Mead,

Bateson, and Pierrot Lunaire: Various Complexities By Michael Hunecke

In our notations there is indeed something arbitrary, but this is not arbitrary, namely that if we have determined anything arbitrarily, then something else must be the case. (This results from the essence of notation.) Tractatus 3.342i Mead and Bateson both, in their individual language and viewpoint,

understand that notation alone does not describe the whole of the matter, but with effort and no small amount of social code-breaking, an impetus of notation may be realized that signifies a motion of sorts somewhere within the dualistic extremities of mean and end. In addressing the rather simplistic yet grandiose keynote statement modern civilization can be preserved only by a recognition of the supreme worth and moral responsibility of the individual human personii both writers respond with a call to arms for a greater complexity of approach combined with a radical retooling of intent. The goals of the conference are immediately placed in a forum that acknowledges the medium of collective language, with Mead calling for an evocative thinking that puts the very exchange of the participants at the forefront. Inherent in the definition of democracy is a stipulation that insures that its

success is relative to its capacity to accommodate complexity, because for every being that democracy serves there is carried with them facets to consider. Mead states that the most democratic procedure results from the orchestration of . . . ideas . . . rather than the simple merging or boiling down of themiii, and this is no easy proposal. It is pointed out that even what gets mistakenly called cultural relativity is liable to take the position that all moral practices are limited in time and place and therefore lack any validityiv to simplify the varying conditions a society develops amongst. Simplicity is a forced and synthetic ideal. Bateson points out (in 1941, just to keep in mind) that Experiments in simple learning are already difficult enough to control . . . with critical exactness, and experiments in duetero learning are likely to prove almost impossiblev. Here, the simplistic (rote learning in this case) is taken to be the coarsely grained point where understanding the

learning process simply begins, and this is appropriate in most cases where a general concept is necessary to then further grasp details: things may carry greater or lesser mass, or events may happen at different speeds. Where scales and speedometers may be employed to great accuracy, any sort of observable pattern of deutero learning is perhaps not elusive, but what exactly does one measure? The word fast does not represent a Lamborghini. The more an essence of something is defined by its simplistic ideal, the greater the distortion exists for it, for it is moving in the direction away from understanding. In both essays, governmental appropriation of science is cited as an example

of an area where the boiled down benefit of government interest is put above the value of the individual: in discussing the compulsory sterilization of the unfitvi Mead understands that the concepts of absolute right and wrong do not encompass the breadth of what is at stake for the individual or their society. Although our media, with its widespread accessibility, should in theory represent a greater variety of opinions on modern subjects the tendency toward adherence to an absolute right and wrong still holds sway in the mainstream. (It is also not hard to imagine substituting the poor for Meads feeble-minded in a contemporary dialogue, were a similar subject to re-emerge). Bateson inadvertently prophesizes by noticing that a discrepancy exists between social engineering, manipulating people to achieve a planned blueprint society and the ideals of democracyvii. Since 1941 the term social engineering has been disparaged to the point of invalidity, but manipulating people to achieve a planned blueprint society does not miss the mark by any standard of moral phraseology where Government practice is concerned. What I perceive to be at the fulcrum of this conflict is Batesons concept of instrumentality, but where in the text he places instrumental tendencies on the blueprinting side of the conflict, in terms of scientific usage in policy matters, there also exists an instrumentality at the heart of the democratic ideal in the form of language. For just as scientific data can be appropriated so can the soudbite. In the time between 1941 and now the margin between Batesons democratic and

