bateson: on love and difference
25 Sep 2017another insight that struck me from the mary catherine bateson episode of on being was her thinking about love and difference.
MS. BATESON: … Now I’m working on a book, the title of which is Love Across Difference. And central to the thinking in that book is that love depends on a recognition of something in common and the valuing of a difference.
MS. TIPPETT: Right.
MS. BATESON: You don’t want someone just like yourself. You want someone enough like yourself so that you can learn new things from them.
first of all, it’s excellent that bateson is working on a book called love across difference. that’s definitely more of what we need at the community and society scales.
second of all, i really appreciate that line about the tension between similarity and difference. you don’t want someone who is just like you; that would make you narcissistic. but you also don’t want someone who is too different from you; that will make it difficult that you’ll see them as someone to be in meaningful relationship with and from which to learn.
all of this point to the sociocultural value of difference. and, in america, difference seems like something that should be wholly heralded as one of our key characteristics. even a benefit and asset, as opposed to a risk or a danger.
now, the two potential issues i have with this idea are that (a) i’m not sure of bateson’s definition of love, and (b) i slightly worry that “wanting someone enough like yourself” may validate those who see some folks as too different to learn from.
on a: if she doesn’t have an action-oriented vision of love, i’m not sure how applicable her thoughts about love and difference are for me.
on b: the danger here is that requiring some threshold of similarity, you could play into the argument of, say, folks who think black people and people of color in general are subhuman. i think the way to combat this that doesn’t necessarily line up with bateson’s thinking (though it may) is to actually support people in loving those who aren’t similar to them. bateson’s argument i think would push for us to get people to see the similarities between themselves and “others” who they perceived to be different from them.
maybe both types of work are necessary, but i can easily imagine how the tactics to do each would differ and have potentially very different outcomes. one pushes for similarity while the other respects and honors difference.
excerpt
MS. TIPPETT: I’m Krista Tippett, and this is On Being. Today, with the linguist, anthropologist, and wise woman, Mary Catherine Bateson. She explores the matter of composing our lives, of life as an improvisational art at every age. Since her childhood as the daughter of the towering anthropologists Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, she’s had an ability to experience life both as an original observer and as a joyful participant.
MS. TIPPETT: I do find echoes, but also, I find that you are improvising or working with some of the same convictions, but bringing them into a different world. I mean here’s something you wrote about your belief that “multiple small spheres of personal experience both echo and enable events shared more widely, expressions of moment in a world in which we now recognize that no microcosm is completely separate, no tide pool, no forest, no family, no nation. Indeed, the knowledge drawn from the life of some single organism or community or from the intimate experience of an individual may prove to be relevant to decisions that affect the health of a city or the peace of the world.” That’s very emboldening.
MS. BATESON: That’s a very central quotation. Now I’m working on a book, the title of which is Love Across Difference. And central to the thinking in that book is that love depends on a recognition of something in common and the valuing of a difference.
MS. TIPPETT: Right.
MS. BATESON: You don’t want someone just like yourself. You want someone enough like yourself so that you can learn new things from them.
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