion of or- ganic matter, including grasslands and forests, the most reasonable assumption is that the ox- ygen value of the atmosphere has remained rel- atively constant for quite long time periods.°” How can these observations be consistently reconciled? How can we explain the simultane- ous presence of gases that are extremely reac- tive with each other and unstable with respect to minerals in the crust and at the same time note that their residence times in the atmo- sphere are very short with respect to sediment- forming and mountain-building geological processes? In this respect Table 3 can be in- structive. For one can see that even though ab- solute amounts of the gases vary over about 3 orders of magnitude, the fluxes are remarkably similar. These gases are produced and removed primarily by nonhuman biological processes. (See Table 1 and ref. 8) While the processes in- volved in atmospheric production and removal of reactive gases are not primarily dependent on human activity, for the most part they are not based on animal or plant processes either (see ref. 8 for a version of the table that lists these). It is mainly the prokaryote microorga- nisms that are involved in gas exchange; the rapidly growing and dividing masters of the microbiological world that make up in chemi- cal complexity and metabolic virtuosity what they lack in advanced morphology. These or-
PaPd
Figure 3. Scene from a geothermal area in Fig Tree times (about 3400 million years ago).
ganisms presumably played a similar role in biogeochemical processes in the past as they do today. There is direct fossil evidence for the continued existence of Precambrian microorga- nisms.°” That they have an ancient history can also be deduced from current studies of their physiology. Among hundreds of species of these prokaryotic microorganisms are many obligate anaerobes, that is, organisms poisoned by oxygen. (All organisms are poisoned by ox- ygen at concentrations above those to which they are adapted.) Hundreds of others are known that are either microaerophils (adapted to concentrations of oxygen less than ambient) or facultative aerobes (can switch their metabo- lism from oxygen-requiring to oxygen- nonrequiring).
As a group, the prokaryotic microbes show evidence that the production and release of molecular oxygen into the atmosphere was an extremely important environmental determi- nant in the evolution of many genera. Prokar- yotic microbes (in the form known as the blue- green algae, cyanophytes) were almost cer- tainly responsible for the original transition to the oxygen-containing atmosphere about 2000 million years ago."”
Figures 3 and 4 present scenes before and after the transition to oxidizing atmosphere re- spectively. Figures 5 and 6 are reconstructions of anaerobic cycles corresponding to Figures 3 and 4, respectively. Figure 3 attempts to re- construct the scene as it might have looked
The Atmosphere as Circulatory System of the Biosphere
a
Ke ]
ZS SS IS IIBWNG Figure 4. Scene from a geothermal area in Gun- flint times (about 2000 million years ago).
3400 million years ago, admittedly in a rather geothermal area. Although no free oxygen (above that produced by photochemical pro- cesses and hydrogen loss) is available in the at- mosphere the scene is teeming with life—mi-
crobial life. For example, entire metabolic processes, as shown in Figure 5, are available within the group of anaerobic prokaryotic mi- crobes today. Since at the higher taxonomic levels (kingdoms and phyla) once successful patterns evolve they tend not to become ex- tinct,°” it is likely that ancestors of present- day microbes were available to interact with atmospheric gases very early on the primitive earth. Certainly life was very advanced meta- bolically by the time the stromatolitic rocks were deposited. With the evolution of oxygen- releasing metabolism by blue-green algae came the stromatolites. These layered sediments are extremely common, especially in the late Pre- cambrian.°” With the stromatolites come other Precambrian evidence for the transition to the oxidizing atmosphere. By the middle Precambrian, about 2000 million years ago— the time at which the stromatolites and micro- fossils become increasingly abundant °* *”—
? N H S p> yd BORK WD gs AMMonn ® CREF ARBoy ro we MONO, YY sure nit Sarcina E DE Clostridium Methanococcus photosynthetic CH and others (exe) — a. NH; He ane SCO A Ne2 | I ] a Hes _ neorly all volatile amines from breakdown hy organisms and organic acids hv of porphyrins lactic acid bacteria Eubocterium Clostridium V photosynthetic bacteria, : green sulfur bocterio, | | ee |S CO3- purple sulfur bacteria ee +Ho ee CaS04q4 | Fe pyrimides th Seniesa ee | amino acids Coco; +3H,0+ ge Pt Micrococcus photosynthetic photosynthetic Rceipitate S04 Ss | lactic ocid bocteria, mixed bacteria | bacteria, and acid and butylene Clostridio 3CO+H20+4+5S others glycol fermenters LIMESTONES H2SO4 ae AG° 298 = ae cc an | a IRON SULFIDES
ee
nucleic acids, cystetic acid
proteins of proteins 1 eesti [CH20]n
\° REDUCED CARBON OF CELLS /
Figure 5. A reconstruction of possible anaerobic cycles: 3400 million years ago (genera of microorganisms catalizing the reactions are underlined).
23
Lynn Margulis and James E. Lovelock
? ‘das N 0 C S co Ho . atmospheric sSGEN photodissociotion ONIA Ny NI THANE pi CARBON y ROY, EN - \ NIT Ox\D Bocillus ee —— <€oligocarbo- aaa 02 = CO2 phitus NS Ba H Nilkcsomones HoOROo atmos Se O2 TRigbor| Caan cena Rrotobacter Op + CH ae Methonococcus aS 4 Gis 9 oxidizing Clostridium + Ho and others co ae) Oxidr7z becteric eee NH3 me “\ CO» volatile Oo from breakdown (ee N amines ond of porphyrins N20 sche orgonic f loctic acid bacterio O02 Mycobacterium CO2 : acids ) + Nocordio i Eubocterium Methone teins dl S-CH3 Ho S Pseudomonos denitritying Clostridium Hydrogen | Lo. |= eel "| pacterig Ammonia a (saat green sulfur bacteria rd be a sulfur bocterio CoCO3 Dessitovbnor Micrococcus photosyr:thetic + O2 O2 a" lactic acid bacteria, photosynthetic $0. gee 2S O2 + ( =— bocterio, ond fermenters pla bocterio a5 + Fe(OH3) others GR Clostridia CHe [LIMESTONES] oxidizing Ppt FeCOs” 5 NOo- “ip cxciing NO3- MANY OXIDIZED RED BEDS =< MINERALS nucleic acids, cystetic oN proteins of proteins
ae ia CARBON OF s
Figure 6. A reconstruction of possible microbial aerobic cycles: 2000 million years ago.
the scene might have looked like that in Figure 4. The metabolic processes accompanying
that scene are shown in Figure 6. It is obvious that from among metabolic processes in pro- karyotic microbes alone there are many that involve the exchange of atmospheric gases. This figure shows how oxygen-handling me- tabolism was essentially superimposed on an anaerobic world, a concept that is consistent with the observation that reaction with mo- lecular oxygen tends to be the final step in aerobic respiratory processes. All of the pro- cesses shown in Figures 5 and 6 are known from current microorganisms (and, by defini- tion, those that haven’t become extinct are evo- lutionarily successful).
The fossil evidence, taken together, suggests that the earth’s troposphere has maintained re- markable constancy in the face of several enor- mous potential perturbations: at least the in- crease in solar luminosity and the transition to the oxidizing atmosphere. The earth’s atmo- sphere maintains chemical disequilibria of
24
many orders of magnitude containing rapidly turning-over gases produced in prodigious quantities. The temperature and composition seem to be set at values that are optimal for most of the biosphere. Furthermore, the bio- sphere has many potential methods for altering the temperature and composition of the atmo- sphere.“ The biosphere has probably had these methods available almost since its inception more than 3000 million years ago. Is it not reasonable to assume that the lower atmo- sphere is maintained at an optimum by homeo- stasis and that this maintenance (at the ulti- mate expense of solar energy, of course) is performed by the party with the vested inter- est: the biosphere itself?
REFERENCES
1. W. Pagel, 1951. Isis 42:23. Pagel quotes Harvey himself as saying: “I began to think whether there might not be a motion as it were in a circle. Now this I after- wards found to be true; . . . which motion we may be al- lowed to call circular, in the same way as Aristotle says that the air and the rain emulate the circular motion of
The Atmosphere as Circulatory System of the Biosphere
the superior bodies; for the moist earth, warmed by the sun evaporates; the vapours drawn upwards are con- densed, and descending in the form of rain moisten the earth again; and by this arrangement are generations of living things produced. . . . And so in all likelihood, does it come to pass in the body, through the motion of the blood; the various parts are nourished, cherished, quickened by the warmer more perfect vaporous spiri- tous, and, as I may say, alimentive blood; which, on the contrary, in contact with these parts becomes cooled, co- agulated, and, so to speak, effete; whence it returns to its sovereign, the heart, as if to its source, or to the inmost home of the body, there to recover its state of excellence of perfection.”
2. J. E. Lovelock, 1972. Gaia as seen through the at- mosphere. Atmospheric Environment 6: 579-580.
3. J. E. Lovelock and L. Margulis, 1974. Atmospheric homeostasis by and for the biosphere: The Gaia hypothe- sis. Tellus 26: 1-10.
4. J. E. Lovelock and L. Margulis, 1974. Homeostatic tendencies of the Earth’s atmosphere. Origins of Life I: 12-22.
5. I. Rasool, Ed. 1974. The Lower Atmosphere. New York: Plenum Press.
6. W. W. Kellogg and S. H. Schneider, 1974. Climate stabilization: for better or for worse? Science 186: 1163-1172.
7. R. Goody and J.C. G. Walker, 1972. Atmo- spheres. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.
8. L. Margulis and J. E. Lovelock, 1974. Biological modulation of the Earth’s atmosphere, Icarus 21: 471-489.
g. C. Sagan, 1970. Planets and Explorations. Condon Lectures, Eugene: Oregon State System.
10. E.O. Wilson, 1970. The Insect Societies, Cam- bridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
11. J. E. Lovelock, R. J. Maggs, and R. A. Rasmus- sen, 1972. Atmospheric dimethy] sulfide and the natural sulfur cycle. Nature 237: 452-453.
12. F Egami, 1974. Minor elements and evolution. Journal of Molecular Evolution 4: 113-120.
13. L. Oster, 1973. Modern Astronomy. San Fran- cisco: Holden Day, Inc.
14. C. Sagan and G. Mullen, 1972. Earth and Mars: Evolution of atmosphere and surface temperatures. Sci- ence 177: 52-56.
15. J. Ferris and L. Nicodem, 1974, pp. 107-117 in Origins of Life and Evolutionary Biochemistry, K. Dose,
S. W. Fox, C. A. Deborin, and T. E. Pavlovskaya, eds. New York: Plenum Press.
16. J. L. Badaand S. L. Miller, 1968. Ammonium ion concentration in the primitive ocean. Science 159: 423-425.
17. E.S. Barghoorn, 1971. The oldest fossils. Scien- tific American 224: 30-42; E. S. Barghoorn and J. W. Schopf, 1966. Microorganisms three billion years old from the Precambrian of South Africa. Science 152: 758-763.
18. P. E. Cloud, Jr., 1968. Atmospheric and hydro- spheric evolution on the primitive earth. Science 160: 729-736.
19. J. Augenfeld, 1974. Personal communication. 20. J. E. Amoore, 1961. Dependence of mitosis and respiration in roots upon oxygen tension. Proceedings of
the Royal Society, B 154: 109-129.
21. J. E. Lovelock and J. P. Lodge, 1972. Oxygen in the contemporary atmosphere. Atmospheric Environ- ment 6: 575-578.
22. G. G. Simpson, 1960, in Evolution after Darwin, S. Tax, Ed. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, Vol.1; pp. 177-180.
23. S.M. Awramik, 1973. Stromatolites of the Gun- flint Iron Formation. Ph.D. Thesis Harvard University Department of Geology, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
24. E. S. Barghoorn and S. A. Tyler, 1965. Microorga- nisms from the Gunflint Chert. Science 147: 563-577.
25. J. W. Schopf, 1970. Precambrian microorganisms and evolutionary events prior to the origin of vascular plants. Biological Review 45: 319-352.
26. T. Stadtman, 1974. Selenium biochemistry. Sci- ence 183, 915—922.
27. D.B. Botkin, P. A. Jordan, S. A. Dominski,
H. D. Lowendorf, and G. E. Hutchinson, 1973. Sodium dynamics in a northern ecosystem. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 70: 2745-2748.
28. P.H. Gregory, 1973. Microbiology of the Atmo- sphere. 2nd ed. John Wiley & Sons. New York & Toronto.
I'D PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE
CQ introduced me to the concept of Gaia. Has anyone thought about a flag for Gaia?
