Why Gregory Bateson Matters

The first thing you learn about the double bind is that the evidence is always indirect. Participants won’t (or can’t) admit its influence. But to the outsider, the signs are clear. The main symptom of the double bind is a persistent and structural insistence on saying things that every disinterested party can see are simply untrue.
Even more disturbing is how easily we’ve gotten used to all this. In our dealings with the world, we have simply come to accept that there’s an unbridgeable chasm between what we are told and what’s really going down. Even when dealing with someone who tells it straight, we look for the deception—and not because the other person is a habitual liar. Rather, folks are just doing their job, and creating that chasm between truth and reality is part of the job description.