Every Schoolboy Knows

Ever since I first read this piece—it must have been 30 years ago—it has haunted me in a friendly way. If you stick with him long enough to get the hang of his complex way of thinking and writing, Gregory Bateson is a deeply rewarding mentor. As I have said before, studying his works changed my cosmology. I now see relationships where I once saw individual entities, I now focus more on flow and change than on stability and permanence. I know that whatever pattern I am perceiving at the moment, it is part of an even larger, richer, more complex pattern.

The piece itself ( I’m only posting the bare-bones list that is its skeleton) is a small part of the rich tapestry that is Bateson’s lifework. I highly recommend dipping into more. Some of the points on his list of what “every schoolboy” [sic] should know will be self-explanatory. My hope is that some of the others are intriguing enough that you will go to the source to begin grappling with them.

SCIENCE NEVER PROVES ANYTHING

THE MAP IS NOT THE TERRITORY, AND THE NAME IS NOT THE THING NAMED

THERE IS NO OBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE

THE PROCESSES OF IMAGE FORMATION ARE UNCONSCIOUS

THE DIVISION OF THE PERCEIVED UNIVERSE INTO PARTS AND WHOLES IS CONVENIENT AND MAY BE NECESSARY,BUT NO NECESSITY DETERMINES HOW IT SHALL BE DONE

DIVERGENT SEQUENCES ARE UNPREDICTABLE

CONVERGENT SEQUENCES ARE PREDICTABLE

“NOTHING WILL COME OF NOTHING”

NUMBER IS DIFFERENT FROM QUANTITY

QUANTITY DOES NOT DETERMINE PATTERN

THERE ARE NO MONOTONE “VALUES” IN BIOLOGY

SOMETIMES SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL

LOGIC IS A POOR MODEL OF CAUSE AND EFFECT

CAUSALITY DOES NOT WORK BACKWARD

LANGUAGE COMMONLY STRESSES ONLY ONE SIDE OF ANY INTERACTION

The Meaning of Marxist Alienation

This video summarizes Karl Marx’s concept of alienation. Marx wrote about alienation as a condition that uniquely arises from capitalism, and it comes in two basic flavors: first, workers are alienated from the product of their labor, and second, they are alienated from each other. It’s useful to consider each of these claims separately. In the first instance, workers are alienated from the stuff they create because it disappears to shops in far off places; however, under capitalism, it is often the case that even when a product is sold in a shop just down the road from the factory or farm where it was created, workers often cannot afford it. For instance, many Ivory Coast cocoa farmers cannot afford to buy the chocolate they produce and just as many have never even tasted it.

NOVEMBER 19 - MARGARET HAMILTON

Not to be confused with the Margaret Hamilton who played the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz, computer scientist Margaret Hamilton wrote the code that allowed humans to land on the moon. As the Director of the Software Engineering Division of the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, she played a crucial role in the Apollo space program, ultimately preventing a computer overload that would have aborted the Apollo 11 mission.

The concepts Hamilton and her team created are considered the modern building blocks for “software engineering”, a term which she originally coined as an inside joke (long before it became a $400 billion industry). Today, she works as the CEO of Hamilton Technologies in Cambridge, just a few blocks away from where she began her career at MIT.

“Eritrean-American Haben Girma, who is the first deaf-blind graduate at Harvard Law School’s story is a true inspiration.

Girma’s extraordinary story highlights her courage and determination despite physical challenges, and she is living proof that disability is certainly no barrier to achieving academic excellence.

Girma is an attorney who ‘advocates for the civil rights of persons with disabilities. A celebrated speaker, she provided the introductory remarks for the 25th Anniversary of the ADA [Americans with Disabilities Act] at the White House’.

…Girma appreciates the opportunities she has been offered and ‘the hard won power of the ADA.’” by Arthur Chatora, This is Africa

“Haben Girma is our new hero. The 27-year-old lawyer is the first deaf-blind alumna of Harvard Law School.

After graduating magna cum laude with an undergraduate degree from Lewis & Clark College in 2010, Girma went on to earn her Juris Doctor (JD) degree from Harvard in 2013.

…Haben, who was also on Harvard’s Ballroom Dance Team, is originally from the East African country of Eritrea. Her older brother was also born deaf-blind, and the pair was told their disabilities were ‘…a curse on the family.’

…The budding activist and civil rights attorney currently works for the Disability Rights Advocates law firm in Sacramento helping others fight for their rights under the ADA.

Haben said that her grandmother, who still lives in Eritrea, believes her success is ‘like magic.’ She closed her speech by saying, ‘…People with disabilities succeed not by magic, but from the opportunities afforded by America and the hard-won power of the ADA.’

President Obama then said, ‘Thank you Haben for making sure students with disabilities have access to a world class education just as you have.’ Zon D'Amour, HelloBeautiful/Global Grind

“By the time Girma was born in 1988, six years younger than her brother, her mother had made a refugee’s journey from Eritrea to the United States. And in California, a deaf-blind girl like Girma had a legal right to an education.

In public schools in Oakland, she was educated alongside other students, leaving her mainstream classes for an hour a day to learn Braille.

…In the winter of 1983, Girma’s mother, Saba Gebreyesus, left Eritrea. The war of independence with Ethiopia was going on. It was a two-week trek to Sudan, ‘walking at night to try to avoid the different military groups fighting in that area.’ At one point she slept in a tree surrounded by hungry hyenas.

A Catholic resettlement agency helped Gebreyesus move to the United States.

In the United States, disability civil rights laws provided opportunities to Girma. The IDEA law says every child with a disability is guaranteed an education, and the ADA bans discrimination based on disability.

…At the White House, Girma talked to the president one on one, telling him ‘that technology can bridge the gap for people with disabilities.’ The president typed on a silver, wireless keyboard, and Girma read the message on a digital Braille device (the technology that enabled us to conduct our phone interview with her). The back-and-forth was instantaneous….

…Today, her brother, Mussie Gebre, travels around California, teaching people with disabilities how to use technology — like the devices that help him and his sister.