Stephen Hodgkin
Hughes, Australia
{Spring 1983}
25
A Conversation with
GREGORY BATESON MARGARET MEAD
For God's Sake, Margaret
It gives me glee to read this interview again. (We originally published it in Summer 1976.) I have never heard such high quality and sheer intellec- tual yield in argument. Fora good look at what it was like to grow up in the Bateson-Mead family, see Mary Catherine Bateson’s With a Daugh- ter’s Eye (Morrow, 1984). Mary Cath- erine’s account of her father’s death is in this book in your hand, p. 170. Gregory taught me to stop obsess- ing on things and focus on the rela- tions between them—to focus on pattern, the bigger and blurrier, the more challenging and potentially re- vealing. Doing that became one of the tasks of COEVOLUTION. I dedi- cated the Next Whole Earth Catalog: “To Gregory Bateson, 1904-1980. A pioneer in anthropology, psychol- ogy, cybernetics and epistemology, he always called himself a biologist. If I could count on Gregory’s com- pany in heaven, and I could get to heaven by being good, I’d be good.”
26
Likewise Margaret, though she’d have the angels organized and doing cultural exchanges with hell by now, and St. Peter would be writing snitty articles about her early work in Sa- moa, and God would finally admit to being a Lesbian, self-fecund. I miss them both. Margaret died shortly before Gregory. This interview took place at Gregory’s home near Santa Cruz, California, in 1976, when he was seventy-two and she was sev- enty-six.
They married in 1936. They had met and fallen in love in 1932 while both were doing anthropological fieldwork on the Sepik River in New Guinea (At the time, Margaret was with her second husband, Reo For- tune). In New Guinea, Gregory’s unusual sense of theory met Margar- et’s improved field methodology and sparked much of the quality in Gregory’s opus on the Iatmul tribe, Naven.
Newly wed in Bali, they spent two collaborative years in the most intense and productive fieldwork of their lives, developing, among other things, a still-unmatched photo- graphic analysis of the culture.
Their daughter Mary Catherine, Margaret’s only child, was born in 1939 in the United States. Gregory and Margaret worked together on the result of their Bali fieldwork, Balinese Character—A Photographic Analysis, and then were separated in- creasingly by World War II and their own diverging interests.
For God’s Sake, Margaret
After the war they were both in- volved in starting the somewhat fa- mous Macy Conferences (1947-53) that invented cybernetics. This in- terview begins with their joint recol- lection of that critical period.
Margaret Mead was one of the world’s most remarkable women. She got a full mixture of praise and notoriety (notorious in that day be- cause women weren't supposed to talk about sex) with her first book, Coming of Age in Samoa (1928). Since then, there have been ten other books and numerous honors and po- sitions, including President of the American Anthropological Associa- tion (1960), and of Scientists’ Insti- tute for Public Information, and (in 1976) the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a Curator of the American Museum of Natural History, which was her headquarters. In public affairs, for a while, she seemed to have taken over the Eleanor Roosevelt niche.
After Bali and the Macy Confer- ences, Gregory Bateson went on to work with schizophrenics, alcohol- ics, artists, dolphins, students, and a steadily more general set of under- standings of what they have in com- mon. He coauthored a book, Commu- nication: The Social Matrix of Psychi- atry (Norton, 1951-68) with Jurgen Ruesch, and edited Perceval’s Narra- tive—A Patient’s Account of His Psy- chosis, 1830-1832 (Stanford, 1961). Daughter Mary Catherine wrote a book about one of Gregory’s confer- ences, Our Own Metaphor (Knopf, 1972). His collected papers appear in Steps to an Ecology of Mind (Ballan- tine, 1972) which is the book that got me. Later I was able to partici- pate in the making of his summation work, Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity (Bantam, 1979) by granting $8,000 from Point Foundation for
Mary Catherine to come over from Iran and help with the book while Gregory recovered from surgery. In 1985 she has been assembling a post- humous Gregory Bateson work, An- gels Fear, on religion.
Stewart Brand
STEWART BRAND: I need a little background, if it’s all right, on how this whole Macy thing got rolling, why, and when, and what the se- quence was.
GREGORY BATESON: There was this Macy meeting in what, 42?'
sB: Who started it, and what was it about?
BATESON: This was a meeting called “Cere- bral Inhibition,” which in fact was a meeting on hypnosis.* “Cerebral inhibition” was a re- spectable word for hypnosis. Most of what was said about “feedback” was said over lunch.
MEAD: Well, I know that’s what you always tell people, but I didn’t sit at the same place at lunch, and J heard what was said at that con- ference. But at that conference, which is the one where Milton Erickson hypnotized that Yale psychologist, it was at the end of that conference that you really had the design of what needed to be done. And then you were caught up in war work and went overseas and there was that long period.
I think that you actually have to go back to that earlier meeting that was held in the base- ment of the old Psycho-Analytic building on the West Side the day of Pearl Harbor.
BATESON: They didn’t on-go from year to year, those early ones. Larry Frank was chair- man I bet.
MEAD: No, Larry never was chairman, you know. He always sat on the sidelines and made somebody else be chairman. Kubie was a very important person at that point.
BATESON: Yes. Kubie was an important
* The twenty participants included representatives of an- thropology, psychobiology, physiology, psychiatry, neu- rology, psychology, medicine, anatomy, and electronics. Among those present were Gregory Bateson, Lawrence K. Frank, Frank Fremont-Smith, Lawrence Kubie, War- ren McCulloch, Margaret Mead, Arthur Rosenblueth.
27
Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead
bridge because Kubie had respectable-ized Milton. There’s a whole series of papers which are jointly Kubie and Erickson. Now, in fact, they were Erickson’s papers.
MEAD: And Kubie didn’t know what was in them. That’s the truth.
BATESON: But Kubie did get right the en- ergy problem. He was the first person that really took Freud’s “energy” and said, “Look, look, look, it makes no sense.” There is a very good paper by Kubie on the errors of Freudian energy theory. {Goes to find the reference.} Huh. Kubie, ‘‘Fallacious Use of Quantitative Con- cepts in Dynamic Psychology.”
MEAD: Now when was that?
BATESON: That was. . . guess.
MEAD: No, I don’t guess that one.
BATESON: Published in 47. Psychoanalytic Quarterly. For which I suspect he very nearly got read out of the church. He never said it again.
MEAD: It was very hard to read Kubie out of the church because he had once been a neurolo- gist, and that was the thing that they were all
scared of. Now, where is the Rosenblueth, Wiener, and Bigelow paper? The first great pa- per on cybernetics. *
BATESON: Rosenblueth, Wiener, and Bige- low. “Behavior, Purpose and Teleology,” Phz- losophy of Science, 1943.”
MEAD: That’s it, you see.
BATESON: It could just have been pub- lished at the time of the Cerebral Inhibition conference.
MEAD: It was just coming out or just had come out.
SB: What was the experiment that that pa- per recorded?
BATESON: It didn’t record an experiment, it reported on the formal character of seeking mechanisms, essentially. Self-corrective mech- anisms such as missiles. The missile measures the angle between its direction and the target it’s seeking, and uses that measure to correct itself.
*T am told a paper by W. Ross Ashby predated this by a year but we didn’t know it.—Mead
puvsg
Gregory, Margaret, and a microphone at the Bateson home near Santa Cruz.
28
For God’s Sake, Margaret
MEAD: But using some very simple physio- logical experiments that Rosenblueth had been doing at the University of Mexico.
SB: Do you recall what they were saying that you overheard that got you excited?
BATESON: It was a solution to the problem of purpose. From Aristotle on, the final cause has always been the mystery. This came out then. We didn’t realize then (at least I didn’t realize it, though McCulloch might have) that the whole of logic would have to be recon- structed for recursiveness. When I came in from overseas in forty-five I went within the first two or three days to Frank Fremont- Smith, and said, “Let’s have a Macy Confer- ence on that stuff.”
MEAD: You and Warren McCulloch had an exchange of letters when you were in Ceylon.
BATESON: We did?
MEAD: Yes. You told me enough about it in some way. I talked to Fremont-Smith. Mc- Culloch had talked to Fremont-Smith.
BATESON: Fremont-Smith told me, “Yes, we've just arranged to have one, McCulloch is the chairman, go talk to McCulloch.”
MEAD: And McCulloch had a grand design in his mind. He got people into that confer- ence, who he then kept from talking.
BATESON: Yes, he had a design on how the shape of the conversation would run over five years—what had to be said before what else could be said.
MEAD: He wouldn’t let Ralph Gerard talk. He said, “You can talk next year.” He was very autocratic.
BATESON: Yes, but an awfully good chair- man in many ways. It’s very rare to have a chairman who knows what it’s about at all.
SB: What was his grand design?
BATESON: Who knows?
MEAD: Well, I think more or less what hap- pened was.
BATESON: How did the first meeting differ from the second meeting?
MEAD: There wasn’t even any usable termi- nology. At first we called the thing ‘‘feed- back,” and the models that we were presented with at that point were the guided missile, tar-
get-seeking. Now there had been another event that’s worth considering here. That is that Wiener had written an article in the A¢/antic, or Harper's, refusing to give the war depart- ment data on guided missiles. Remember that?
BATESON: Oh yes.
MEAD: He’d worked on them all through the war, and of course they had the material if they had hunted for it, but they made the mis- take of asking him for some, and at that point he said that he would not give it to them, the war was over, and this was data that could only be used for war-like purposes. He would not give it to them.
BATESON: That’s right, it was the Ad¢/antic.
MEAD: They were talking almost entirely of negative feedback. By this time, Wiener and Bigelow and Johnny Von Neumann of course, were members of the group, and Rosenblueth, Kurt Lewin, Molly Harrower, Evelyn Hutch- inson, Leonard Savage, Henry Brosin and that Hungarian who always knew who was sleeping with who and it was the only thing he was in- terested in, I’ve forgotten his name. Well, the lists survive all right.
There were three groups of people. There were the mathematicians and physicists—peo- ple trained in the physical sciences, who were very, very precise in what they wanted to think about. There was a small group of us, anthro- pologists and psychiatrists, who were trained to know enough about psychology in groups so we knew what was happening, could use it, and disallow it. And then there were two or three gossips in the middle, who were simply people who had a lot of loose intuition and no discipline to what they were doing. In a sense it was the most interesting conference I’ve ever been in, because nobody knew how to manage these things yet.
SB: So you had one group of people that was on to another group on a level they were not used to.
MEAD: Yes, and shifting back and forth between these levels and keeping everything straight was very interesting. So we used the model, “feedback,” and Kurt Lewin—who
29
Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead
1952, one of the later Macy Conferences on cybernetics. From foreground clockwise: Larry Kubie, Larry Frank, T. C. Schneirla, H. L. Teuber, Walter Pitts, Gerhard von Bonin, Frank Fremont-Smith, Warren McCulloch (beard), W. Grey Walter, Henry Quastler, Heinz Von Foerster, John Bowman.
didn’t understand any known language, but al- ways had to reduce them to concepts—he went away with the idea of feedback as something that when you did anything with a group you went back and told them later what had hap- pened. And he died before anything much else happened. So the word “feedback” got intro- duced incorrectly into the international UNESCO type conferences where it’s been ever since.
BATESON: In the small group cult, feedback now means either telling people what they did, or answering.
MEAD: Yes. “I don’t get any feedback from you,’ or “I can’t go on with this without some feedback.” It wouldn’t have survived if Kurt had lived. He would undoubtedly have got it right.
SB: I would like a little more detail back at the initial time when you knew you had hit something.
BATESON: We knew we had, well, for me,
I had analyzed the Jatmul of Sepik River in Naven’ and I had analyzed out the fact there were interactions which must stockpile.
SB: This was your schismogenesis?
BATESON: This is schismogenesis, yes. We named it in ’36.
MEAD: It hadn’t been named yet. You're
40
starting back before you named it schis- mogenesis.
BATESON: Well, Naven was published. I’m talking about the state I was in when this stuff appeared.
MEAD: In 43.
BATESON: Yes. The next thing that followed that was “Generalized Foreign Policies.” L. F. Richardson.* I went back to England in 39. Hitler had invaded Poland. Bartlett said, “You might be interested in that,” throwing it across the room in contempt.
MEAD: I’m glad I have another count against Bartlett. I didn’t know he had contempt for Richardson.
BATESON: For Richardson and for me, you see. It was contemptible that I would be inter- ested in the contemptible. So I ran off with that and kept it (probably it’s Bartlett’s copy of his files that we now have), and brought it back to this country.
SB: What was in that paper?
BATESON: This is the mathematics of arma- ments races. How do you build the mathemat- ics of a system in which what I do depends upon what you do, and what you do depends upon what I do, and we get into a thing. Rich- ardson set a limit by invoking “fatigue.” He started with a simple pair of differential equa-
For God’s Sake, Margaret
tions in the premise that my rate of armament could be a linear function of your strength, and vice versa. That led immediately to an exponen- tial runaway. He added a “‘fatigue’”’ factor rep- resenting the drain on your and my resources. The question then was whether the system could settle. Are we going to settle at a mutual
. . there’s a word in international relations for slapping the other people’s aggression back by threat. .
