A Wattsian Perspective on Life’s Ultimate Riddle: Paradoxes, Double-Binds, and Their Resolution

2021 ◽  
pp. 002216782110328
Author(s):  
Brian L. Wheeler
Keyword(s):  
Time Perception ◽  
Conceptual Structure ◽  
Science And Religion ◽  
Double Bind ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
Double Binds

Inquiring into the role that paradox and double-binds play within the work of Alan W. Watts, this essay addresses a quintessential theme in Watts’ philosophy: a twofold sense of ontological estrangement (i.e., from oneself and from the cosmos). Such paradoxical separation constitutes an ontological double-bind and is referred to herein as life’s ultimate riddle. Based on an exegesis of 73 of Watts’ books, articles, and secondary sources, this essay presents what is called Wattsian double-bind theory, which extends David Smith’s (2010) triadic thesis of Watts’ mature works featuring a three-fold conceptual structure: the field, the double-bind, and play. Following an overview of Wattsian ontology, this essay then aims to (a) identify Watts’ double-bind framework informed by paradox, koans, double-binds, and their resolution via acceptance; (b) clarify the similarities and vast differences between Wattsian and classical Batesonian double-bind theories; and (c) reveal the interconnected elegance of the former, as it occurs in the themes of language, time, perception, identity, science, and religion.

Effects and Implications of the Experimental Double Bind

1981 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 895-900 ◽  
Author(s):  
David M. Dush ◽  
Marvin Brodsky
Keyword(s):  
Factorial Design ◽  
Empirical Support ◽  
Double Bind ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Etiological Factors ◽  
Subsequent Research ◽  
Double Binds ◽  
Etiological Role ◽  
Experimental Analogue ◽  
Digit Recall

Patterns of paradoxical communication with certain punitive features have been termed double binds (Bateson, Jackson, Haley, & Weakland, 1956) and viewed as etiological factors in the etiology of schizophrenia. Empirical support to date of the proposed etiological role has been weak. The present study replicated an experimental analogue of the double bind which produced increased anxiety in normals (Smith, 1976). A battery of dependent measures was chosen for their potential in discriminating between normals and schizophrenics. The features of the double bind were arranged in a factorial design. 100 male and female undergraduates participated. Significant effects were found for digit recall which implicate exposure to the full array of double-bind features in producing patterns of recall similar to those observed in schizophrenics. Issues for subsequent research were discussed.

Articulating Double Binds

2019 ◽  
Vol 118 (3) ◽  
pp. 573-594
Author(s):  
Lisa Diedrich
Keyword(s):  
Disability Studies ◽  
Double Bind ◽  
Early Model ◽  
Critical Race ◽  
Methodological Innovation ◽  
Critical Disability Studies ◽  
Legal Studies ◽  
Double Binds ◽  
The Law

I return to Patricia J. Williams’s essay “On Being the Object of Property” (1988) and her work more generally to explore how she imagines justice alchemically through the articulation of a rhetoricity of rights and of vulnerability. Put another way, I read Williams’s work as providing an early model for doing critical race and legal studies with critical disability studies. Although Williams does not use the term disability in her early work, I argue that her preoccupation with thinking vulnerability and rights together indicates an attempt to account for forms of disablement, including racism, in and across the spaces and performances of the law, academia, and medicine. I explore the condition of being rhetorically disabled in different institutional situations and show how certain practices—of relation, pedagogy, and care— can interfere with this condition, creating passageways between rights and needs, reason and unreason, and race and disability. I draw on both the content and formal and methodological innovation of Williams’s work on race and rights in order to explore the conjunctures and disjunctures—or what I call a structural and structuring double bind—between a rhetoricity of rights and a rhetoricity of vulnerability. I argue that the double bind as disorientation device helps us to generate transcultural analysis and create new forms of relation, pedagogy, and care.

Voices of Aspiring Teachers of Color: Unraveling the Double Bind in Teacher Education

2016 ◽  
Vol 52 (8) ◽  
pp. 927-956 ◽  
Author(s):  
Conra D. Gist
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Teacher Candidates ◽  
Teaching And Learning ◽  
Double Bind ◽  
Teacher Education Programs ◽  
Teachers Of Color ◽  
Education Programs ◽  
Double Binds ◽  
Group Data ◽  
Focus Group Data

This article centers and investigates the voices of teacher candidates of color to examine how double binds influence their teaching and learning experiences in teacher education programs. Interview and focus group data from teacher candidates of color at two teacher education programs are analyzed to unpack the types of personal and systemic ties they experience as well as the strategies they utilize to escape them. Implications for eliminating the double bind in teacher education programs through the tailoring of transformative and critical preparation experiences for teacher candidates of color are explored.

scholarly journals Sovereignty and Democracy: Overcoming Supranational Mutual Double-Binds from the Eurozone

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-35
Author(s):  
Francesco Pigozzo
Keyword(s):  
Sovereign Debt ◽  
World Order ◽  
Double Bind ◽  
Security Threats ◽  
Double Binds ◽  
Trace Back ◽  
The World ◽  
European Crisis ◽  
Us Hegemony ◽  
The Eu

Abstract EU and EMU are facing a hastened phase of structural rather than episodic crisis, following the progressive shift of the world order from a bipolar toward a multi-polar system. From the sovereign debt trap to migratory pressures and security threats, all European crisis are intimately interdependent and long awaited rather than unexpected, since their origins trace back to a lack of reactivity of the European unification process to the progressive weakening of US hegemony in the world from 1971 onward. In this paper I point out that two double-binds mutually prevent a full (and widespread) understanding of Europe’s situation and avoid for this reason a fully structural approach to the institutional reforming process in the EU: a ‘sovereignty double-bind’ and a ‘democracy double-bind’. An effective roadmap toward political unification should primarily aim at tackling these misrepresentations instead of embracing them in the form of a gradualist approach to legitimacy issues.

