Moreno on studying society.

THE MATERIAL ASPECT OF THE SOCIAL SITUATION

The dynamic logic of social relations is particularly intricate and has remained unconscious with Man because of his maximal proximity and involvement in his own situation. For millennia therefore, the activities of human society perhaps have been a greater mystery to him than every other part of the universe. Because of their greater distance from him he could see the movement of the stars and planets, or the life of the plants
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and animals, more objectively. Therefore, the science of human society is today hardly as far developed as physics and astronomy were in the minds of Democritus and Ptolemy. It takes enormous sacrifice and discipline to view and accept himself as he is as an individual man, the structure of the individual psyche, its psychodynamics; but the degree of invisibility of the structure of human society, of its sociodynamics, is much greater than that of the single individual. The effort of becoming objective toward the socius encounters many more obstacles than to be objective toward his own individual mind. The involvement of the ego he can still grasp, perhaps he can pretend to know it because it operates within him. The involvement of the socius, however, he cannot pretend to know as it operates outside of him; but it is an outside to which he is inescapably tied.

This is a quote from Moreno — SOCIOMETRY, EXPERIMENTAL METHOD AND THE SCIENCE OF SOCIETY AN APPROACH TO A NEW POLITICAL ORIENTATION
J.L. MORENO — Foreword by GARDNER MURPHY

The same paragraph appears in a different context in Who Shall Survive? P73.

Here are my thoughts about  this passage which I think has some important concepts and raises a question for another post:

    • “The dynamic logic of social relations is particularly intricate”

This might sound trite, but it shows how he is focused on the relationship, not the individual. Not like Freud, Jung and all those on that tree of thought, who were predominantly individualists, in theory and practice. And note the  words dynamic logic. Dynamic, moving changing, alive, and logic, something that makes sense, that can be grasped. Moreno wrote this in 1949 so this is written at the time of the upsurge of systems theory, cybernetics and the Macey conferences in New York. Maybe he was influenced by the zeitgeist of the time, or influenced it.

    • “…remained unconscious with Man because of his maximal proximity and involvement in his own situation.”

     

  • Unconscious. He uses the word unashamedly even though he is equally unashamedly anti Freud later in the same essay. The words maximal proximity are nice. McLuhan used the analogy of a fish not knowing what water is. It is because of the water’s maximal proximity to the fish. While so much is made of the bias of maximal proximity we see that for the study of humans Moreno turns this problem into the crucial advantage. Science is turned on its head, the group studies itself. Of course! Humans are explorers of space, of stuff outside of us, minimal proximity, so to study ourselves we have to make that inescapable maximal proximity a feature of the work.
    • “… the degree of invisibility of the structure of human society, of its sociodynamics, is much greater than that of the single individual. The effort of becoming objective toward the socius encounters many more obstacles…”

     

    The invisibility of the structure of human society is a phenomena.  Invisibility … we can see people, but not ‘systems’. someone famously said “you can’t kiss a system”.  Now the meditation on Moreno’s writing here gets interesting… note the title of the section:  The Material Aspect of the Social Situation.  So does the relationship, the network, have a material aspect?  What does that look like?  You can see two things but the relationship between them is a space.  The space between is a cherished notion in Imago Relationship Therapy.  I’m not sure how Moreno resolves these questions about the material aspect.  (I think I heard Timothy Morton talk sense on this. For another post.)

    The socius.   Another potent word.  He uses it as if there is a reality that exists. I think of his other wording: the sociometric matrix as being somewhat similar, if not the same.  The socius is similar and just as slippery as ‘the psyche’.

    •  “The involvement of the ego he can still grasp, perhaps he can pretend
             to know it because it operates within him.”

Note the word pretend. For Moreno it’s all roles. There really is no inner even though he uses that language here.

 

I’m looking forward to writing another post  on the whole section on the material aspect of relationship

 

“Origins of Encounter and Encounter Groups” by J.L. And Zerka Moreno

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I managed to get hold of a monograph, Origins of Encounter and Encounter groups. (Moreno & Moreno, 1970). It is a stimulating read. I have just created three separate posts.


Balancing openness with the integrity of the psychodrama method.

Moreno and social science
This monograph has a concise statement that I have not seen before.

Encounter
This is obviously the main theme of the monograph. Useful. Encounter is so central to Moreno’s opus, but it has not been developed well in practice. It was railroaded by the ‘encounter’ movement.

Moreno, J. L., & Moreno, Z. T. (1970). Origins of encounter and encounter groups (Psychodrama and group psychotherapy monographs, no. 45). Beacon House.

Moreno and social science

This is the second of three posts based on the monograph “Origins of Encounter and Encounter Groups” by J.L. And Zerka Moreno

I’ve read and written extensively on Moreno’s scientific methods. This is a concise statement from the Encounter Monograph I have not seen before.

Moreno’s Ideas of a Science of Human Relations

An adequate science of human relations did not exist before the advent of sociometry. *

“Comte’s Hierarchy of the Sciences, 1) mathematics, 2) astronomy, 3) physics, 4) chemistry, 5) biology, and 6) sociology, has become obsolete. His assumption that all sciences can be treated by the same basic methodology is an error. The social sciences need—at least in their crucial dimension—different methods of approach. The crux of the ontology of science is the status of the ‘research objects.’ Their status is not uniform in all sciences. There is a group of sciences like astronomy, physics, chemistry and biology in which the research objects are always mere ‘objects’. Their actions speak for themselves and the generalizations concluded from them are not threatened by any metaphysical protest or social revolution of their kind.