MEAD: You mean deterrence?
BATESON: Yes, mutual deterrence. That word hadn’t been invented then. Then in the appendix, he had some revised equations in terms of not what is your strength and what is my strength, but what is the difference be- tween our strengths. He worked it out in terms of the relation of two nations where each is stimulated by the amount the other side is ahead. This was obviously symmetrical—lIat- mul Sepik River schismogenesis—right?
I then wrote to him at that stage, and said, “What about the other case, where you are stimulated to aggression by the weakness of the other side?” Which is the complementary schismogenesis, right? He worked out the al- gebra for that, and said, “It’s very unpromis- ing. I don’t recommend nations to get into that at all. The orders of instability they get into are then very serious.”
SB: Because that one would accelerate the difference rather than reduce the difference?
BATESON: Accelerates the difference, yes.
sB: A large amount of this strikes me as being the war. Would cybernetics have begun without the war? Richardson’s armaments race, and Wiener’s missiles. . .
BATESON: Wiener without a biologist wouldn’t have done it.
MEAD: Wiener was working on Rosen- blueth’s stuff. Now Richardson is a very pecu- liar character. He was a Quaker schoolteacher of mathematics. He did all the basic work on weather prediction. It was used in World War II and he was never told how it worked, be- cause of security. He died without knowing about it.
BATESON: Richardson was responding to
World War I. As a Quaker he refused to bear arms in World War I, and he became an am- bulance man. He sat in the trenches waiting for the next call for the ambulance working out the mathematics of armaments races. Be- cause he was sure that if only this could be got straight, the whole mess wouldn’t have to hap- pen, which indeed might be true.
MEAD: Now, there were some other things like this that were being talked about, and one was what was called a vicious circle. Milton Erickson had written a paper on a girl who quarreled and had headaches and got alienated from people, which led to further quarrels, and so on.
BATESON: Yes, all the positive feedback stuff was ready. And that presented the problem: why don’t these systems blow their tops? And the moment they came out with negative feed- back, then one was able to say why they don’t blow their tops.
SB: This was a word and an idea you heard about in 43?
BATESON: That’s when negative feedback came in.
MEAD: We had things about reversals of signi.”
BATESON: That was another story, that’s before Richardson, even, and way before feed- back. Already in Naven there is a statement that complementary schismogenesis neutral- izes symmetrical, and vice versa. If you get into too long a contrast between the bosses and the workers (which is complementary schismo- genesis), you put them all out on the cricket field and make them play cricket, which puts them in a symmetrical situation. And it doesn’t matter who wins the game of cricket, you know.
sB: As long as they’re in that mode. . .
BATESON: Or if they’re too far in symmetri- cal rivalry, such as a quarreling husband and wife, when one of them sprains his ankle, in comes the complementary with dependency. They suddenly feel much better.
SB: It doesn’t matter who sprains?
BATESON: It doesn’t matter who sprains his ankle, of course not.
41
Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead
dha
pre
At the 1952 Macy Conference. From foreground clockwise: Henry Quastler, Heinz Von Foerster, John Bowman, Gregory Bateson, G. E. Hutchinson, unidentified, Henry Brosin, Heinrich Kliiver, Janet Freud, Y. Bar-Hillel (speaking), Julian Bigelow, Leonard Savage, V. E. Amassian, Margaret Mead, Y. R. Chao, F. S. Northrup, Don Marquis, Larry Kubie.
SB: So you had some notion that all of these various pathologies were structurally the same?
BATESON: No, structurally related, that there was a subject matter of inquiry defined by all these. You see, the fantastic thing is that in 1856, before the publication of the Origin of Species, Wallace in Ternate, Indonesia, had a psychedelic spell following his malaria in which he invented the principle of natural selection. He wrote to Darwin and he said, “Look, natural selection is just like a steam engine with a governor.” The first cybernetic model. But he only thought he had an illustra- tion, he didn’t think he’d really said probably the most powerful thing that’d been said in the nineteenth century.
MEAD: Only nobody knew it.
BATESON: Nobody knew it. And there it is, still in the text. Nobody picked it up. Well, there was the machinery, the governor itself. There was the mathematics of the machine with the governor, which was done by Clerk Maxwell in 1868, because nobody knew how to write a blueprint for these bloody things— they would go into oscillation. Then there’s Claude Bernard about 1890 with the mz/zeu in- terne—the internal matrix of the body, control of temperature, control of sugar, and all that.’
SB: Which later became homeostasis?
42
BATESON: Which later became homeostasis in Cannon.° But nobody put the stuff together to say these are the formal relations which go for natural selection, which go for internal physiology, which go for me picking up the salt cellar. This was really done by Wiener, and Rosenblueth and McCulloch and Bigelow. And who really put the truth through, I don’t know, do you?
MEAD: No. Wiener and McCulloch were first partners in this thinking, and then be- came rivals when McCulloch went to MIT. As long as McCulloch stayed at Illinois and Wie- ner at MIT they were working right together. With both of them at MIT they became totally alienated, and then Walter Pitts got involved. He was the youngest member of the group.
BATESON: Oh God, he was so clever. You’d set him a problem, you know, and he would reach up to his hair and take a couple of strands, and he would say, “Well, now, if you say that, you see, um, no then, you see,” and he’d work it all out with his hair.
MEAD: He was a very odd boy. Now, one of the important points at this stage was one that Gregory kept making, that a possible cross- disciplinary mathematical language was avail- able. We never got very far with that because all you could ever get out of people like Wie-
For God’s Sake, Margaret
ner was, “You need a longer run.”’ We used to drive them absolutely out of their minds be- cause they were not willing to look at pattern, really. What they wanted was a terribly long run of data.
BATESON: Of quantitative data, essentially.
MEAD: Quantitative data, and we never got them really to look at the problem of pattern. Von Neumann came the closest to it.
BATESON: Yes, he was in games theory, you see.
SB: How many of you were thinking you had some kind of a general solution?
MEAD: Gregory thought so, and Larry Frank thought so, Evelyn Hutchinson; we had Ross Ashby over, how about Savage?
BATESON: I don’t think so, no. You see, one of the essentials, Stewart, for understanding it, was to have been brought up in the age when it wasn't there, when purpose was a total mys- tery. Naven is a disciplined book, written without teleology. The rule was you must not invoke teleology. Now, people like Savage, who was a mathematician, for one thing he never faced biological data, you see. He didn’t know what a mystery it is that you have a nose between two eyes, and you don’t have noses on the outside here, you know. All that sort of mystery wasn’t a question for him. Now, if you say to somebody like that, ““Why is the trunk of an elephant a nose?” they can’t tell you without an awful sweat that it’s because it’s be- tween two eyes. The formal puzzle has never been presented to them.
MEAD: I remember Robert Merton saying once that there wasn’t a person in the country who was thinking hard about problems who didn’t have a folder somewhere marked some- thing like ‘circular systems.” Horney’s book The Neurotic Personality of Our Times’ discusses the vicious circle, and interventions in the cir- cle, and the effect of intervention. Milton’s pa- per on that girl with migraine headaches and quarreling with her friends, there was lots of stuff around. . .
BATESON: On positive feedback.
MEAD: But also about possible intervention.
BATESON: But the essence of the other thing is that it’s not an intervention.
MEAD: Yes, but intervention is a precursor of thinking of... .
BATESON: Yes, yes. All cybernetic entities are displaced small boys.
MEAD: Displaced small what?
BATESON: Boys. They’re jacks. You know what a jack is? A jack is an instrument to dis- place a small boy. A bootjack is a thing for pulling off boots ‘cause you haven’t a small boy to pull it off for you.
MEAD: I'l] remember that next time. This is an English joke that no one will understand.
BATESON: I can’t help it. On the first steam engines, you've got a pair of cylinders and you've got valves, and you pull this valve to run the steam into this one, close it, let it drive the piston, pull it—this is done by hand. Then they invented the idea of having the fly- wheel control the valves. This displaced a small boy.
SB: The governor displaced another one?
BATESON: And the governor displaced an- other small boy, who was to keep the engine going at a constant rate, that’s right. Now then, the John Stroud stuff is the study of the psychology of the human being between two machines.
In any device such as an ack-ack gun you’ve got a whole series of small boys in the situation of being between a machine and another ma- chine. What John Stroud worked on was the psychology of that situation. He found what I still think are some very interesting things, namely that the orders of equations (you know, equations in X, or X’, or X°, or whatever) are discontinuous in the human mind, as well as being discontinuous in mathematical paper work. Where is John Stroud now, do you ever see him?
MEAD: He is retired, teaching at Simon Fraser somewhat, and he’s been brought back by Gerry O'Neill into discussions of space colonies.
SB: Good lord.
MEAD: He was very much interested in space colonies. He told me all about them twenty-five years ago, and I was interested in all the problems then, the selection of people, and what not.
33
Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead
BATESON: Stewart, you should get hold of John Stroud.
MEAD: Now Gerry has John Stroud’s manu- script and he’s not going to read it until he’s finished his own. I said, “I think that’s un- scientific and childish.”
BATESON: He wants credit for inventing anything that John Stroud had invented.
MEAD: Well, he did invent it separately, that’s true, and he wants to prove it, because after all, what does a physical science have in the world except priority? I don’t blame them you know, because they haven’t got anything else. All they’re interested in is priority. They spend weeks and months discussing priority. It’s so boring. Somebody mailed a letter three days before somebody else did, and they have a whole meeting about it.
SB: Margaret, what was your perception at the time of the early Macy meetings as to what was going on?
MEAD: The thing that cybernetics made the most difference to me, aside from all the things that you know, in the social organization field, was the interaction between the mother and child. There had been too much emphasis that there were temperamental differences among children, so that you responded differently toa hyperactive baby than you did to a quiet baby. But the extent to which there was a system in which the mother was dependent on what the child had learned as the stimulus for the next position wasn’t well articulated until we got the cybernetics conferences going.
BATESON: The link-up with the behavioral sciences spread very slowly and hasn’t really spread yet. The cyberneticians in the narrow sense of the word went off into input-output.
SB: They went off into computer science.
BATESON: Computer science is input-out- put. You’ve got a box, and you've got this line enclosing the box, and the science is the sci- ence of these boxes. Now, the essence of Wie- net’s cybernetics was that the science is the sci- ence of the whole circuit. You see, the diagram
MEAD: You'd better verbalize this diagram if it’s going to be on the tape. BATESON: Well, you can carry a piece of yel-
34
Input Output
Engineer
Fees |
Feed Y~__Feedbak
Wiener, Bateson, Mead
low paper all the way home with you. The electric boys have a circuit like that, and an event here is reported by a sense organ of some kind, and affects something that puts in here. Then you now cut off there and there, then you say there’s an input and an output. Then you work on the box. What Wiener says is that you work on the whole picture and its properties. Now, there may be boxes inside here, like this, of all sorts, but essentially your ecosystem, your organism-plus-environment, is to be con- sidered as a single circuit.
SB: The bigger circle there. . .
BATESON: And you're not really concerned with an input-output, but with the events within the bigger circuit, and you are part of the bigger circuit. It’s these lines around the box (which are just conceptual lines after all) which mark the difference between the engi- neersand.. .
MEAD: . . . and between the systems people and general systems theory, too.
BATESON: Yes.
sB: A kind of a Martin Buber-ish break- down, “I-it,”” where they are trying to keep themselves out of that which they’re studying. The engineer is outside the box. . . and Wie- ner is inside the box.
BATESON: And Wiener is inside the box; I’m inside the box. . .
MEAD: I’m inside the box. you see, Wiener named the thing, and of course the word “‘cy- bernetics” comes from the Greek word for helmsman.
BATESON: It actually existed as a word be- fore Wiener—it’s a nineteenth-century word.
For God’s Sake, Margaret
MEAD: Yes, but he wrote the book Cyder- netics* and sort of patented the idea to that ex- tent. And then he went to Russia, and was very very well received. The Russians were crazy about this right away—it fit right into their lives. But one of the big difficulties in Russian psychology is that they have great dif- ficulty learning that anything’s irreversible. So cybernetics spread all over the Soviet Union very rapidly, and in Czechoslovakia, whereas what spread here was systems theory instead of cybernetics.
sB: How did that happen? It seems like something went kind of awry.
MEAD: Americans like mechanical machines.
BATESON: They like tools.
SB: Material tools more than conceptual tools.
BATESON: No, because conceptual tools aren't conceptual tools in America, they're not part of you.
SB: How about McCulloch? He loved ma- chinery. Did he also see himself as inside the box?
MEAD: Well, one of the things he spent a great deal of time on was perception machines, separate sensory apparatus for the deaf or the blind.