instrumental motifs has slimmed considerably. But he remains correct in making the keen distinction between learning and using. Use is a concise word and a simple concept. However the relationship between how one uses what one knows, knows what one is using, and how one is used by what is known does become a lattice of possibilities .viii Holy crosses are the verses Whereon poets bleed in silence (Die Krueze, #14) Here let us interpret the couplet as sacred forms inhibit poetic/ democratic progression for the sake of context. In Arnold Schoenbergs Pierrot Lunaire, Op. 21 (1912) sparse instrumentationix is transformed into a complexity that remains a marvel over a century later. In the measures that precede the above text from #13, Enthauptung (meas. 23-36), two winds and two strings carry this passage that seems very straightforward rhythmically, as all the voices are within a close tonal range, and the overall phrases of the score look deceptively unison, pulsing steadily in a slow 6/4. With such slight and understated rhythmic coherence, the minute divergences are all the more pronounced. In meas. 28-29, the flute moves from a very metric up and down timing to a kind of burp of triplets that begin at the end of meas. 28 in the form of what feels like triplet rests, if that can be imagined. The absence of standard tonal resolution does not infer the absence of a tonal center. At this pace and relative lack of density, one can understand how each chord and every statement is both preceded and followed by events, and since there is always a center between two points, centrality is maintained. It then falls upon the listener to pay closer attention to individual events in relation to their neighbors. Do we, as humans, have the capacity to regard the works of history, and the

works of today, with a similar eye for nuance, and an intellectual acceptance of the difficult? Pierrot Lunaire has benefitted from an undying critical attention that

preserves its beauty and its humor, but also serves as a tool by which many who study cultures from various aspects will confront as a unique species of complexity. What would serve the same purpose outside of the arts to nurture a better-suited course? Mead and Bateson both propose a chart pointing in the direction of a

potentially more ideal democracy, with Bateson exploring the tramlines of apperceptionx and Mead insisting on the constellational significance of human research and the impetus of . . . direction as opposed to the blueprint model. Phrases such as these are both summaries of larger concepts and indicators of a self- consciousness of language integral to both authors approach. For tramlines and constellations have little to do with the subject but the images both conjure the over-arching and the universal, and societal learning does not move up or down or east or west, but by envisioning such ideas can encourage orientation. For Pierrot: A moonbeam is the rudder #20 Heimfahrt (Barcarole) In #20, the second to last of the 21 melodramasxi, orientation is provided by the pizzicato arpeggios and it sounds as if the strings are the bow of a ship slicing through the broken rhythms of the lower- register piano that laps up against its sides. The sprechstimme delivery here, as elsewhere, may feel alien initially, but when listened to as music conforming to speech instead of the converse, its expressiveness becomes almost organic. As text and the relative musicality of its being spoken are manipulated through strict composition, the natural and mechanical communicate a new set of messages. The sixteenth note arpeggio stays present on one instrument or another, and when it seems to disappear around meas. 13 it is vaguely picked up by the sprechstimme, and when it returns again around meas. 25 it seems to be joined rather than split by the piano phrase. A recurring device in this melodrama is how three or for of the instruments will be holding a rhythmically unison repetition while the other strikes large intervals: the flute in meas. 7, and piano in 15-16, which can be contrasted as a different form of

complexity to the section mentioned above, #14 where phrases are taken up and shared by instruments in the middle, or at any point within them. As Mead and Bateson both close their articles speaking of children, Mead of

moral impetus, and Bateson of advancing forward in time, it is hard to avoid the notion of the child-as-impetus, or the customary idea of a child bringing meaning to life or what one lives for. To this effect I understand what Mead calling moral impetus is actually societys child. Simplicity and complexity exist on a continuum for one who is coming into knowledge, growing up. It is only after amassing our reference points are we able to distinguish what is simple and what is complex more vividly and more authoritatively. What if societys child is able to grow up and not relinquish its connection to the vast continuum between having learned and learning?
i Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logico- Philosophicus. 1922 ii Mead, Margaret. The Comparative Study of Culture and the Purposive Cultivation

of Democratic Values. 1941 iii ibid. p.1 iv ibid. p.2 v Bateson, Gregory. Social Planning and the Concept of Deutero-Learning. Steps too an Ecology of Mind. University of Chicago. 1972. p 169 vi Mead ibid. p.2 vii Bateson ibid. p.160 viii ibid. p.172 ix Dunsby, Jonathan. Schoenberg: Pierrot Lunaire. Cambridge University Press. 1992. P. 23 x Bateson, ibid. p.170 xi Dunsby, ibid. p.2