Nora Bateson – Meeting the Double Binds of the Polycrisis. 19 July 2023

Nora Bateson begins her talk with one of her father’s quotations from Mind and Nature, drawing attention to “the difference between how nature works and how people think”. Such differences have been steering humankind into linear, compartmentalised ways of thinking, thwarting our ability to take a flexible approach to the multiple crises we face. We may sense the urgency, but underestimate our interdependency and find ourselves stuck, because we cannot merely tackle one problem at a time. Hence the use of words like “polycrisis” and “double bind”—originally coined by Gregory Bateson in the context of mental health—to describe our current situation, as we continue to educate our children in obsolete economic and political systems, fearful of losing our creature comforts.

If the double bind is not to make us obsolescent but to help us to evolve, then every organism is urged to take a creative leap of consciousness and embrace the “transcontextual”. In this way, living beings participate in multiple contexts, perceiving combinations and overlap, resonating to movement and change like flora and fauna in a meadow.

Resist the urge to simplify. Do not cling to those material signifiers that polarise societies. To meet the polycrisis, add context to shift the status quo, be responsive to the imperceptible, and stimulate the evolutionary process. Look beyond the spreadsheet to the “warm data”, loosen the compartments, invite the unwelcome guest who disrupts the system, develop new interconnections, and be creative.

Report by Sue Lewis