(After reminiscence about other meetings following the Macy period the subject of ‘feed forward” comes up.)
BATESON: As far as I was ever able to make out, ‘feed forward” was implicit and more or less explicit in the original Wiener paper. The feed forward process is what you get by using not the primary variable, but the derivative of the variable. You’ve got a machine for steering a ship, an automatic steerer, and you set her loose in the Atlantic, and you want her to go to London or some such place: she’s to sail east. You have a compass card, and you measure the error between the compass card and the direc- tion the ship’s pointing, and you use that angle to control the steering machine, which pulls a rudder this way and that, right? Depending on the error. So, when the error is northward, the machine tells the rudder to swing it across southward, right? When it is going due east,
the ship has way on, rotational momentum, and is going to go way over to the south of east, and now it’s got a new error, and it’s going to come back and go way over to the north of east, and it’s going to go yawing all across the Atlantic, right?
SB: This is hunting, technically.
BATESON: This is technically hunting, and if you want to cut that down, what you've got to do is to have a machine on top of that ma- chine, another machine which measures the rate at which the ship is correcting its error. The faster it is correcting its error, the slower you have it correct its error. It will then, you see, actually hold itself before it gets to due east. If you’ve ever handled the tiller of a small boat, you know the problem.
SB: It’s a double layer in other words. The first machine is treating the boat as something which needs to be given negative feedback, and then the second machine is treating the first machine as something which needs to be given negative feedback.
BATESON: That's right. You’ve got a hier- archy of logical types there, and their various complexities.
sB: Is feed forward a kind of discounting of part of the corrective signal?
BATESON: It’s a discounting of the correc- tive signal in terms of the error which the cor- rective signal will generate if allowed to con- tinue.
MEAD: Now, Stewart, what we thought we were going to talk about, but you didn’t let us say what we wanted to talk about, you started something else under the pretense that you wanted to start the tape recorder (I want to point out I followed all those maneuvers) what we had said we were going to talk about was the need of having “some data flowing through the system.”
SB: Some data flowing through the system?
BATESON: Yes, I set my classes an assign- ment. If they can, they will handle it purely abstractly. And they then get off into an awful mess of ill-drawn abstractions which act upon other ill-drawn abstractions. But if you can make them fool around with data of any sort, while they’re playing with the abstractions,
a5
Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead
then you get something. I keep a fish tank going there, because a fish tank is a nice thing, really, to have in the back of your mind while you're thinking about whatever it might be. Norbert Wiener, when he had a problem, used to sit with the wind blowing on a curtain.
MEAD: | thought that was Von Neumann.
BATESON: It could have been Von Neu- mann. Pitts did it by disturbing his hair.
Now, this goes along with: “always the mul- tiple approach.” Any Hebrew poetry is like this. “The candles are white, as translucent as fishes,” you know. “Lilies for joy, and lilies for funerals’; “How are the mighty fallen and the weapons of war perished.” You get away from the pure verbalism by double-phrasing.
You make two statements, and what is true of both of them is the formal truth. This is what is called explanation.
SB: It’s not that it’s a repetition of the mes- sage, it’s different derivations of the same mes- sage from different sources.
BATESON: Often. In psychoanalysis if you can recognize the same formal pattern ina dream and ina childhood memory and in how you re treating your analyst, you will say, “Aha, it’s true.’ You've got it.
MEAD: And when you're studying a culture.
SB: What would be an example there?
MEAD: Well, you find the same pattern re- curring in different aspects of the culture. You find, for instance, a house in which there’s no ornamentation inside, all the ornamentation’s on the gate. You find a people who are preoccu- pied with the external aspects of their skin and are always searching for some imperfection in their skin and believe that any breakage will impair them so that they’re imperfect for something else, and so forth. With that kind of understanding, if you’re told something, you can tell whether it fits or not.
For instance, the Balinese told us that they had marriage by capture, which didn’t suit anything we'd understood about their culture. Our cook was going to carry off a girl by cap- ture, so Gregory went outside the gate with him early in the morning, and the girl was there waiting. They looked around and there was nobody else there, so she trotted off with
36
him. If there had been another group there, she would have pretended, she would have screamed and been carried off, because that was correct etiquette.
Then we had the case of a very stupid boy who thought it was true. He carried off a girl who had already planned to elope with some- body else. It took the society months to sort that out.
From a complex culture like Bali you take a lot of chunks—birthday ceremonies and fu- neral ceremonies, children’s games, and a whole series of things, and then you analyze them for the patterns that are there.
BATESON: In Jatmul they have flutes. The flutes are long hollow bamboo, an inch and a half thick, five feet long, and one hole here, which you blow across. And from that you can get about five notes by overblowing, by har- monics. All right. You have a flute, you’re blowing with me, and yours is tuned one tone higher than mine. So your harmonics lie be- tween mine, right? Between us we've got quite a bit of scale. If we blow alternately we can make a tune. Well, now this is how the genera- tions are arranged. The grandparents go with the grandchildren, and the parents go with their grandchildren, and the initiation grades are like seniors—juniors—sophomores-—fresh- men, in which when you get a fight over initia- tion, the seniors and the sophomores go to- gether, and the juniors and the freshmen go together. And so on.
SB: So what is the truth?
BATESON: The truth is that Iatmul like to make this pattern. This is a pattern of organi- zation that they think is nice.
MEAD: When Gregory and Waddington talked to each other, I learned what I know about the way English biologists think, by lis- tening to the two of them. They would pick their illustrations right across the field. One minute from embryology, the next from geol- ogy, the next from anthropology, back and forth, very freely, so that the illustrations from one spot illuminated, corrected, and expanded the one from another. This is the thing that Americans are not taught to do. In our school system you have one year of chemistry, then
For God’s Sake, Margaret
you're through with chemistry probably, and then you have one year of physics. Whereas in the English system they took all of them at once in smaller doses that went along.”
NORA BATESON: Goodbye.
MEAD: Goodbye. Are you going to school now?
NORA: Yes.
MEAD: Well, it’s been lovely to see you, Nora.
NORA: It’s been lovely to see you, too. Bye bye.
BATESON: Goodbye.
NORA: Bye, Daddy.
SB: Margaret, an old student of yours told me you have a list of reliable sources of in- sight. What’s the list?
MEAD: I used to say to my classes that the ways to get insight are: to study infants, to study animals, to study primitive people, to be psychoanalyzed, to have a religious conversion and get over it, to have a psychotic episode and get over it, or to have a love affair with an Old Russian. And I stopped saying that when a lit- tle dancer in the front row put up her hand and said, “Does he have to be old?”
SB: How many of those have you done?
(Blank here while cassette was changed. Dr. Mead said she had studied infants and primitive people. When she got to animals in the list, the con- versation swerved to Konrad Lorenz.)
MEAD: Watching Konrad Lorenz be simul- taneously a bird and a worm is one of the really magnificent things in the world. You've seen that, haven’t you, when he’s describing a bird catching a worm, and he’s both? Talk about the whole system, there it is.
BATESON: One of the things I’ve always re- gretted is that I didn’t film him lecturing in Hawaii. One could’ve, I think. Lorenz is a Aurignacian.
SB: How do you mean?
BATESON: | mean that he is identified with animals. Aurignacians are the people who did the cave paintings, the good ones. Lorenz goes to the blackboard and there is a live dog, hesi- tating between attacking and retreating. He takes the eraser, and he wipes the tail off, changes the angle by ten degrees, and flattens
out the hair on the back of the neck, and he says, ‘“That dog’s going to run.” He sticks it the other way, and ““That dog’s going to at- tack.” And he is the dog while he’s talking about it. And this goes for cichlid fishes, bees, any goddamn thing. And then, in the final lec- ture he gave in Hawaii, he got all mixed up, you know, the way scientists do, with physics and the Einsteinian universe, and his body got twisted, as he started to talk about the Einstein- ian universe where the straight lines are not straight anymore. That’s what I wish I had on the camera. The others all think this is very unfair you know, he has all of this information that they simply don’t have.
MEAD: He contributes tremendous zest. If Lorenz is in a meeting, I can retire and take notes and think and have no responsibility to keep it going; whereas if he isn’t there, I very often have to keep it awake. . .
Gregory, have you any ideas on the subject of the harm that is done by television because of the rigidity of the body of people watching TV? Sartre discussed at one point what hap- pened when you peek into a keyhole. When you look through a keyhole, the whole body is focused to try to use this very small aperture, and he described what happens if you touch somebody who is looking through a keyhole. They jump. I have a big set, now, of compara- tive pictures of family groups (they weren't taken for this, they were taken for family al- bums) reading and looking at TV. When the family is reading, they’re a thousand years away from each other, their eyes are all down, but you get a sense of community and relaxa- tion. Their bodies are very loose, and undoubt- edly there’s movement going on as they read. But when they're watching television, the same people sit like this, they don’t touch each other, and they’re very rigid.
We have lots of material that if you move in your mind, your muscles don’t get stiff. For years we had this very funny problem with catatonics, such as a man who would stand all day long in a ward with his eyes up and his hands together in prayer, never moving. They’d pick him up at night, tip him into a bed, feed him artificially, and then after five
ad.
Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead
years or something, there'd be a fire. He’d walk across the ward, pick up a telephone, re- port, “Fire in ward five,” help get all the pa- tients out, and then when the fire was out, back he went to his position. But he was not stiff. Whereas if you take the ordinary person and put them in bed for three months, they have to relearn how to walk. All the data we now have on monitoring muscles with tiny transistor monitors shows, if you think about skiing or exercising, the muscles that you use to ski will respond.
If you inhibit movement, as one does watch- ing TV, with no empathy, no muscular in- volvement at all, I think this is the thing that’s doing harm.
BATESON: I was wondering about looking through, for example, a camera.
MEAD: Remember Clara Lambert and when you were trying to teach her? That woman who was making photographic studies of play schools, but she was using the camera as a tele- scope instead of as a camera. You said, “‘She’ll never be a photographer. She keeps using the camera to look at things.” But you didn’t. You always used a camera to take a picture, which is a different activity.
BATESON: Yes. By the way, I don’t like cam- eras on tripods, just grinding. In the latter part of the schizophrenic project, we had cam- eras on tripods just grinding.
MEAD: And you don’t like that?
BATESON: Disastrous.
MEAD: Why?
BATESON: Because | think the photographic record should be an art form.
MEAD: Oh why? Why shouldn’t you have some records that aren’t art forms? Because if it’s an art form, it has been altered.
BATESON: It’s undoubtedly been altered. I don’t think it exists unaltered.
MEAD: I think it’s very important, if you're going to be scientific about behavior, to give other people access to the material, as compa- rable as possible to the access you had. You don’t, then, alter the material. There’s a bunch of filmmakers now that are saying, “It should be art,” and wrecking everything that we’re trying todo. Why the hell should it be art?
BATESON: Well, it should be off the tripod.
38
MEAD: So you run around.
BATESON: Yes.
MEAD: And therefore you’ve introduced a variation into it that is unnecessary.
BATESON: I therefore got the information out that I thought was relevant at the time.
MEAD: That’s right. And therefore what do you see later?
BATESON: If you put the damn thing ona tripod, you don’t get any relevance.
MEAD: No, you get what happened.
BATESON: It isn’t what happened.
MEAD: I don’t want people leaping around thinking that a profile at this moment would be beautiful.
BATESON: I wouldn’t want beautiful.
MEAD: Well, what’s the leaping around for?
BATESON: To get what’s happening.
MEAD: What you think is happening.
BATESON: If Stewart reached behind his back to scratch himself, I would like to be over there at that moment.
MEAD: If you were over there at that mo- ment you wouldn’t see him kicking the cat un- der the table. So that just doesn’t hold as an argument.
BATESON: Of the things that happen the camera is only going to record one percent anyway.
MEAD: That’s right.
BATESON: I want the one percent on the whole to tell.
MEAD: Look, I’ve worked with these things that were done by artistic film makers, and the result is you can’t do anything with them.
BATESON: They’re bad artists, then.
MEAD: No, they’re not. I mean, an artistic film maker can make a beautiful notion of what he thinks is there, and you can’t do any subsequent analysis with it of any kind. That’s been the trouble with anthropology, because they had to trust us. If we were good enough instruments, and we said the people in this culture did something more than the ones in that, if they trusted us, they used it. But there was no way of probing further into the mate- rial. So we gradually developed the idea of film and tapes.
BATESON: There’s never going to be any way of probing further into the material.
For God’s Sake, Margaret
MEAD: What are you talking about, Greg- ory? I don’t know what you're talking about. Certainly, when we showed that Balinese stuff that first summer there were different things that people identified—the limpness that Mar- ion Stranahan identified, the place on the chest and its point in child development that Erik Erikson identified. I can go back over it, and show you what they got out of those films. They didn’t get it out of your head, and they didn’t get it out of the way you were pointing the camera. They got it because it was a long enough run so they could see what was happening.
