On 2/5/07, Carl Remick <carlremick at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >From: Liza Featherstone <lfeather at panix.com>
>
>
> Here's my suggestion -- how about referring to non-Western countries as "R"
> -- as in Russell's Paradox, viz.: "Some sets, such as the set of all
> teacups, are not members of themselves. Other sets, such as the set of all
> non-teacups, are members of themselves. Call the set of all sets that are
> not members of themselves 'R.' If R is a member of itself, then by
> definition it must not be a member of itself. Similarly, if R is not a
> member of itself, then by definition it must be a member of itself."
> <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/russell-paradox/>
>
> That way you can label and *not* label these countries at the same time :)
>
> Carl
Carl's suggestion is insanely perfect on so many levels that I am appalled, amused, and irrationally jealous that I didn't come up with it myself.
The reason I think so is because Russell's Paradox inspired Gregory Bateson to develop "Double Bind 'theory'". (Later used by R. D. Laing, to illustrate family dynamics, that we now call "dysfunctional". But it would be better to call these kinds of interpersonal dynamics as those governed by insane troll logic ....)
In other words by defining the former "Third" World as an illustration of Russell's Paradox, Carl makes explicit, what has always been implicit, the "South" is in a situation of a classic double bind.
Wikipedia has a nice paraphrase of Bateson's idea of a situation of a Double Bind.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_bind
"1. The situation involves two or more persons, one of whom is designated, for the purposes of definition, as the "victim". The others are people who are in some way in a higher position to the victim, for example a figure of authority such as a parent whom the victim respects.
"2. Repeated experience. The double bind is a recurrent theme in the experience of the victim and as such cannot be constituted as a single traumatic experience.
"3. A _primary injunction_ is imposed upon the victim by the other person in one of two forms: (a) Do "X", or I will punish you. (b) Do not do "X", or I will punish you.
"4. The punishment is assumed to be either the withdrawing of love, the expression of hate and anger, or abandonment resulting from the authority figure's expression of extreme helplessness.
"5. A _secondary injunction_ is imposed upon the victim that conflicts with the first at a higher and more abstract level. For example, "Do what I told you but only do it because you want to." However, it is not necessary that this injunction be expressed verbally.
"6. If necessary, a tertiary injunction is imposed upon the victim to prevent them from escaping the dilemma.
"7. Finally, Bateson states that the complete list of the previous requirements may be unnecessary in the event that the victim is already viewing their world in double bind patterns. Bateson goes on to give the general characteristics of such a relationship:
"a. When the individual is involved in an intense relationship; that is, a relationship in which he feels it is vitally important that he discriminate accurately what sort of message is being communicated so that he may respond appropriately.
"b. And, the individual is caught in a situation in which the other person in the relationship is expressing two orders of message and one of these denies the other.
"c. And, the individual is unable to comment on the messages being expressed to correct his discrimination of what order of message to respond to, i.e., he cannot make a metacommunicative statement. "
This is all set out very clearly, and amusingly in Bateson's collection of essays, "Steps Towards an Ecology of Mind." Also, the inspiration of Russell's Paradox and its non-solution by way of logical typing is discussed. (Ravi, you might like to know that Bateson wrote the papers illustrating "Double Binds" while house philosopher-anthropologist at Bell Labs, working there at the same time as Claude Shannon. )
Change some of the terms, and delete the psycho-babble, substitute state relations and modes of domination for the interpersonal terms, and it seems, to me that Russell's Paradox as instantiated in a Double Bind is exactly the position most "Southern" countries are in when they confront the rules of GATT, and other injunctions of "free" trade capitalism and neo-liberalism.
Jerry