Bateson on "Pride and Symmetry"

I've been thinking a lot about symmetry recently, and in recommending a student read Bateson's paper on Alcoholics Anonymous ("The cybernetics of self"), I noticed a sub-heading which struck me with more force than it did when I last looked at the paper: "Pride and Symmetry". Bateson was interested in symmetrical relations - particularly social symmetrical relations. This is where his notion of symmetrical and complementary schizmogenesis comes from, and he uses this idea to explain the double-bind that the alcoholic is in:

The so-called pride of the alcoholic always presumes a real or fictitious “other” and its complete contextual definition therefore demands that we characterize the real or imagined relationship to this “other.” 

A first step in this task is to classify the relationship as either “symmetrical” or “complementary” (Bateson, 1936). To do this is not entirely simple when the “other” is a creation of the unconscious, but we shall see that the indications for such a classification are clear. 

An explanatory digression is, however, necessary. The primary criterion is simple: If, in a binary relationship, the behaviors of A and B are regarded (by A and B) as similar and are linked so that more of the given behavior by A stimulates more of it in B, and vice versa, then the relationship is “symmetrical” in regard to these behaviors. If, conversely, the behaviors of A and B are dissimilar but mutually fit together (as, for example, spectatorship fits exhibitionism), and the behaviors are linked so that more of A’s behavior stimulates more of B’s fitting behavior, then the relationship is “complementary” in regard to these behaviors. 

Common examples of simple symmetrical relationship are: armaments races, keeping up with the Joneses, athletic emulation, boxing matches, and the like. Common examples of complementary relationship are: dominance-submission, sadism-masochism, nurturance-dependency, spectatorship-exhibitionism, and the like. More complex considerations arise when higher logical typing is present. For example: A and B may compete in gift-giving, thus superposing a larger symmetrical frame upon primarily complementary behaviors. Or, conversely, a therapist might engage in competition with a patient in some sort of play therapy, placing a complementary nurturant frame around the primarily symmetrical transactions of the game. 

Various sorts of “double binds” are generated when A and B perceive the premises of their relationship in different terms-A may regard B’s behavior as competitive when B thought he was helping A. And so on. With these complexities we are not here concerned, because the imaginary “other” or counterpart in the “pride” of the alcoholic does not, I believe, play the complex games which are characteristic of the “voices” of schizophrenics. Both complementary and symmetrical relationships are liable to progressive changes of the sort which I have called schismogenesis (Bateson, 1936).
Symmetrical struggles and armaments races may, in the current phrase, “escalate”; and the normal pattern of succoring-dependency between parent and child may become monstrous. These potentially pathological developments are due to undamped or uncorrected positive feedback in the system, and may-as statedoccur in either complementary or symmetrical systems. However, in mixed systems schismogenesis is necessarily reduced. The armaments race between two nations will be slowed down by acceptance of complementary themes such as dominance, dependency, admiration, and so forth, between them. It will be speeded up by the repudiation of these themes. This antithetical relationship between complementary and symmetrical themes is, no doubt, due to the fact that each is the logical opposite of the other. 

In a merely symmetrical armaments race, nation A is motivated to greater efforts by its estimate of the greater strength of B. When it estimates that B is weaker, nation A will relax its efforts. But the exact opposite will happen if A’s structuring of the relationship is complementary. Observing that B is weaker than they, A will go ahead with hopes of conquest (cf. Bateson, 1946, and Richardson, 1935). 

This antithesis between complementary and symmetrical patterns may be more than simply logical. Notably, in psychoanalytic theory (cf. Erikson, 1937), the patterns which are called “libidinal” and which are modalities of the erogenous zones are all complementary. Intrusion, inclusion, exclusion, reception, retention, and the like-all of these are classed as “libidinal.” Whereas rivalry, competition, and the like fall under the rubric of “ego” and “defense.”