SB: What about something like that Navajo film, “Intrepid Shadows’’?’°
MEAD: Well, that is a beautiful, an artistic production that tells you something about a Navajo artist.
BATESON: This is different, it’s a native work of art.
MEAD: Yes, and a beautiful native work of art. But the only thing you can do more with that is analyze the film maker, which I did. I figured out how he got the animation into the trees.
BATESON: Oh yes? What do you get out of that one?
MEAD: He picked windy days, he walked as he photographed, and he moved the camera in- dependently of the movement of his own body. And that gives you that effect. Well, are you going to say, following what all those other people have been able to get out of those films of yours, that you should have just been artistic?
SB: He’s saying he was artistic.
MEAD: No, he wasn’t. I mean, he’s a good film maker, and Balinese can pose very nicely, but his effort was to hold the camera steady enough long enough to get a sequence of behavior.
BATESON: To find out what’s happening, yes.
MEAD: When you’re jumping around taking pictures...
BATESON: Nobody’s talking about that, Margaret, for God’s sake.
MEAD: Well.
BATESON: I’m talking about having control
of a camera. You're talking about putting a dead camera on top of a bloody tripod. It sees nothing.
MEAD: Well, I think it sees a great deal. I’ve worked with these pictures taken by artists, and really good ones. .
BATESON: I’m sorry I said artists; all I meant was artists. I mean, artist is not a term of abuse in my vocabulary.
MEAD: It isn’t in mine either, butI. . .
BATESON: Well, in this conversation, it’s become one.
MEAD: Well, I’m sorry. It just produces something different. I’ve tried to use “Dead Birds," for instance. . .
BATESON: | don’t understand “Dead Birds’ at all. I’ve looked at ““Dead Birds,” and it makes no sense.
MEAD: I think it makes plenty of sense.
BATESON: But how it was made I have no idea at all.
MEAD: Well, there is never a long-enough sequence of anything, and you said absolutely that what one needed was long, long sequences from one position in the direction of two peo- ple. You've said that in print. Are you going to take it back?
BATESON: Yes, well, a long sequence in my vocabulary is twenty seconds.
MEAD: Well, it wasn’t when you were writ- ing about Balinese films. It was three minutes. It was the longest that you could wind the camera at that point.
BATESON: A very few sequences ran to the length of the winding of the camera.
MEAD: But if at that point you had had a camera that would run twelve hundred feet, you'd have run it.
BATESON: I would have and I'd have been wrong.
MEAD: I don’t think so for one minute.
BATESON: The Balinese film wouldn’t be worth one quarter.
MEAD: All right. That’s a point where I to- tally disagree. It’s not science.
BATESON: I don’t know what science is, I don’t know what art is.
MEAD: That’s all right. If you don’t, that’s quite simple. I do. [To Stewart:} With the films that Gregory’s now repudiating that he took,
39
Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead
we have had twenty-five years of re-examina- tion and re-examination of the material.
BATESON: It’s pretty rich material.
MEAD: It is rich, because they’re long se- quences, and that’s what you need.
BATESON: There are no long sequences.
MEAD: Oh, compared with anything anybody else does, Gregory.
BATESON: But they’re trained not to.
MEAD: There are sequences that are long enough to analyze. . .
BATESON: Taken from the right place!
MEAD: Taken from one place.
BATESON: Taken from the place that aver- aged better than other places.
MEAD: Well, you put your camera there. BATESON: You can’t do that with a tripod. You're stuck. The thing grinds for twelve hun-
dred feet. It’s a bore.
MEAD: Well, you prefer twenty seconds to twelve hundred feet.
BATESON: Indeed, I do.
MEAD: Which shows you get bored very easily.
BATESON: Yes, I do.
MEAD: Well, there are other people who don’t, you know? Take the films that Betty Thompson studied.'* That Karbo sequence— it’s beautiful—she was willing to work on it for six months. You’ve never been willing to work on things that length of time, but you shouldn’t object to other people who can do it, and giving them the material to do it.
There were times in the field when I worked with people without filming, and therefore have not been able to subject the material to changing theory, as we were able to do with the Balinese stuff. So when I went back to Bali I didn’t see new things. When I went back to Manus, I did, where I had only still photo- graphs. If you have film, as your own percep- tion develops, you can re-examine it in the light of the material to some extent. One of the things, Gregory, that we examined in the stills, was the extent to which people, if they leaned against other people, let their mouths fall slack. We got that out of examining lots and lots of stills. It’s the same principle. It’s quite different if you have a thesis and have the camera in your hand, the chances of influenc-
40
ing the material are greater. When you don’t have the camera in your hand, you can look at the things that happen in the background.
BATESON: There are three ends to this dis- cussion. There’s the sort of film I want to make, there’s the sort of film that they want to make in New Mexico (which is ‘Dead Birds,” substantially), and there is the sort of film that is made by leaving the camera on a tripod and not paying attention to it.
sB: Who does that?
BATESON: Oh, psychiatrists do that. Albert Scheflen’* leaves a video camera in somebody’s house and goes home. It’s stuck in the wall.
MEAD: Well, I thoroughly disapprove of the people that want video so they won’t have to look. They hand it over to an unfortunate stu- dent who then does the rest of the work and adds up the figures, and they write a book. We both object to this. But I do think if you look at your long sequences of stills, leave out the film for a minute, that those long, very rapid sequences, Koewat Raoeh, those stills, they’re magnificent, and you can doa great deal with them. And if you hadn’t stayed in the same place, you wouldn’t have those sequences.
sB: Has anyone else done that since?
MEAD: Nobody has been as good a photo- grapher as Gregory at this sort of thing. People are very unwilling to do it, very unwilling.
SB: I haven’t seen any books that come even close to Balinese Character .“*
MEAD: That’s right, they never have. And now Gregory is saying it was wrong to do what he did in Bali. Gregory was the only person who was ever successful at taking stills and film at the same time, which you did by put- ting one on a tripod, and having both at the same focal length.
BATESON: It was having one in my hand and the other round my neck.
MEAD: Some of the time, and some not.
BATESON: We used the tripod occasionally when we were using long telephoto lenses.
MEAD: We used it for the bathing babies. I think the difference between art and science is that each artistic event is unique, whereas in science sooner or later once you get some kind of theory going somebody or other will make the same discovery.'* The principal point is ac-
For God’s Sake, Margaret
cess, so that other people can look at your ma- terial, and come to understand it, and share it. The only real information that “Dead Birds” gives anybody are things like the thing that my imagination had never really encompassed, and that’s the effect of cutting off joints of fin- gers. You remember? The women cut off a joint for every death that they mourn for, and they start when they’re little girls, so that by the time they're grown women, they have no fingers. All the fine work is done by the men in that society, the crocheting and what not, be- cause the men have fingers to do it with, and the women have these stumps of hands. I knew about it, I had read about it, it had no mean- ing to me until I saw those pictures. There are lots of things that can be conveyed by this quasi-artistic film, but when we want to sug- gest to people that it’s a good idea to know what goes on between people, which is what you ve always stressed, we still have to show your films, because there aren’t any others that are anything like as good.
SB: Isn’t that a little shocking? It’s been, what, years?
MEAD: Very shocking.
BATESON: It’s because people are getting good at putting cameras on tripods. It isn’t what happens between people.
MEAD: Nobody’s put any cameras on tripods in those twenty-five years that looked at any- thing that mattered.
BATESON: They haven’t looked at anything that mattered, anyway. All right.
SB: I have a question that maybe relates to that, maybe not. What about field workers that join the tribe? Frank Cushing with the Zuni, and Carlos Castaneda, and such.
MEAD: Castaneda hasn’t joined the tribe.
SB: He hasn't joined the tribe, he’s tried to join the practice.
MEAD: No, only intermittently. We have examples. Edmund Carpenter’s been making a study of these people.
sB: I’ve got some too. Everyone that knows anthropologists knows someone who’s a little wiggy because of some over-zealous participa- tion in something. And I wonder about that.
MEAD: It’s the temptation for another cul- ture. We also have a case of a man who was
studying the Chinese, and he married a Chinese girl. Which he then thought was enough anthropology; for quite a while he couldn’t do anything else. It’s a lot easier to study the cultures where you can’t marry peo- ple, where there’s such a gulf that that kind of over-identification doesn’t occur. The minute you study a culture where you might marry them, or adopt their children, or be adopted by them, you get new complications. Extreme ones.
SB: Sometimes the ones who lose track of where they are, they find a place to be confused between, and proceed to be confused between it.
MEAD: I think that’s a function of people who are confused wherever they are, anyway. One difference between pre-World War II an- thropology and post-World War II is that most of us who did the pre-war work grew up in rea- sonably coherent cultures, and we knew what a pattern was when we saw one. ‘© Remember that paper that I wrote that you invented the word “quizbits” for? (But the paper’s called “Customs and Mores.’’’’) It was a discussion of the extent to which information was being bro- ken up into meaningless bits and fed to people. All your experience is chopped, everything out of scale. The news over the radio—one event is of world significance, the next is nothing. Con- temporary young people have had the things that are presented to them so chopped up.
SB: You mean just in the speed with which they change, or the lack of integration?
MEAD: The lack of integration. You get it on radio in New Guinea: “Khrushchev has been deposed, there was a jewel robbery in the American Museum of Natural History, two small boats off Port Moresby have sunk,” that’s the news.
{Lois Bateson leans in on her way to an errand. Margaret will be gone by the time she returns. “OK, you people. See you in a while. I’m real glad you came, Margaret. Come again.’’}
MEAD: Well, it’s been lovely to see you.
sB: You mentioned Gerry O’Neill a while ago, as though you re somewhat involved in the space colony business.
MEAD: Well, I’ve been interested in them, because of the possibilities of diversity. You
41
Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead
1976, leaving Santa Cruz
see, I’ve always loved the Pacific islands, be- cause they have such high degrees of diversity. When John Stroud first told me about space colonies, the picture was that you could have an area about the size of Los Angeles, and they would be undisturbed for 1500 years, so they could vary.
SB: I have a question that goes back to the Macy conferences, and it also relates to projects that Gregory’s getting interested in now. What is the history of the failure of conceptual cy- bernetics to become public knowledge? You said that the later Macy meetings were starting to get a sense that you had something that everybody ought to know.
MEAD: It wasn’t quite as deep as that. We thought we had something that would be cross-disciplinary language. The meeting we had with the Academy of Sciences was to in- clude more of the scientific community. Now, I worked a lot on that idea. Continuities in Cul- tural Evolution deals with the fact that in social science, unless you can carry the public with you, you can’t use your findings. I think that we could trace part of the lack of response to
42
the American preference for linear sequences, which is very high. It’s like the Manus, too. They’re both moral cause-and-effect societies. You do this, and that happens.
A problem I was going to raise, to Gregory, is why do you think the United States has more runaway positive feedbacks than most cultures?
SB: Such as?
MEAD: Such as, gasoline taxes that can only be used on roads. With the tax you build more roads, which makes it possible to have more cars, which uses more gasoline. It’s a perfect endless runaway. We have hundreds of them in this country.
BATESON: I think one of the things that’s serious in this country is using the value one can catch hold of, rather than the real value. Such as, catching gangsters for their income tax returns. I had a whole series of examples of this at one stage. The actual feedback circuit runs upon a collateral variable and you don’t, from the circuit, get insight into the whole structure.
SB: Still, you say that’s good when it comes to something like oxygen or carbon dioxide being the controller of breathing rates.
BATESON: This is exactly the problem. Where do you want to do this, and where do you want not to do it? At one stage I was say- ing, the thing to do is never to use the lethal variable to control the feedback.
MEAD: The lethal variable?
BATESON: This was in asphyxia. The rate of breathing is not affected by the lack of oxygen but by the surplus of carbon dioxide in the blood. If you try to regulate by the lack of oxy- gen, it’s already too late.
MEAD: Well, we said the same thing, that if you're teaching children nutritional habits, don’t do it with something that’s related to nu- trition. It’s much safer to say, “We'll take you to a circus if you eat your spinach,” than to say, “If you eat your spinach, you can have ice cream.”
SB: Safer means?
MEAD: Safer socially when you're bringing up children and you want them to learn to eat nutritionally good diets effortlessly. When you tie the eating to the food itself, if a child wants
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For God’s Sake, Margaret
to fight about it, they fight about it by not eat- ing the right food. So that you put all the trou- ble into the system. The Balinese say to a child when dressing a cut, “Listen to the gong, lis- ten to the orchestra, go and see an orchestra!” There’s no orchestra. She’s just presenting something pleasant. Italian mothers do that. They say. “Ice cream! Ice cream! Lovely ice cream! Lovely ice cream!” while the child’s having a cut fixed.
