Patterns of Human Behavior 1 85 



Gregory Bateson (Palo Alto, California): I think there are 

 two questions combined here. One concerns the case where com- 

 munication is going along "smoothly," as I called it earlier. Is a 

 knowledge of the rules necessary? Obviously it is not. The rules 

 are provided; they are built in, and that is all we ask. To be able 

 to cough them up and inspect them is not necessary. So far I 

 think we are in agreement; however, behind this is the question 

 of "rules about rules" and "rules about rules about rules." I think 

 we always walk around wishing to be in the state of "things going 

 along smoothly," and wishing, therefore, not to turn over all this 

 disturbing stuff, i.e., unwilling to raise questions about the rules. We 

 may be forced to do this when things go wrong. We want some 

 of the rules to be steady. We hope we can operate on the common 

 assumptions of the culture which we share, and we hope to try 

 to get mutual understanding at that level. If we cannot, we may 

 be pushed into reexamining blemishes of the culture, but this will 

 be painful and always at an upper level which we do not want 

 to disturb. 



Yasuhiko Taketomo (New York, New York): In the com- 

 ments on expectation in relationships, were you referring to 

 something like role-taking in psychiatric communication? 



Bateson: I was doing so in a terribly loose context. I think the 

 evidence is going to come from such work as that of Birdwhistell, 

 studying expressive movement and expressive posture. This is not 

 a study of those movements which are quasi-linguistic, such as 

 thumbing a ride, but the study of those much less conscious and 

 much less voluntary elements in our movements. I think it is 

 going to appear that, while we talk with words, mathematical 

 equations, and other highly sophisticated devices, we are, in fact, 

 either leaning forward on the rostrum or scratching in our pockets 

 looking for a cigarette or some other object. All these movements 

 can be interpreted and handled, and are going to be interpreted 

 and handled, at this third level as sequence markers or signals 

 about the relationship. But when I lean forward or draw back 

 from you, these movements indicate to you whether I want you 

 to come forward and shoot me with questions or whether you 

 should beware of my defenses, and so on. I think the implementa- 

 tion is going to come from this area and from the field of micro- 



