Gregory Bateson: Morale and National Character

From “Steps to an Ecology of Mind” of Gregory Bateson

The chapter is divided in Four parts:

1. the first part analyze some critics against the concept of “national character”,

2. in the second part, the question is on the conceptual limits of the validity of the word “national character”,

3. the third part describes and questions the order of differences that we can find among Western nations,

4. the last part consist in a critical consideration on how the differences in that order are creating problems regarding morale and international relations.

Barriers to Any Concept of “National Character”

There are some examples of thoughts and enquires that looks critically to the concept of “national character”. One of this starts with the consciousness that the differences between multiple communities are created by differences in circumstances, rather than in the people them self. The differences in circumstances can be differences in historical backgrounds or current conditions and are able to create a wide range of differences in behaviors without the necessity of inquiring any kind of divergence in individual character. According to this theory, the differences that we can observe in notifying divergences in conditions are more valuable than the differences in character, because of their visibility. We can try to show as an example the difference in which Germans and Americans responds to failure in an experimental setting:

Americans : failure = challenge to improve and increase effort.

Germans: failure = reason of discouragement.

These diversities are depending on the background circumstances of both groups: although they were in the same experimental setting, the value of that setting depend on how the quality and the importance of the circumstance have a contrast in the group of all the other circumstances. It is in fact impossible to find equal circumstances between individuals that comes from different cultural backgrounds. That’s why we cannot be able to use these parameters to define a national character. It is interesting also to notify how we could not be able to practice knowledges gained by our experiences. In these kinds of situations our previous experiences are driving the nature of our behaviours. On this fact we recognize the role of the character during this experiment: it is the knowledge of previous “data” that form the character. The critique of Bateson can be summarized in five different forms:

1. the presence of differences in subculture, sex, classes, occupational groups within a community,

2. the existence of heterogeny and confused cultural norms in melting pots communities,

3. traumatic experiences in getting in contact with different communities,

4. differentiation in the progress of parts of the community,

5. arbitrary nature of national boundaries.

An explanation to these objections can be seen in the following statements:

- an individual is a single organized entity: all its parts are mutually modifiable and in interaction with each other,

- a community is organized in the same way.

Our behavioral patterns are complementary and mutually related to the structure of our contexts.

It is impossible to imagine that within a community different groups of people could exist without an influential relevance between characteristics of both parts. An individual is organized as an entity in which bipolar patterns are forming its unity. An element is present in the unity of an individual together with its contrary, and this complementarity is a characteristics of a community as well.

“Our character is oriented to the motifs and pattern of relationship in the society in which we live”

In ascribing a common character to a member of a community we are therefore describing that “common” as a subject of relationship between the differentiations of the community. The heterogeneity that we can find in “melting-pot” communities is based on an infinitely complex structure of differentiations and common characters. There’s a tendency to solve such problem with a mere glorification of heterogeneity for its own sake or with the statement of finding the world a disconnected structure of quiz-bits.

When a part of a community changes or is lagging behind another sector of that community, we can say that the new patterns produced by this changement are still a reaction of the old ones. In case of a shift in national boundaries we cannot aspect an immediate modification of the character of the individuals of the new nation. It may happen at the beginning that the population in contact with the new one will react in a random way. They will find very hard to develop a strategy of adjustment to the new context. In the future, however, both parts will mature special patterns for new behavioral forms of contact with the other. In human communities we can indeed describe common characters in terms of relationship between groups and individuals in community, and that community will find an equilibrium or acceptance of heterogeneity and change as a characteristic of their environment.

“ (…) Describing the common character of individuals in a human community in terms of bipolar adjectives.”

Differences Which We May Expect Between National Groups

In talking about bipolarity regarding common character, we assume this differentiation as index of national character. Any characteristic of a nation cannot be consider separate to its opposite. In describing the “submissive” character of Germans, we should instead talk about a “dominant-submissive” aspect.

Alternative to Bipolarity

The use of bipolarity to handle differentiation in society is still a bit reductive because it takes in consideration only the possibility of simple bipolar differentiations. It is surely a common pattern for Western cultures, the dualistic and binary patterns of differentiations are characteristic of our society. This tendency to dual patterns should not, however, forbid us to use other kinds of patterns. Ternary systems are already existents in English communities, for example: “parents-nurse-child”, “king-minister-people”, and so on… These systems are still represented by a simple hierarchy of serial properties: A and C have to pass through B to communicate. Ternary patterns are although bipolar, or complementary, patterns.

Symmetrical Motifs

There are a lot of different human interpersonal behaviors that are not conforming to the descriptions above described. For examples we should consider symmetrical patterns between people that respond to the others by doing something similar from them. These patterns are competitive systems of behaviors that seems in others similarity or good examples of behaviors. Symmetrical motifs are really different to complementary dominance-submission systems, they are almost their opposite. Probably these two contrasting patterns are both presents in all human beings, but behaving these two ways at the same time can create internal confusion and conflict.