Americans say, “But she didn’t mean it, she didn’t give him any ice cream.” Watergate, of course, was an outstanding example. We didn’t have to get Nixon because of Watergate. We were using Watergate because he was tak- ing the country apart and had delusions of grandeur. I think if we’d known about the in- come tax, that would have done it.
I’ve wondered, Gregory, whether all of these things go together—the nonrecognition of cy- bernetics in this country, as compared with the Soviet Union. I figure that they have about a hundred times as many people that understand the whole thing.
SB: Understanding it creatively and coming up with new thoughts?
MEAD: That one doesn’t know. We do know that they are using it for purposes of social or- ganization, especially in Czechoslovakia.
BATESON: At that first cybernetic meeting we had a Russian talk. He hadn’t much idea what it was all about, I thought.
MEAD: I don’t remember what he said at all. BATESON: He had fifteen slides of circuit structures that would do various sorts of things
like pattern recognition, or control tempera- ture, or something. It was sort of about the level of the McCulloch and Pitts papers. With- out, as far as I could make out, the enormous theoretical spin-off that those papers had.
MEAD: And evidently I wrote him off so I can’t remember.
BATESON: I think you wrote him off. I wrote him off very quickly.
MEAD: Well, we had a period where I thought we could take cybernetics and use it as a language for communicating with the Rus- sians, and then somebody in this country de- cided that the Russian cybernetic activities
were very dangerous, and we had a big intelli- gence report on cybernetics. It ceased to be politics-free and was no longer useful. I wrote up a discussion of that, and decided anyway, that instead of having a methodology or con- ceptual scheme for communication, it was much better to have agreed-on subgoals for communication between two systems as an- tithetical as the Soviet and U.S.”
SB: Well, then something funny seemed to happen with the whole general systems bunch. I’ve never understood that.
MEAD: Well, there are a dreadful lot of sys- tems people in the Society for General Systems Research. Then von Bertalanffy died. Anatol Rappaport runs a very isolated group. Now, when the Society for General Systems Research was formed in Atlanta, and Anatol was in the chair (I had never met him), and Ross Ashby was there on the front row, and there were about twenty people there, I went back to the correspondence, Gregory, where you had pro- posed that we plan an organization in relation to its purposes. This was before the cybernetics meetings, while you were overseas. When the Society for General Systems Research was formed, I proposed that we apply general sys- tems to our society. Nobody knew who I was and I was feeling like the little old lady in ten- nis shoes. I went up at the end of it and talked to Ashby, and he said, ‘““You mean we should apply our principles to ourselves?”
BATESON: In what tone of voice?
MEAD: He was repudiating it, ina light playful voice that was appropriate, but he was repudiating it.
SB: So it was stillborn.
MEAD: So now, the Society for General Sys- tems Research, which is proliferating, is pro- liferating by the standard methods that are used in this country—regional chapters. I said to Dick Erickson, “I don’t think we should be so conventional, we ought to think of some- thing better.” We can’t get anybody to use any kind of constructive thinking on the problems of organization. And, of course, there’s no place where you can get a well-rounded degree in General System Theory. Rand has a school that is almost entirely military.
43
Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead
One of the most crazy situations—I was asked to speak at a dinner of the Air Force cele- brating their fifth decade of Air Force intelli- gence. I talked about the fact that they weren’t paying attention to the whole; the Air Force was modeling the Soviet Union as a system, and the Army was modeling the United States as a system, using different units, and they were both ignoring the fact that China existed, and therefore were making a hopeless mess when you knew you had a universe to deal with. What I was telling them was to use cy- bernetic thinking as it had developed into gen- eral systems theory. The next morning I was on a chartered plane bringing me back, and there was a man on it who said, “You left me way behind. I couldn’t understand a word you said.” I said, ““What are you?” He said, “I’m an electronic specialist.”
Americans are always solving problems piecemeal. They’re always solving them de nou- veau and artificially because they’re all new- comers and they don’t have decisions grounded in a culture.
NOTES
1. The Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation, 1930-1955. New York: The Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation, 1955, p. 20.
Cybernetics. Transactions of the Eighth Conference, March 15~—16, 1951. New York: The Josiah Macy, Jr. Foundation, 1952, p. xix.
2. Rosenblueth, Arturo, Norbert Wiener, and Julian Bigelow. “Behavior, Purpose and Teleology,” Philosophy of Science. vol. 10, 1942, p. 18.
3. Bateson, Gregory. Naven. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1936. 2nd edition, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1958.
4. L.R. Richardson, ‘Generalized Foreign Policies,” British Journal of Psychology, Monography Supplement XXIII, 1939.
5. Claude Bernard. Lecons sur les Phénoménes de la Vie Communes aux Animaux et aux Végétaux. 2 vols. Paris: J. B. Bailliere, 1878-1879.
6. W. B. Cannon. The Wisdom of the Body. New York: Norton, 1932.
7. Karen Horney. The Neurotic Personality of Our Time. New York: Norton, 1937.
8. Norbert Wiener, Cybernetics. Cambridge, Massachu- setts: Technology Press, 1948.
9. C. H. Waddington, The Evolution of an Evolutionist. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1975.
10. Sol Worth and John Adair. Through Navajo Eyes. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1972.
44
“Intrepid Shadows” was made by Al Clah, a 19-year-old Navajo painter and sculptor.
11. Dead Birds. Directed by Robert Gardner for the Peabody Museum, Harvard University, color, 83 min- utes, 1964. Available through New York Public Library.
12. Betty Thompson. ‘Development and Trial Applica- tions of Method for Identifying Non-Vocal Parent-Child Communications in Research Film” (Ph.D. thesis, Teachers College, New York, 1970).
13. Albert E. Scheflen. Body Language and the Social Or- der: Communication as Behavioral Control. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1973.
14. M. Mead and G. Bateson. Balinese Character: A Pho- tographic Analysis. New York: The New York Academy of Sciences, Special Publications, 11, 1942; reissued 1962.
15. M. Mead. ‘“Towards a Human Science,” Science, vol. 191 (March 1976), pp. 903-909.
16. M. Mead. “From Intuition to Analysis in Commu- nication Research,” Semiotica, vol. 1 (1969), pp. 13-25.
17. M. Mead. “Customs and Mores,” American Journal of Sociology, vol. 47 (1942), pp. 971-980.
18. M. Mead. Continuities in Cultural Evolution. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1964.
19. M. Mead. “Crossing Boundaries in Social Science Communication,” Social Science Information, vol. 8 (1969),
PP Jas
COUNSEL FOR A SUICIDE’S FRIEND 23 May Dear Prof. Bateson:
I talked with you yesterday morning and near the end you asked me if I had any specific questions. I did but couldn’t bring myself to ask them, but find that I really do want to ask them so this letter.
First unasked question has to do with some- thing said to the effect that “if your heart’s in the frying pan, then you can’t go wrong.” Well, obviously, nothing much can be done if your heart’s not in the frying pan, but what if your guts are in it and things go wrong.
What I’m talking about is I was introduced to a young woman about two years ago by my ex-shrink because he was feeling a bit stuck with her & on the other her craziness reminded him of mine, so she & I became friends & struggled through a lot of “if it’s not clear, I'll | prove it” stuff and “‘Are you going to desert me/believe I’m a terrible person now? now? now?” stuff.
Anyway she suicided eight months ago. At 2m:
For God’s Sake, Margaret
I am not willing to accept the premise that we were not really friends as I know I was there and was paying attention. So I’m stuck, amongst other things, with trying to sort out how I can legitimately (to myself mainly) as- pire to trying to help others with their crazi- nesses? Have I the courage—yes and no. That is, I still think I understand some of it, but doubt whether that understanding is suffi- cient. And if it isn’t, what is?
Which brings me to unasked question #2. One thing that looks to me as if it had the pos- sibility of being sufficient is small communi- ties like Kingsley Hall, the Granville Road house, etc. What mostly worries me about them is how do you get a community stable enough to sustain itself and support people working on their maps but not get tangled up in questions of stability and/or minimizing chaos as to interfere with people’s working?
Respectfully
27 May 1973 Dear
I am sorry I did not manage to answer your letter while I was in Seattle.
I suggest that you consider and complete in _ your imagination the following scenario (after all, it is in your imagination that change ts re- _ quested or needed): Your friend has achieved her suicide and _ arrived at the Pearly Gates, where she is chal- _ lenged by St. Peter, who notes that she has _ come too soon. She says that it was all
’s fault.
There are many ways of completing the sce- | nario, but one way or another, your friend has | to demonstrate that she had no free will but | you had. I suggest either that you both had | free will or that neither of you had. Of course it is gratifying to you and to all _ therapists to believe that they have more free | will than their patients. But it won't do. _ Your problem is to stop the boat rocking be- _ tween the arrogance of “I had the power and _ the knowledge to help” and the self-repudia- tion of “I failed.” Your second question is much more diffi-
cult, but the answer is I suppose really a corol- lary following from what I have just said. You will always be terrified of the things which will inevitably happen in any therapeutic commu- nity if you start out with a false estimate of the power and the wisdom of whoever it is that runs the community (especially if it’s you). What one human being can do for another is not quite nothing, but it probably sometimes helps the helpee when the helper is clear about how little help can be given. Some temporary protection from the cold winds of an insane civilization, some shared tears and laughter, and that’s about it. Yours sincerely, Gregory Bateson Santa Cruz, California
{Spring, 1975]
PROTECT THE TROPHIES, SLAY THE CHILDREN
Dear S. B.
I want to raise a question and CQ is perhaps a good place for it. My mathematics is not good enough but perhaps Peter Warshall or one of your readers will tell me the answer.
The question is simple: Is it good practice to eat up big animals rather than small ones? Would it not make better sense in terms of conserving wild populations to eat the small fish and throw the big ones back?
After all it is the big ones that produce the eggs and sperm—in millions in many cases.
Fish, crabs, lobsters, abalone, deer—in al- most all hunting or “harvesting” of wild ani- mals the law protects the juveniles and permits the taking of the adults. But I suspect that this is based upon some sentimental fallacy.
The question looks like this: Suppose that fish of a given species produce N offspring per female adult per year; that of these offspring .O1% start to produce their own offspring in 3 years and go on producing for 3 years. Which should we eat—the bearing adults, the new adults, or the pre-adolescents?
I suspect that the .o1% figure is rather sta- ble in the sense that predation by birds, bigger fish, bacterial infection, epidemics, etc., etc., will be a function of density of population. If
45
Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead
there are more baby fish, the predators will get more. If this be so, and we eat a lot of the ba- bies, this will simply leave fewer babies for the other predators to eat and the number of babies who reach reproductive maturity will not be severely reduced. Perhaps?
What will the relevant mathematics look like for creatures like salmon who spawn only once? Creatures which have few babies and a high survival rate, as contrasted with fish with many free-floating eggs? And so on.
46
Was Hillaire Belloc right in his ecological jingle: Parents of large families With claims to common sense Find a tiger well repays The trouble and expense. Yours infantivorously, Gregory Bateson Santa Cruz, California {Spring 1978}
STEVE BAER
The Sun Riots and The B&G
This author thinks differently about energy and technology than other writers. As Stewart said in the first CQ introduction to Steve Baer, in Spring 1975: “Characters like Spe- cific Heat, Turbidity Factor, Angle of Incidence, and Dewpoint /ive as thoroughly for Baer as Bored Social- ite, Desperate Poet, and Vengeful Brother might for a playwright or novelist.”
The first of these two essays, “The Sun Riots,” appeared in that issue. The second, “The B&G,” appeared a year later in the Summer 1976 CQ. It began as a college talk. More than a dozen Baer essays appeared in CQ during its ten years. If you want to see more, his 1975 book Sunspots is still in print (from Madrona Publish- ers, Seattle, WA). To quote Stewart again: “If a real philosopher were a real engineer, he would write like this.”
Steve Baer is the proprietor of Zomeworks, a company based in Al- buquerque, New Mexico, which has designed and sold innovative solar and insulating technology since the late Gos.
Art Kleiner
THE SUN RIOTS
The chief of police in a southwestern city is talking on the telephone to the city mainte- nance department—“I want reflective blinds on every goddamned window and if you can’t get enough of them then tape tinfoil over the rest of the windows, now! Before that damn sun comes up again.”
The bottom offices of City Hall and the po- lice department have been gutted by fire— black streaks surround the windows which are now opaque and shiny with aluminum foil. The police are still unable to confiscate mir- rors, the matter is in the courts.
A week earlier at a demonstration a large van driven next to the crowd—the driver, a swarthy man of about forty, opened the back doors and began passing out foot-square mir- rors. ‘Give em some sunshine!”
