Solving for Pattern: Pattern

In the previous post, Solving for Pattern: An Analysis, I introduced my current concern, which is to take a deep dive into the concept of Solving for Pattern. There I mentioned that although Wendell Berry's essay is a great introduction to the concept, his essay is just that – an introduction. My intention is to dig deeper into the substance of the concept, first in this three-part series, and then in a subsequent series which looks at Solving for Pattern through the lens of Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT). In this first series, I will be reflecting on what I believe are the three core constructs that constitute Solving for Pattern: Solving, Pattern, Context. The previous post was devoted to Solving, the current post is devoted to Pattern, the next post will be devoted to Context.

Pattern

Berry begins his essay by discussing three types of solutions, two of which are bad, and one of which is good. He describes what he means by pattern when he introduces the third kind of solution, the good kind:

Perhaps it is not until health is set down as the aim that we come in sight of the third kind of solution: that which causes a ramifying series of solutions – as when meat animals are fed on the farm where the feed is raised, and where the feed is raised to be fed to the animals that are on the farm. Even so rudimentary a description implies a concern for pattern, for quality, which necessarily complicates the concern for production. The farmer has put plants and animals into a relationship of mutual dependence, and must perforce be concerned for balance or symmetry, a reciprocating connection in the pattern of the farm that is biological, not industrial, and that involves solutions to problems of fertility, soil husbandry, economics, sanitation - the whole complex of problems whose proper solutions add up to health: the health of the soil, of plants and animals, of farm and farmer, of farm family and farm community, all involved in the same internested, interlocking pattern – or pattern of patterns.

A bad solution is bad, then, because it acts destructively upon the larger patterns in which it is contained. It acts destructively upon those patterns, most likely, because it is formed in ignorance or disregard of them. A bad solution solves for a single purpose or goal, such as increased production. And it is typical of such solutions that they achieve stupendous increases in production at exorbitant biological and social costs.

This description implies that pattern – as understood and used by Wendell Berry — is closely linked to other concepts, such as health, complexity, relationship, balance, and organic. Although Berry's main concern is farming – and farming communities – we have found that Berry's concept of pattern can be applied to other domains, including those of interest to the TBRI® community. In order to flesh out and illustrate Berry's concept of pattern, I will share three perspectives, based on the work of Gregory Bateson, Urie Bronfenbrenner, and Richard Schwartz.

Gregory Bateson

I have already presented some aspects of Gregory Bateson's ideas in the first post of this series, Solving for Pattern: An Analysis, which focuses on cybernetic feedback loops and levels of learning (or change). However, Bateson was also interested in the patterns created by these feedback loops, especially as components of complex systems. Bateson frequently referred to these feedback loops as circuits; in our work at the KPICD, we sometimes refer to them as cycles. (For those of you familiar with TBRI®, the Attachment Cycle is a good example of a cybernetic feedback loop, or circuit.) An important feature of Bateson's thinking is his belief that circuits permeate all of nature, characterizing relationships between organs, organisms, and whole ecologies (these ideas are explained most forcefully and most completely in his book Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity (Hampton Press, 1979). The first paragraph in the quote (above) from Solving for Pattern illustrates this Batesonian thesis quite nicely: A farm represents a complex ecology of circuits, that includes the farmer's mind, the farmer's actions, the cattle, the crops, the soil, and the community. What Berry means when he uses the term pattern, is the pattern of circuits that constitute the ecology of the farm. If those circuits are balanced, reciprocal, and nurturing, then it will be a healthy ecology.

Urie Bronfenbrenner

Later in his essay, Wendell Berry presents fourteen characteristics of good solutions; number 13 reads as follows:

It is the nature of any organic pattern to be contained within a larger one. And so a good solution in one pattern preserves the integrity of the pattern that contains it. A good agricultural solution, for example, would not pollute or erode a watershed. What is good for the water is good for the ground, what is good for the ground is good for the plants, what is good for the plants is good for animals, what is good for animals is good for people, what is good for people is good for the air, what is good for the air is good for the water. And vice versa.

For me, this resonates with Urie Bronfenbrenner's Bioecological Model of Human Development, which may be familiar to most readers of this blog. Bronfenbrenner, who understood the profound impact of cultural context on human development, also understood that the impact of culture was instantiated through all of the social systems that impact the developing child. He saw these systems through a hierarchical lens, along the following lines:

• Microsystems: those systems within which the child is an active participant;
• Mesosystem: the set of all Microsystems;
• Exosystem: all those Microsystems that impact the child, but where the child is not an active participant;
• Macrosystem: Characteristics of the culture that permeates all of these Microsystems;
• Chronosystem: Patterns of transition and transformation that generate new developmental experiences and challenges.

Another passage from Wendell Berry's Solving for Pattern is relevant here:

A good solution is good because it is in harmony with those larger patterns – and this harmony will, I think, be found to have a nature of analogy. A bad solution acts within the larger pattern the way a disease or addiction acts within the body. A good solution acts within the larger pattern the way a healthy organ acts within the body. But it must at once be understood that a healthy organ does not – as the mechanistic or industrial mind would like to say – “give” health to the body, is not exploited for the body’s health, but is a part of its health. The health of organ and organism is the same, just as the health of organism and ecosystem is the same. And these structures of organ, organism, and ecosystem – as John Todd has so ably understood – belong to a series of analogical integrities that begins with the organelle and ends with the biosphere.

Richard Schwartz

We could summarize what has been said so far, in regards to pattern, by suggesting that Bateson's insights pertain to the microstructure of patterns (i.e., reciprocal circuits that connect), whereas Bronfenbrenner's insights pertain to the macrostructure of patterns (i.e., nested and interlocking systems of circuits). However, aside from Berry's examples regarding farming, and the example given above of the Attachment Cycle (see Figure), this discussion of patterns has been fairly abstract. In my view, attachment theory and research can provide us with a useful example that is a little more substantive. There are a number of ways that we could use Attachment Theory as an empirical source of dyadic patterns (e.g., patterns of strange situation behavior or still-face behavior), but in this blog post I will focus on Richard Schwartz and his work on Internal Family Systems. In particular, I would like to focus on what he and his IFS colleagues refer to as The 8 C's of SELF (see Figure).

From the standpoint of what I am trying to achieve in this blog post, the most important thing to realize about the 8 C's is that each suggests a certain pattern of interacting with self, with others, and/or with current circumstances. (It would be a useful exercise for you to imagine various interactions that illustrate each of the 8 C's.). And, from the standpoint of what I am trying to achieve is this series of posts on Solving for Pattern, the most important thing to realize is that the 8 C's represent a pattern of human health and wellbeing that is analogous to Wendell Berry's description of a healthy (organic) farm. Further, these healthy patterns are goal states for the whole Solving for Pattern effort – remember that Solving, as a cybernetic process, is the trial-and-error process by which we discover and create healthy Patterns. And this, after all, is what our work is all about: Solving for healthy patterns in the children, families, and communities that we serve.

I have enabled comments, starting with this blog post. I am not sure how it will work, but I strongly encourage everyone to share comments, for I would love to see what you think. I would also like to have a chance to respond to any questions that you might have. Cheers