In an article about Gregory Bateson entitled Communication is Sacred, Nora Bateson discusses the concept of “schismogenesis.” She describes it as a technique for exaggerating and omitting information to distort communication, the effect of which is to destroy trust and relationships. Gregory Bateson used it in the WWII fight against fascism, but as Nora points out, it is a technique very much in use today. She writes:
“The word schismogensis means creation of breaking; as a communication pattern, it creates a generator function of communication that breaks communication. The confusion creates confusion, leads people to the next wrong question, and froths up distractions. Where an ecological system generates relationships that make more relationship, schismogenesis escalates relationships that break relationships. Today, divisive communication is eroding relationships and potential relationships everywhere.”
“For Gregory,” she later says, “deliberately messing up communication between people is and was a violence that reaches beyond the bounds of war. It is a violence to the sacred act of communication itself.”
This kind of deliberate and wholly cynical miscommunication is the defining characteristic of modern politics and Internet life, and in Nora’s view, its destructive power cannot be understated: “So why does it matter? It matters because interrupting, tweaking, lying, exaggerating, silencing, omitting—these little acts become huge fissures in our relationships. This practice dehumanizes, devitalizes, and shreds our deep connections to each other. The delicacy of life on this planet is hanging in the balance.”
She suggests that we start thinking of communication as being something sacred, and that information itself should be thought of as alive. She wants to further think in terms of “warm data,” which she defines as “is information about the interrelationships that connect elements of a complex system.”
What would a society that did hold this principle look like?