A few dozen mirrors began playing beams of sunlight on a police car that had been dogging the rear end of the demonstration. The officers were caught by surprise. The driver managed to back the car down the street, but not before his partner, panicked by the glare and the rap- idly rising temperature, had jumped out and run. More and more mirrors were out in the crowd now. The crowd glinted like a bank of crystals.
It couldn’t reach the police car which had found protection behind a drive-up liquor store. The man with the van now stood on top of it. An old bread delivery van, “‘Let’s burn it up. Yeh—this.”
His voice is hoarse and breaking. A few mir- rors flit across the van and the man on top. More focus on the tin side. The man climbs off. People are pulling the last mirrors from inside the van as others begin to focus on it. There are 800 mirrors out in the street.
47
Steve Baer
The crowd is silent. The blob of brilliant light on the side of the truck is fringed with trembling squares of light flitting in and out of the target. You can hardly hear a noise. Then the sheet metal side of the van oil cans as the metal swells. A few more moments and smoke appears—the crowd has results. That was at I1 A.M.; by dark there have been 100 fires.
No one on foot has been burned—too hard to follow a man on foot. Rows of smoking cars—the ashes of a flag at City Hall.
It’s the office buildings—the windows above the street—the crowd focuses through one win- dow after another—the curtains go fast.
The police appear with arc welders’ masks. They fire on the demonstrators. The demon- strators disperse, but the light keeps coming. More mirrors appear on the street—funny- shaped mirrors, mirrors with ornamental frames, tiny pocket mirrors in the hands of children.
Smoke is seen from another part of town.
Television crews arrive. The footage in the evening news across the nation is overexposed. An occasional clear image and then the picture goes white and overexposed.
The mirror crowds are completely silent— moving everywhere on foot. A secretary at City Hall, “They just looked so funny—a whole crowd of them standing just as still as could be holding on to those mirrors and then pretty soon the store across the street was burning.”
“When they started coming our way they just glinted and shined like a drawer full of diamonds—when they steadied down again we got out of there fast because they were burning up Captain Garcia’s office downstairs.”
“Get those damned kids with the mirrors off the streetsy
“But officers, I’m just usin’ this mirror ‘cause I’m combin’ my hair, no law against combin’ your hair is there?”
Dozens of youths in the street combing their hair peering into gigantic foot-square mirrors.
48
THE B&G
I don’t think there is a proper understanding of buildings, particularly institutional buildings. What activities are they really built for? I re- member in college the B & G, which stands for Buildings and Grounds. They ran the school. There are such crews all across the world. Why are we so obsessed with the FBI and the CIA when there is the B & G? They wear dark gray or green uniforms. Personnel are not accepted below the age of thirty-five; stocky, lumpy physiques are preferred, or some form of lame- ness. Requirements are to be able to carry an enormous ring of keys with the proper seriousness.
You hear stories of the communists where some lowly sweeper or maid is actually party commissioner in a factory and the factory man- ager may have to seek him out in the toilet for advice or directions. We have all seen the same thing.
We are at an evening lecture at the univer- sity. The distinguished professor, scientist, author is before us. The topic is fascinating. There are lively questions and discussion. Sud- denly, at 9 P.M. a side door opens slowly and a middle-aged woman appears in a gray uni- form—behind her in the hall you can see the mop bucket. She says nothing, merely looks at the lecturer for a few moments. He is looking the other way and doesn’t see her, but he feels a cold draft on his back and senses his audience’s attention is wandering. The woman goes on to some other chore, but the door is left open. It’s as if we were all taking a bath and someone has now started to drain the tub. There is no strug- gle. The students, only too ready to give the Dean the finger or belch while a professor is making a point, seem obedient to the B&G. Five minutes later, the woman appears again— the lecturer has tried to rally the audience, who now seem distracted. On this visit she has her mop. She catches the lecturer’s eye for a mo- ment and gives the mop a little shake—a very much less dramatic version of what you imag- ine a bullfighter’s message to a sinking bull may be. The lecture begins to close and the
} i
|
TheB&G
woman starts hauling in her equipment. “Sorry sir, but the building is to be locked at 5300"
No one shouts out, “Fuck the dust, on with our discussion!” Radicals, jocks, gays, femin- ists, engineers—all bow to the B&G.
Of what importance is such a scene? Not much in one sense, but then again this may be the tiny corner of a vast empire of stupidity and obedience to schedules and demands which
_ have nothing to do with the more important
uses of architecture. Let’s be on our way— track down the power flowing through the maid with her lowly mop and message about
| the building closing at 9:30. Let’s go on and _ examine the heating and cooling system, the
lights, the ventilation. Finally, far back in the
_ hierarchy of the support machinery of the B&G, we might find the atom bomb itself.
After long consideration of the B & G and the power they wield, we may conclude that man is not merely a ‘‘tool-using animal,’ as he is sometimes defined, but a “‘tool-hypnotized animal” ready to show concern for collections of pipes and wires as if they were parts of his
| own body. Ready to obey the equipment care- | takers in even the most improbable circum-
| stances. We may have opened a question that
| demands another Freud to begin to solve the
puzzles. Someone to examine emotions aroused by copper pipes, marble floors, plate glass,
| locks. The architect seems helpless to grapple
with the forces at work. Caught in the crossfire
| of concrete trucks, heating and ventilating
| equipment salesmen, and furniture suppliers,
| he dodges to the side agreeing to a space where | the wares can be installed. And somewhere in
the subconscious, sensing the times, I suspect most of us have caught the smell of the atomic
| bomb and the guided missile coming in to |help with “respect” for the equipment.
Is the professor obedient to the B & G be-
cause in his heart he feels all his talk about sci- |ence or culture is really a lot of hot air, perhaps a diverting act to take up time between impor-
tant activities such as mopping the building?
|How much are words and ideas worth com- pared to bricks, glass, copper pipes? It depends
on how you feel—which, of course, is what is fascinating about the B & G taking over a university.
What if the B & Gare really the only people who ever work at the university? Certainly ina factory where the janitor is up against milling machines, punch presses, and chem mill tanks you don’t see him throwing his weight around. The punch press operator, though he may earn only half as much as the professor, would hardly have time to glance at the cleanup man.
Every technical achievement strengthens the hand of the B&G. Every song, every poem, every scientific discovery strengthens that of the teacher and the student.
I don’t mean all these words as merely some diversion about school days. These attitudes go beyond school and beyond the mop and broom.
It is common knowledge that filth and grime in buildings is bad. It makes you suspi- cious of the occupants. In a sense it is a moral failure—lack of attention. Once a floor is built, it should be swept and mopped. It’s as if one had signed a contract on pouring the slab. Once a window is installed, it should be cleaned.
The same contract seems to appear on the installation of a central heating system and thermostat. They demand a standard be main- tained even if people are not there, for now it has become a moral issue—are you or are you not going to live up to your agreement with the equipment?
The comfort of the occupant is really of sec- ondary concern. The same logic applies to lighting systems.
I believe the school and university is a prime battleground in spreading obedience to equip- ment, schedules, routines, investments, etc. The man who wants to display how well he has trained a dog waits until the dog’s dinner is in his bowl, then calls Rex and has him roll over, sit, shake hands, or whatever interesting ritual he has taught the dog. All the while the dinner and its odor are so close by. It emphasizes the power of training. And so it is with the small, seemingly powerless band of uneducated em-
49
Steve Baer
ployees wandering about the institutions of learning—going into the closets under the stairs—coming up from the boiler room in the basement. The furnace versus ancient history? Don't be silly! The two are completely differ- ent. The furnace keeps the building warm so that you can concentrate in the classroom on what the professor is telling you about ancient history. But what about when the feed line ruptures and the crews work for two weeks with jackhammers outside the window dig- ging it up? Why couldn’t they do it quietly with a pick and shovel? Or at night? Or let us do without heat? The contract doesn’t include such possibilities.
The regents of the university are only trying to help learning when they allocate ten million dollars for the new service center. What does it matter that those who have earned the money or power for such positions have not read a book since they left school?
You see, I am sure that the United Nations is run by the B & G—debates cut off out of re- spect for the schedule of a vacuum cleaner— office styles made to conform to an engineer’s wish to give you the best.
50
It’s easier on you students to learn these les- sons while young. It will help the doctor later to understand the functioning of the modern hospital with a parking lot large enough to cause panic and despair in even a healthy visi- tor. It will help the ecologist adjust to the air- ports where he finds he spends half his time on the way to and from conferences on the environment.
I recently heard from a student that at his state university the administration doesn’t even murmur about teachers advocating LSD and other drugs, but one poor faculty member was soon fired after he began explaining and dem- onstrating how to alter the dormitory rooms. Say what you want, but don’t get physical.
Perhaps the only escape is to join them your- self—get your key ring, heavy shoes, and pre- pare yourself for a life in the halls. Or, maybe better, get upstream from the B&G. Draw up the prints which they follow—manufacture the equipment they manipulate. The problem with this escape, which seems to promise a more interesting career, is that this architec- ture building too has its own B&G.
ROBERT HORVITZ
Some Mice
About mice. They are, in Robert Horvitz’s words, “the essence of
_ mammalhood, the most concise
| statement of a personality—type that _ can be seen running through our
_ whole portion of the animal king-
dom. Their behavioral repertoire is so limited that, paradoxically, they live on a mythic level: fratricide, rape, invasion, exploration are the daily stuff of life, and once one gets used to the Lilliputian scale, their epics are absolutely captivating. For several years instead of watching television, we'd sit around watching
_ the mice until early morning, fol-
lowing subplots and developing emotional attachments.”
About Robert Horvitz. He pub- lished this article originally ina New York literary magazine called Big
_ Deal; Stewart reprinted it in the Summer 1976 CQ. Thereafter Robert
was called cq’s “Art Editor,” which meant he roved around the art world, seeking potential contributors like Donald Burgy (CQ printed his mock- proposal to become a U.N. artist-
_ in-residence), Charles Ross (who charted the sun burning a lens-am-
_ plified path across a series of boards), _or Alex Grey (whose paintings, pho-
tographs and performance pieces mingled horror and religious beauty). Robert Horvitz only trav- eled to the CQ offices once (for the Jamboree). To the editors of the magazine, he was a soft, persistent, idea-filled voice on the phone—a link with the East Coast. It was fit- ting that he was also Whole Earth’s expert on shortwave radio and radio politics. (He writes a regular column for the Review of International Broadcasting.)
Art Kleiner
When our lease on the beach house was up, we decided to divide the mouse colony: anyone could take some mice with him when he left, and any left over would be let go in the field next door. I picked two, the extremes of the litter. One was the bully, a handsome and ag- gressive mouse named Brown. The other was the runt. I named him God. God was black and white, quite small and high-strung. He was always hunched over in fear of being at- tacked, as indeed he had been under attack by other mice all his life, simply because he was the smallest.
In their new cage, Brown immediately made it clear to God that he would be allowed to live only so long as he obeyed Brown’s wishes. He cornered God and nipped at his balls and bit him on the base of his spine until all the hair there was gone. With no other mice around, and food appearing effortlessly, Brown had nothing else to do but manage God's existence. He laid down an impossible code of behavior and punished all infractions severely. God got very thin because Brown punished him for eat-
51
Illustration by Robert Horvitz
Robert Horvitz
PU ThE Laby's i TRAP LE Soe ve NEST :
TUNNEL ENTRANCES TO PENTAGON AND NEST
Mazzy PAZm oot]
MESH ROOF
THE Laby's NEST
Savane RING (NO CONNECT) OW TO MAZE)
MAZE
SHIT HOLE
TIN -CAN NESTS
Se
of
PLEXIGLAS WALLS
Food Bin NYLON STOCKING (ENTRANCE TO ONE
TUNEL SYSTEM)
UNCLAIMED
FRESH -CuT NEST
GRASS
ing; his legs got stiff because Brown wouldn’t let him run on their treadmill.
After a couple of weeks I bought two fe- males at a pet store, hoping their presence would lessen the tension between the two males. One female died mysteriously her first night in the cage. Both God and Brown were fascinated with the one who survived, but Brown became even more oppressive, attacking God whenever she was nearby. The Lady was a “waltzing mouse,” a breed with a peculiar waddling walk. While Brown was away at the food dish, God would sneak out from his cor- ner to smell The Lady’s vagina, but she would usually squeal and Brown would come rushing over. God got so he could make a quick trip out and back before either of the others knew what had happened. Brown’s suspicions were aroused by finding The Lady’s scent on God’s whiskers and he began punishing God con-
2
stantly, just in case he had done something he wasn’t supposed to, or in case he might have been considering it.
Under this redoubled pressure, God could not get to the food dish at all. After a week of harassment and starvation, I intervened by slipping food directly to him through the wire mesh wall of the cage. He was afraid at first to accept anything because he knew that Brown would smell it on his breath and punish him. But after a day or so he gave in to temptation.
