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Most higher education is devoted to affirming the traditions and origins of an existing elite and transmitting them to new members.

Mary Catherine Bateson

Fluidity and discontinuity are central to the reality in which we live.
MARY CATHERINE BATESON

Continue Fluid Live Reality
Most higher education is devoted to affirming the traditions and origins of an existing elite and transmitting them to new members.
MARY CATHERINE BATESON

Affirmation Education Existing Member Tradition
Solutions to problems often depend upon how they’re defined.
MARY CATHERINE BATESON

Definition Problem Solution
Improvisation can be either a last resort or an established way of evoking creativity.
MARY CATHERINE BATESON

Creativity Establishment Improvisation Way
The family is changing not disappearing. We have to broaden our understanding of it, look for the new metaphors.
MARY CATHERINE BATESON

Change Family Metaphor Understand
The Christian tradition was passed on to me as a great rich mixture, a bouillabaisse of human imagination and wonder brewed from the richness of individual lives.
MARY CATHERINE BATESON

Greatness Imagination Live Tradition
A disgruntled reflection on my own life as a sort of desperate improvisation in which I was constantly trying to make something coherent from conflicting elements to fit rapidly changing settings.
MARY CATHERINE BATESON

Conflict Desperate Element Improvisation Reflection
Sharing is sometimes more demanding than giving.
MARY CATHERINE BATESON

Demand Give Share
Often continuity is visible only in retrospect.
MARY CATHERINE BATESON

Philosophy Retrospect Visible
Human beings do not eat nutrients, they eat food.
MARY CATHERINE BATESON

Eat Food Human
Goals too clearly defined can become blinkers.
MARY CATHERINE BATESON

Blink Definition Goal
Improvisation and new learning are not private processes; they are shared with others at every age. We are called to join in a dance whose steps must be learned along the way, so it is important to attend and respond. Even in uncertainty, we are responsible for our steps.
MARY CATHERINE BATESON

Dance Important Improvisation Join Learning Ourselves Responsible Step
As you get up in the morning, as you make decisions, as you spend money, make friends, make commitments, you are creating a piece of art called your life.
MARY CATHERINE BATESON

Commitment Decision Life Morning People Pieces Yourself
Every loss recapitulates earlier losses, but every affirmation of identity echoes earlier moments of clarity.
MARY CATHERINE BATESON

Clarity Early Loss Moments
As we age we have not only to readdress earlier developmental crises but also somehow to find the way to three affirmations that may seem to conflict. … We have to affirm our own life. We have to affirm our own death. And we have to affirm love, both given and received.
MARY CATHERINE BATESON

Address Affirmation Conflict Development Early Finding Ourselves
Of any stopping place in life, it is good to ask whether it will be a good place from which to go on as well as a good place to remain.
MARY CATHERINE BATESON

Goodness Life Place Remain Willing