The title
Apologies for neglecting this place, but the past few weeks have been pretty hectic. Right now I’ve got a bit of time to myself, though, so I figured I’d pop in and blow some of the web dust off the page lest it settle too deep and I start slipping into the “taking a break” section of that small handful of blogrolls discerning enough to carry me.
I do have a whole bunch of incomplete blogposts from the past couple of weeks. But I can’t seem to properly finish a thought at the moment. I suspect that’s got something to do with being neck-deep in research. Everything seems to return to the same topic.
So my observations on the Lisbon referendum campaign ended up being an analysis of the unconscious drives at work within the collective psyche of the electorate. My short piece about our New Glorious Leader, Brian (I’m not just ‘an Irish Gordon Brown’) Cowen began by explaining why actually, he’s not just an Irish Gordon Brown, and ended up examining the unconscious drives within the capitalist collective psyche. And my oil prices / peak oil / fuel protests piece? Well, let’s just acknowledge that there’s a pattern emerging and the phrases “unconscious drives” and “collective psyche” made an appearance. I also ended up explaining my belief that if you were to actually sit down and design a system to drive a culture completely psychotic, then you’d have a hard job coming up with something better than a free market in natural resources.
All of which may well be fascinating, but it’s also very dense stuff at the moment. Blog posts that require extensive glossaries are probably to be avoided. It’s all still percolating you see, and hasn’t yet really coalesced into something easy to communicate. All being well, for me the next couple of months will essentially be devoted to that very process.
Reading a lot of Gregory Bateson really changes the way you think about… well, everything. And that’s not hyperbole. It’s just how it is. And it’s worth pointing out that he’s not shy about making it clear that his intention is just that. On top of that, it’s long been recognised that reading a lot of Freud will seriously affect the way you think about… again, pretty much everything.
So there’s probably a certain inevitability in the fact that while researching a paper that hovers somewhere between a Freudian reading of Bateson and a Batesonian reading of Freud, there’s a tendency to view every issue through a psychodynamic prism.* Which is probably a very good thing from the point of view of writing the paper, but is less good when it comes to blog posts. It’s also a bit hit-and-miss when it comes to everyday human interaction… I’m trying to curtail the constant tendency to punctuate conversations with: “hmmmm, that’s a lot like Bion’s idea of the emotional storm created by interpersonal awareness really… I must write that down… … … … sorry, what were you saying?” That, and looking at people as though they’re mad because they don’t know who Isabel Menzies Lyth is**. Really need to cut that out.
What’s that, you say? The title? Well, my thesis supervisor stressed the importance of getting it down to ten words, but in the end I just couldn’t compress / focus it any further than twelve. So without futher ado… “Free Markets as Collective Pleasure Principle: Psychodynamics of an Ecology of Mind”.
What do you think? Sound academic enough? Personally I think it sounds academic as fuck.
It’s certainly a densely packed dozen words. Start unpacking them, and before you know where you are, there’s fourteen thousand of the buggers lying around looking to be put into some kind of meaningful pattern. It’s a dirty job………
Aaanyways, if you’re in the vicinity of the Trinity Postgrad Reading Room over the summer, pop in and say hello. You know where I’ll be.
* Psychodynamic Prism. A forthcoming 8 CD retrospective from ‘Yes’.
** For those mad folk among you, she wrote Containing Anxiety in Institutions (a collection of papers that’s been very influential on my thinking) and is recognised for carrying out the first psychoanalytic studies of large institutions. If I’m honest? No, I hadn’t heard of her prior to this year. Turns out there’s lots of people who’ve done remarkable; really remarkable; work who I’ve never even heard of. Always worth bearing that in mind.
Having sat on both sides of the desk, I suspect it’s going to come back with a lower mark than you expected & with comments saying, basically, that everything from the title down is too wide-ranging and smells too strongly of Bateson – and I think you’ll probably end up agreeing (although you certainly shouldn’t try to now).
Having said that, I also suspect it’ll be pretty damn good.
June 10th, 2008 | 7:02am
by Phil
To be honest, Phil, I’m aware that I’m somewhat out on a limb with this topic. Bateson was — without a doubt — one of the most important thinkers of the 20th century. But he’s right on the edge of mainstream academic acceptance. Was he an anthropologist? Or a zoologist? Or a psychotherapist? Or a communications theorist? Or? Or? There’s a certain (hardly unremarked) irony that some of the most interesting research occurs in the space between disciplines, and yet the inability to pigeonhole something often means it gets ignored.
Luckily for me though, Bateson’s “double-bind” theory of schizophrenia is currently experiencing something of a resurgence within psychoanalysis. So that gets his foot in the door. Though I suspect I may be committing a minor heresy by writing on Bateson and not making “double-bind” the focus of my paper.
Incidentally, there’s a very interesting (well, to me) paper to be written on the ‘double-bind’ theory of schizophrenic development from a Lacanian perspective. Don’t imagine I’ll have much time between now and September to get around to it, but maybe something for the future………
And certainly that would be a much more mainstream paper. By taking Bateson’s ‘ecology of mind’ idea as my starting point I’m definitely asking a lot from the external examiner. Mind you, I am passing Bateson through a Freudian filter (if you’ll excuse the expression) which will hopefully mollify any traditionalists on the small awards committee. I’ll be applying Freud’s 2nd topography to Bateson’s ecology of mind. On top of that, the Pleasure Principle Vs. Reality Principle stuff is just about as mainstream as you can get in psychoanalysis. Some real back to basics psychodynamics amongst the high-falootin’ interdisciplinary stuff.
But yeah, I do take your general point. And on the specific point of smelling of Bateson… well, given the appalling dearth of “post-Batesonian” writing, I’ll not be too offended if that’s the worst criticism I receive. I’ll just have to keep my fingers crossed that I’m wearing enough eau-du-Sigmund to balance it all out.
June 10th, 2008 | 7:46pm
by Jim Bliss
Really think you can lure people in that easily, Bliss?
if you’re in the vicinity of the Trinity Postgrad Reading Room over the summer, pop in and say hello. You know where I’ll be.
Yeah, and we all know what you’ll be doing there, too; plotting with Hubie De Burgh.
June 12th, 2008 | 1:33am
by merrick
Up until quite recently, merrick, I felt your anti-de Burgh crusade was simply a result of your pathological hatred of donkeys. Chris de Burgh’s tireless work in the rescue and rehabilitation of these oft-maligned members of the equine family thoroughly riled you and your donkey-bashing ilk.
Now though, I’m beginning to suspect that you may actually be a gatekeeper for the de Burgh conspiracy. Under the guise of criticising the man, you are clearly disseminating information designed to prepare us all for our new overlord. Your knowledge of de Burgh and his plans is far too detailed to be anything other than insider-information. He has arranged for you to prime the world… to get us all used to the idea of his impending power-grab, so that when it happens we will be less challenged by the idea and more likely to accept it.
Personally I’ve always felt de Burgh was not very good, but the first couple of albums have nice tunes on, which is more than you can say for Huey Lewis. Given the fact that you’ve never shown anything like the same level of venom about Mr. Lewis, it’d always been obvious to me that your obsession with de Burgh was a result of your aforementioned donkey-disgust. Now though… all these details you appear privy to… I suddenly see the psychological projection involved in your accusations against me.
Merrick “Gatekeeper de Burgh” Godhaven? It all becomes clear.
June 12th, 2008 | 8:18pm
by Jim Bliss