The family is changing not disappearing. We have to broaden our understanding of it, look for the new metaphors.
Mary Catherine BatesonThe past empowers the present, and the sweeping footsteps leading to this present mark the pathways to the future.
Mary Catherine BatesonInsight, I believe, refers to the depth of understanding that comes by setting experiences, yours and mine, familiar and exotic, new and old, side by side, learning by letting them speak to one another.
Mary Catherine BatesonRarely is it possible to study all of the instructions to a game before beginning to play, or to memorize the manual before turning on the computer. The excitement of improvisation lies not only in the risk of being involved but in the new ideas, as heady as the adrenaline of performance, that seems to come from nowhere.
Mary Catherine BatesonTraditionally in American society, men have been trained for both competition and teamwork through sports, while women have been reared to merge their welfare with that of the family, with fewer opportunities for either independence or other team identifications, and fewer challenges to direct competition. In effect, women have been circumscribed within that unit where the benefit of one is most easily believed to be the benefit of all.
Mary Catherine Bateson