In his tribute to Sid Caesar and the Jewish comedic writers of mid-20th Century America, Michael Auslin (2014) describes this creative mayhem:
“The mischief inside the Writers’ Room was legendary. Desks were set on fire, screaming matches were common, and discarded paper full of pitches littered the floors, while the gravel-voiced comic Selma Diamond typed at a frenetic speed. Nor did the craziness end outside the office: The writers were constitutionally incapable of acting normally, making jokes to and about passersby on the streets or threatening each other after so many hours cooped up together. The very young Mel Brooks was a particular source of madness, often arriving hours late to work and making dramatic entrances such as pretending to slide into home plate while yelling “Safe!” Caesar sat imperiously at his desk while the writers clamored for his attention. A joke he didn’t like would get shot down out of the sky as Caesar imitated a B-17 turret gunner. All this was later memorialized in Reiner’s The Dick Van Dyke Show, the movie My Favorite Year, and a play by Neil Simon.”
Differences of opinion prevailed alongside madness. The outcome was the production of cutting- edge television shows that revolutionized (and greatly improved) the quality of comedic writing during the formative years of television. I suspect that Kurt Lewin would like to talk not just with Abraham Lincoln but also Sid Caesar (and his band of mad writers).
Self-Organization
There is a third, closely related lesson to be taught my Abraham Lincoln. It concerns the remarkable process called “self-organization” (Prigogine and Stengers,1984) , – a process that I mentioned in a previous essay in this series (Bergquist, 2023b). One must loosen the reins of control in any group that is seeking to solve a complex issue or coordinate a complex task (such as conducting a war). When hierarchy is rigidly enforced and power resides at the top of a pyramid of control, then the outcome of any deliberation is likely to be constrained, self-reinforcing and of low collective intelligence. We can leap over to an insight offered by Carol Gilligan—who suggested that patriarchies have prevailed in restricting viewpoints about moral reasoning and ways of knowing (including her own) (Gilligan, 2023).
Abraham Lincoln had a way of allowing the dialogue among cabinet members to remain uncontrolled for lengthy periods of time. To the consternation of some cabinet members, he often restrained from making a decision (or even offering his own opinion) until all viewpoints were shared and animated dialogue occurred. Somehow, he continued to have faith in the wisdom to be found in unleased conversations (including the unleashing of emotions that are often “Irrational”).
Along with the meeting with Kurt Lewin, Abraham Lincoln might have enjoyed meeting with Iyra Prigogine or might have welcomed an invitation to the Santa Fe Institute—so that there might be a collective exploration of the self-organizing knowledge that emerged from Lincoln’s cabinet meetings. Lincoln and these thought leaders of chaos and complexity would have agreed on a third lesson to take from these meetings: control and creativity do not co-exist. In sustaining and protecting an open expression of differing perspectives and opinions about different practices, the leader of a group is likely to find that valid and useful ideas emerge (often in unexpected ways) from this unrestricted forum.
Challenge and Support
Throughout the analysis in four essays of sustained relationship midst differences, two fundamental themes have been repeatedly identified. First, Challenges abound whenever any relationship is sustained by two people who disagree with one another regarding specific perspectives and practices. Second, Support must be offered by both members of the relationship for one another and for the beliefs that each hold (despite disagreements regarding these beliefs). The greater the challenge, the greater must be the support. This is quite a bit to ask of anyone: not only must we allow another person to give voice to the viewpoint(s) with which we disagree, but we must also provide them with encouragement and even a helping hand in articulating their viewpoint.