scholarly journals Elias, ultra-realism and double-binds: Violence in the streets and the state

2020 ◽  
pp. 147737082097788
Author(s):  
Matt Clement ◽  
Stephen Mennell
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Violent Crime ◽  
The State ◽  
Double Bind ◽  
Formation Processes ◽  
Moral Panics ◽  
Double Binds ◽  
Sociology Of Deviance ◽  
Per Se ◽  
Post War

‘Ultra-realism’ has become an influential current in criminology, especially in the study of violence and explanations of trends in violent crime. Ultra-realist writers frequently make use of Norbert Elias’s theory of civilizing processes, while also often expressing reservations about his ideas. In this article, we argue that ultra-realists tend to make only partial and inaccurate use of Elias’s very extensive writings. Although he himself did not write very much about crime – and indeed was less concerned with violence per se than with the roots of aggressive impulses and their control – we place him in the context of the post-war sociology of deviance. We argue in particular that it is far from true that he was blind to political economy, since the state-formation processes are central to his theory. We relate our argument to double-bind processes, violent subcultures, moral panics, populism and recent political developments in Britain.

Induced Christian Neurosis: An Examination of Pragmatic Paradoxes and the Christian Faith

1982 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric J. Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Prolonged Exposure ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Double Bind ◽  
Double Binds ◽  
Final Consideration

Perceived theological imperatives, which are paradoxical in nature, can result in a classic double-bind situation which place a Christian believer in a position where no “correct” or “obedient” response is possible. Such double-binds entrap Christians in a way that they can neither take action, not take action, nor comment upon the dilemma of the entrapment itself. A prolonged exposure to such double-binds can result in a neurotic symptomatology that is directly induced by the double-bind situation. The author develops a theoretical framework for understanding “induced Christian neurosis” through an examination of experimental neuroses, paradoxes, pragmatic paradoxes, and double-binds. Final consideration is given to the resolution of the double-bind predicament.

Crazy, stupid, disobedience: The dark side of paradoxical leadership

Leadership ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 174271502110406
Author(s):  
Christian Julmi
Keyword(s):  
Dark Side ◽  
Double Bind ◽  
Double Binds ◽  
The Individual

In organizations, paradoxes are not only an expression of growing dynamism and complexity. Leaders can also generate them intentionally by means of double-bind rhetoric in order to exercise power. In double-bind situations, followers are trapped in a paradox: they have no possibility of doing what is right, but can always be made responsible by their leaders for wrong decisions. To create awareness of this dark side of paradoxical leadership, the article builds and elaborates a theoretical typology of double binds in organizations and discusses it in terms of the introduced concept of paratoxical leadership. The article further explains how paratoxical leadership leads to dysfunctional outcomes for the individual and the organization and discusses ways to successfully prevent and resolve instances of paratoxical leadership. In this way, the article shows how leadership power, or more precisely, the abuse of leadership power, in organizations can be explained from a paradox perspective.

Double binds, dissociation, and attachment to the perpetrator in families and oppressive groups

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-98
Author(s):  
Ruth A. Blizard
Keyword(s):  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Similar Process ◽  
Double Bind ◽  
Malcolm X ◽  
Nation Of Islam ◽  
Unethical Behaviour ◽  
Double Binds ◽  
Competing Demands ◽  
Political Groups

Dependence on a traumatising, narcissistic leader creates double binds for members of oppressive religious and political groups much as it does for the children of a traumatising caregiver. These double binds result in disorganised attachment to the perpetrator. In order to survive, the dependent person must focus, with exquisite attention, on every word, action, thought, and desire of the narcissist. In the process, the dependent often loses all sense of self and agency. To cope with the competing demands of this double bind, two dissociated self-states are developed: 1) a subservient, idealising state to maintain attachment, and 2) a self-protective state that preserves power by identifying with the aggressor. A similar process may take place when members of oppressive groups become dependent on a traumatising leader. Members are kept in a state of fear, continuously activating their attachment systems, which motivates them to stay close and look to the leader for protection. They may be induced to accept the leader's unethical behaviour blindly and doubt their own perceptions of reality. Examples of attachment to the abuser in families and in two cult-like groups, the Nation of Islam, led by Malcolm X, and the Naropa Institute under Chögyam Trungpa, are discussed.

scholarly journals A double-bind? Taking new materialisms elsewhere in studies of education and childhood

2018 ◽  
Vol 101 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Kraftl
Keyword(s):  
Potential Role ◽  
Double Bind ◽  
Double Binds ◽  
New Materialisms ◽  
Nonhuman Agency

This article outlines and critically reflects upon four tensions – framed as “double-binds’ – in new materialist scholarship on childhood and education. Firstly, I tackle arguments about data and the role of the researcher in studies of education, which I reframe as a question of intentionality. Secondly, I critically consider debates about the agency and voice of nonhuman matter and a problematic Anthropomorphism that is (rather ambiguously) often entrained therein. Thirdly, I explore what advances in (and critiques of) new materialist approaches mean for a range of pressing global debates affecting children and especially education. Finally, I examine the potential role that interdisciplinarity might play in taking new materialisms elsewhere than debates about researcher/nonhuman agency/intentionality.

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