This backfired. Brown seemed to get the idea that God had found a way of conjuring up food; thereafter he never left God’s side, hop- ing to either catch him in the act of making food or, better, get the food for himself.
The Lady had not lessened the tension be- tween the males. The only other thing I could think of was to isolate Brown for a few days to allow God to recuperate from his life of routine torture. I lured Brown into a wire mesh tunnel with peanut butter and then barricaded the tunnel.
God noticed Brown’s absence right away. He stayed in his corner the whole first day, afraid it was a trap. He smelled the air at inter- vals, but wouldn’t move. The second day, he moved around the cage cautiously, stopping to check everything that smelled of Brown and jumping at unexpected sounds. He ate a little at the food dish. Then he discovered Brown be- hind the barricade and ran back to his corner. The third day, he went back to the barricade and gnawed at it at length. (I could never fig- ure out if he was trying to liberate Brown or convince himself that he was safe from him.) God spent the rest of the night trying to mount The Lady. He had never had sex before so he was quite a comical lover. On the fourth day, God was noticeably more relaxed. His new self-confidence showed in the way he let his balls hang out under his tail. The social standing of a male mouse can be gauged by how prominently he displays his testicles: a dominant male wears them proudly, extended, one who is dominated wears his close in against his belly. God groomed himself leisurely while sitting at the ‘control point” in the center of the tunnel system—which had previously been
|
Some Mice
reserved for Brown—and gained weight quickly as he was free to eat for the first time in over a month.
After four days, I thought their former pat- tern of supremacy and submission had been broken and they could begin anew as equals. But as soon as I removed the barricade and let Brown reenter the main chamber, they began to fight. They were a surprisingly even match and they fought until both were exhausted. After a pause, the fight resumed and God was clearly in charge. He went for the base of Brown’s spine, sometimes biting his tail, and they fought until exhausted again. At the end of this round, Brown was either paralyzed or in such pain that he could not move his hind legs. God went back to his corner and the fighting
~ ended. There was hardly any blood on either of
them. Brown managed to pull himself back into the tunnel he had been sequestered in ear- lier and I replaced the barricade to protect him from further attacks.
Brown’s rear legs were paralyzed, his penis had been bitten off, and one eye had been punctured. Two days after the fight, I saw him struggling to pull himself up to the edge of the water can. The fur on his belly, which had
_ always been brown, was turning dull gray. He _ fell over on his side and could not get up. As I
watched, he went into convulsions, gasped si- lently, relaxed, and died. I buried him outside. It was peaceful in the cage until two weeks after Brown’s death, when The Lady gave birth to six rosy, hairless babies. God had never seen
| babies and had no idea what they were or what | todo about them. He went into a state of
| panic, hopping around the cage, bumping into | walls, and twitching like a squirrel. I later saw
him cowering at the end of a dead-end tunnel
| that was only used for urination. No mouse
willingly stays in the shit hole for very long,
| but God stayed there for three days. Eventu- ally, I coaxed him out with food and he went | back to The Lady and her brood.
Soon after The Lady’s first litter was born, I
| was given a year-old albino female who had not | had any contact with other mice since earliest
childhood. Bess’s whole world consisted of
herself, her food, and her shoebox full of nest-
ing material which she sorted through and rearranged every day. She was fat and splen- didly spoiled by solitude.
God was as bewildered by her arrival in the cage as Bess was to find herself there. The Lady left her brood to come down to the main cham- ber to meet her. After a few minutes of cau- tious smelling and mutual uncertainty, Bess had had enough of this new weirdness. She at- tacked The Lady. She was twice the size of The Lady, but very flabby and unskilled at fight- ing. The Lady fought back and chased her into a hole.
The fighting between the two females con- tinued sporadically for weeks, but Bess had time between fights to learn her way around the main chamber. As she had no experience with complicated spaces and was too heavy to climb around the wire mesh walls, she was un- able to find the entrances to the tunnels where God and The Lady lived. After learning where the food was and when it was safe to roam around, she began to construct an elaborate nest along the lines of her former one.
God began spending most of his time with Bess. His own nest was overrun with infants who kicked and squealed all day, competing for the best suckling positions, and when The Lady occasionally went downstairs to eat, he was besieged by pups who refused to believe he had no teats. So he moved out. The Lady was hurt and jealous: when God returned to visit her with Bess’s smell on his fur, she would squeak bitterly and push him away.
Bess was only too happy to have God stay with her. He had earned her endless gratitude by introducing her to sex. Living alone she had never suspected that anything like sex existed. She had missed out on the rapes and adolescent gang-bangs that soured most females on sex, and, of all the mice I came to know, Bess was the only one who relished it. The others merely tolerated it. God and Bess had intercourse sev- eral times a night and even that was not enough to satisfy her.
It took Bess a month to find the tunnel that went to the shit hole, as it was almost a foot above the floor of the main chamber. A week later she found the tunnel that went to The La-
53
Robert Horvitz
dy’s nest. As she entered the nest tunnel, The Lady caught her scent. They confronted each other near the entrance. Bess had the extreme stupidity to attack. I tried to separate them with a screwdriver but was unsuccessful. Bess could not find her way out to safety and was thus trapped deep within the territory of her rival. By the time I managed to prod her along the pathway back to the main chamber, she
54
was covered with blood and shaking with fear and anger. This same scene occurred a few days later and, to my knowledge, that was the last time The Lady and Bess fought. Thereafter, they left each other alone. Bess got pregnant and, shortly after God was killed by one of The Lady’s sons (whose father had been Brown), she gave birth to seven babies of her own and dis- covered the joys of motherhood.
I ]
URSULA LE GUIN
The Space Crone
| Ursula Le Guin I regard as the high- est quality writer working with sci-
ence fiction since Kurt Vonnegut
_ moved on. Her books include The
| Dispossessed, The Lathe of Heaven, The | Left Hand of Darkness, Wizard of
| Earthsea, The Farthest Shore, The Lan- | guage of the Night, and The Compass
_ Rose (a recent book of stories, one of _ which CQ published in 1983).
When I told Margaret Mead that
__we were printing a piece by Ms. Le | Guin which says that women start
getting really good after menopause, Margaret snapped cordially, ‘‘She’s talking about her mother.”
Ursula Le Guin’s mother was Theodora Kroeber-Quinn, author of Ishi in Two Worlds, wife of the emi- nent anthropologist Alfred Kroeber (and his biographer—A/fred Kroeber: A Personal Configuration) and, at the age of seventy-nine when this was published (in the Summer 1976 CQ), a stunning, gracious woman. She died in 1979 (and left famous advice on how to handle that in the poem immediately following this article). The poem has had a life of its own, passing by word of mouth and copy machine among the populations of the bereaved. Countless people asked
Theo for copies, which she always gladly supplied. I resisted printing the poem until we needed it (the Fall 1979 CQ).
Stewart Brand
The menopause is probably the least glamor- ous topic imaginable; and this is interesting, because it is one of the very few topics to which cling some shreds and remnants of taboo. A serious mention of menopause is usually met with uneasy silence; a sneering reference to it is usually met with relieved sniggers. Both the silence and the sniggering are pretty sure indi- cations of taboo.
Most people would consider the old phrase “change of life” a euphemism for the medical term “menopause,” but I, who am now going through the change, begin to wonder if it isn’t the other way round. “Change of life’ is too blunt a phrase, too factual. “Menopause,” with its chime-suggestion of a mere pause after which things go on as before, is reassuringly trivial.
But the change is not trivial, and I begin to wonder how many women are brave enough to carry it out wholeheartedly. They give up their reproductive capacity with more or less of a struggle, and when it’s gone they think that’s all there is to it. Well, at least I don’t get the Curse any more, they say, and the only reason I felt so depressed sometimes was hormones. Now I’m myself again. But this is to evade the real challenge, and to lose, not only the capac- ity to ovulate, but the opportunity to become a Crone.
In the old days women who survived long enough to attain the menopause more often ac- cepted the challenge. They had, after all, had
Be)
Ursula Le Guin
Theodora Kroeber
practice. They had already changed their life radically once before, when they ceased to be virgins and became mature women/wives/ma- trons/mothers/mistresses/whores/etc. This change involved not only the physiological al- ternations of puberty—the shift from barren childhood to fruitful maturity—but a socially recognized alteration of being: a change of condition from the sacred to the profane.
With the secularization of virginity now complete, so that the once awesome term “‘vir- gin” is now a sneer or at best a slightly dated word for a person who hasn’t copulated yet, the opportunity of gaining or regaining the dan- gerous/sacred condition-of-being at the Second Change has ceased to be apparent.
Virginity is now a mere preamble or waiting room to be got out of as soon as possible; it is without significance. Old age is similarly a waiting room, where you go after life’s over and wait for cancer or a stroke. The years be- fore and after the menstrual years are vestigial: the only meaningful condition left to women is that of fruitfulness. Curiously, this restriction of significance coincided with the development of chemicals and instruments which make fer- tility itself a meaningless or at least secondary
56
characteristic of female maturity. The signifi- cance of maturity now is not the capacity to conceive but the mere ability to have sex. As this ability is shared by pubescents and by post- climacterics, the blurring of distinctions and elimination of opportunities is almost com- plete. There are no rites of passage, because there is no significant change. The Triple God- dess has only one face: Marilyn Monroe’s, may- be. The entire life of a woman from ten or twelve through seventy or eighty has become secular, uniform, changeless. As there is no longer any virtue in virginity, so there is no longer any meaning in menopause. It requires fanatical determination now to become a Crone.
Women have thus, by imitating the life- condition of men, surrendered a very strong position of their own. Men are afraid of vir- gins, but they have a cure for their own fear and the virgin’s virginity: fucking. Men are afraid of crones, so afraid of them that their cure for virginity fails them; they know it won't work. Faced with the fulfilled Crone, all but the bravest men wilt and retreat, crestfal- len and cockadroop.
Menopause Manor is not merely a defensive stronghold, however. It is a house or house- hold, fully furnished with the necessities of life. In abandoning it, women have narrowed their domain and impoverished their souls. There are things the Old Woman can do, say, and think which the Woman cannot do, say, or think. The Woman has to give up more than her menstrual periods before she can do, say, or think them. She has got to change her life.
The nature of that change is now clearer than it used to be. Old age is not virginity, but a third and new condition; the virgin must be celibate, but the crone need not. There was a confusion there, which the separation of fe- male sexuality from reproductive capacity, via modern contraceptives, has cleared up. Loss of fertility does not mean loss of desire and fulfill- ment. But it does entail a change, a change in- volving matters even more important—if I may venture a heresy—than sex.
The woman who is willing to make that change must become pregnant with herself, at
The Space Crone
last. She must bear herself, her third self, her old age, with travail and alone. Not many will help her with that birth. Certainly no male ob- stetrician will time her contractions, inject her with sedatives, stand ready with forceps, and neatly stitch up the torn membranes. It’s hard even to find an old-fashioned midwife, these days. That pregnancy is long, that labor is hard. Only one is harder, and that’s the final one, the one which men also must suffer and perform.
It may well be easier to die if you have al- ready given birth to others or yourself, at least once before. This would be an argument for going through all the discomfort and embar- rassment of becoming a Crone. Anyhow it seems a pity to have a built-in rite of passage and to dodge it, evade it, and pretend nothing has changed. That is to dodge and evade one’s womanhood, to pretend one’s like a man. Men, once initiated, never get the second chance. They never change again. That’s their loss, not ours. Why borrow poverty?
Certainly the effort to remain unchanged, young, when the body gives so impressive a signal of change as the menopause, is gallant; but it is a stupid, self-sacrificial gallantry, bet- ter befitting a boy of twenty than a woman of | forty-five or fifty. Let the athletes die young | and laurel-crowned. Let the soldiers earn the _ Purple Hearts. Let women die old, white- | crowned, with human hearts. | Ifa spaceship came by from the friendly na- __ tives of the fourth planet of Altair, and the po- | lite captain of the space ship said, “We have _ room for one passenger; will you spare us a sin- | gle human being, so that we may converse at | leisure during the long trip back to Altair, and | learn from an exemplary person the nature of the race?” —I suppose what most people would _ want to do is provide them with a fine, bright, _ brave young man, highly educated and in peak _ physical condition. A Russian cosmonaut | would be ideal (American astronauts are | mostly too old). There would surely be hun-
_ dreds, thousands of volunteers, just such
_ young men, all worthy. But I would not pick _ any of them. Nor would I pick any of the
| young women who would volunteer, some out
of magnanimity and intellectual courage, oth- ers out of a profound conviction that Altair couldn’t possibly be any worse for a woman than Earth is.
What I would do is go down to the local Woolworth’s, or the local village