Then there is another group of sciences, the social sciences. It is because of a chronic inertia in their development that sociometry has raised the question: how are social sciences possible? It has found that the social sciences like psychology, sociology, and anthropology require that its objects be given ‘research status’ and a certain degree of scientific authority in order to raise their level from a pseudo objective discipline to a. science which operates on the highest level of its material dynamics. It accomplishes this aim by considering the research objects not only as objects but also as research actors, not only as objects of observation and manipulation but as co-scientists and co-producers in the experimental design they are going to set up.” Our two chief experimental designs are sociometry and psychodrama.

* J.L. Moreno, Who Shall Survive?, 1934 and 1953. p. 63-64.

(Moreno & Moreno, 1970)

Moreno, J. L., & Moreno, Z. T. (1970). Origins of Encounter and Encounter Groups (Psychodrama and group psychotherapy monographs, no. 45). Beacon House.

Why are psychological methods often known by the names their founders?

Freud, Moreno, Jung… methods are known by their founders.

This is because they are working in the realm of relationships. They are included in the science.

They are not working with things.

Marx is the same.

The objective thing they are working with is not objective in the way things are – at least things on the surface are objects.

In so far as we are part of such a modality we are part of a community around that person. We are part of a community of practice. A language community.

The Buddhists have lineage, so do psychologists but we don’t acknowledge that so easily.

It would be better to acknowledge our whakapapa in the psychological realms of our work in a more conscious way.

Later: Sunday, 7 January, 2018 

Love that idea of our psychological whakapapa.  Maybe there is a whakapapa of science too?

 

I think I’d like to research and rewrite the Moreno one.  I think it is not so much existential as relational .

Emergence

This is an important idea.  The whole idea of how change works in human affairs is a science that is developing fast and urgently needed.

Not out yet but on Amazon for pre-order.



The outline – very full – of the book on Emergence by Peggy Holman is on this site. 

Book Outline « Engaging Emergence: Turning Upheaval into Opportunity:

This book offers a theory and practice for working with upheaval and uncertainty. It connects what scientists are learning about emergent complexity with experiences change practitioners have from engaging organizations and communities in addressing their needs. This intersection could be called “applied emergence”.

Also by this Author: The Change Handbook.  Amazon)

Book: The Invisible Century: Einstein, Freud, and the Search for Hidden Universes by Richard Panek


Book: The Invisible Century: Einstein, Freud, and the Search for Hidden Universes by Richard Panek

I leafed through this book today. I like the theme, but I think the analogy of a story with two protagonists is taken a bit far. Still, looks like it could be fun. Might get it yet!

Some reviews follow.

Continue reading “Book: The Invisible Century: Einstein, Freud, and the Search for Hidden Universes by Richard Panek”

Bent Flyvbjerg – Phronetic social science

http://flyvbjerg.plan.aau.dk/Publications2006/ForesightNo2PRINT.pdf

http://flyvbjerg.plan.aau.dk/Publications2008/PhronOrgDict62Proof.pdf

Two pdfs by Bent Flyvbjerg. I almost bought his book on Social Sciences, but not really sure that it is on the track I want to pursue. I’ll read these two items and decide.

I want to shape a form of research that is practice based in psychotherapy. But this might be the opposite?

Phronesis is a complex idea.

Robert Anton Wilson – Korzybski prophet


Larger Image

The link journey continues and, as some may have known, we meet Robert Anton Wilson on the way. A Korzybski prophet it would seem. Not as mad as he might appear. General Semantics has psychology spouting in all directions. And of interest to me is the whole question of the relationship of physics and psyche ( my article The Future of Knowing in a pdf.

(PS the image is one I made from photos using software.)

Links to books follow.

Continue reading “Robert Anton Wilson – Korzybski prophet”

“emergence, through evolution, of a higher level of organization”

This Wikipedia entry links to my current wave of enthusiasm for the evolution of dialogue. We inherit forms that are hard to change. Finding a new way of sitting to talk is a big deal.

I thought about this in watching the movie 2012 (not that I really want to mention that movie or that year). In a UN meeting of heads of state some are in the room and some are on screens – it hardly matters. Technology has advanced, but the science of communication has not – the process is much the same as the old inherited voting system, combined with a bit of power-play.

Yet I think we can hasten and improve the means of generating creative intelligence. Process design. People are talking about it a lot!

Metasystem transition – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

A metasystem transition is the emergence, through evolution, of a higher level of organization or control. Prime examples are the origin of life, the transition from unicellular to multicellular organisms, and the emergence of symbolic thought. A metasystem is formed by the integration of a number of initially independent components, such as molecules, cells or individiduals, and the emergence of a system steering or controlling their interactions. As such, the collective of components becomes a new, goal-directed individual, capable of acting in a coordinated way. This metasystem is more complex, more intelligent, and more flexible in its actions than the initial component systems.