Sociometry and Moreno and NY Times mail

[Adam Blatner]

Hi gang,  Rebecca, thanks for starting this!  Sharing with you all...
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "James Sacks" <jmsacks at mindspring.com> to: "Adam Blatner" <adam at blatner.com> Sent: 
Wednesday, September 16, 2009 6:55 PM
Subject: Re: Sociometry and Moreno
 Well, Adam, I must admit that when I generated this idea, I did not feel very optimistic 
about anyone's  taking me up on this suggestion and less so that it would be you and still 
less that there would a response. And that in would point to so many directions. I imagine 
you will try to contact  Christakis & Fowler "several other network scientists (such as 
Duncan Watts)"  with whom he "talked" so it was conversation not just reading which came 
afterwards.

 Let's see what's next. I think we should share this with Rebecca who noticed this in the 
Times. I read it every day but I I missed it completely.

I also think that the whole  correspondence should  be put on Grouptalk, if for no other 
reason than to prevent other volunteers, thinking they are the only ones,  pestering Mr. 
Thompson.

 I also wondered how this could have happened so fast. Did you have his email address or 
what. (AB: use of search engine, follow-up)
  Within  hours of my placing the suggestion on Grouptalk you contacted him, he answered 
and you wrote this long back. Jim
ab: Dear Mr. Thompson, thanks! I'll share your response with Dr. Sacks and some other 
psychodramatists who care about these tools and ideas getting out there.
Moreno was first of all a kind of philosopher---before becoming a physician. Even a bit of 
a mystic. Like Nikolia Berdyayev, Alfred North Whitehead, Henri Bergson and others, he was 
impressed with the dynamic of creativity being a cosmic category, perhaps even an 
essential component of an adequate theology for our time. Of course, these guys were, 
like, a century ahead of their time!
    The point I'm getting at is that your writing and efforts in general fit with a 
somewhat grandiose myth... and you can take this as poetry, though it fits with some 
mystic visions, etc.:  So what if this billions-of-galaxies made of atoms and sub-atomic 
particles that are inconceivably small on one hand, within distances that are 
inconceivably large on the other hand, operating in spans of time that are similarly 
extremely and inconceivably large and small, and with degrees of force ditto...-- 
   what if we are not mere insignificant specks, but... here is where it relates to you... 
That this whole shebang is in a sense alive, suffused with a mind-field that encompasses 
the whole range of effects  And that our role in the middle is to network this whole, to 
function, as an analogy, as nerve cells in the brain of an embryo or young child who is 
growing towards awakening or moving towards the capacity for self-reflective 
consciousness...         And as we network, we help this God-Becoming become just a bit 
more, more integrated, more awake...
   as--using another analogy---as the different parts of your brain get re-coordinated as 
you move from sleep into awakeness---
    And we are honored to be part of this glorous almost infinitely-faceted creative 
Becoming...

  Well, the point is that networking is a way humanity is becoming self-conscious, aware 
that perhaps we might want to take a bit more
responsibility for our collective evolution. And if we become meta-cognitive---i.e., 
thinking about the fact we think, about what we think, and then up another level to 
thinking about the way we think, how we might fool ourselves, how we can become even 
sharper, more effective, less caught up in illusion... and we think about communications, 
systems, illusions, semantics, clarifications, and the impact of new tools, new 
potentialities, how they can be used for trivialities, toys, learning, sharing, 
socializing, addictions, distractions, good and evil, etc.
   then, well, Wow!

So thanks for helping give all this a boost!   Of course, all of the above is a myth, but 
perhaps a useful one for our time, to help heal the sense of anomie and alienation that is 
so pervasive---or on the other hand, to loosen up tendencies towards exclusivism, 
dogmatism, literalism, and arrogance that is also pervasive...    Let me know if you'd 
like any feedback on some of your essays. Warmly, Adam Blatner www.blatner.com/adam/
---
 From: "Clive Thompson" <clive at clivethompson.net>To: "Adam Blatner" <adam at blatner.com> 
Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 2009 2:13 PM>Subject: Re: Sociometry and Moreno     Hi 
Adam --
Good to hear from you! As to how I heard about Moreno -- when I talked to Christakis and 
Fowler and several other network scientists (such as Duncan Watts) about the history of 
research into social effects, his name was mentioned, so I did some reading up on his 
contributions. Once I knew who he was, I found quite a lot of information about him, 
including many academic works searchable and readable via Google Books (a tool that is 
becoming a real boon to academic research, I might add ...)
Hope this helps!

Adam Blatner wrote: Dear Mr. Thompson, it was good to see that you recognized the 
influence and pioneering work of Dr. Jacob L. Moreno (1889-1974), whose main fame has been 
the invention in the 1930s of the method of therapeutic role playing called psychodrama. 
(I've written a lot about this approach and also about Moreno.) You are right that he was 
also a pioneer of sociology, social psychology, the emergence of role theory, and many 
other seminal ideas.    My friend Jim Sacks---one of the second generation of pioneers of 
psychodrama and sociometry---asked me to find out, speaking of tracing networks, how you 
found out about Moreno, as he has become not that well-known in both psychiatric and 
sociological circles in the last 30 years. Did you see the name in a book---and if so, 
which book? Did you know somebody who knew somebody who knew somebody who went to a 
psychodrama demonstration once? Jim asked further:  How may links are involved? Will the 
research reach a dead end because the subjects will be reluctant to name their contacts? 
If this happens the person being asked  might agree to
contact their source and ask for it's alright to give their name for his little research 
project. It might be done in person, by phone, by postal mail or by email. Whoever does 
this, if anyone does, ought to have a copy of the article and an affiliation or other 
identification so it is clear that they are not some crank.   I suspect that Mr. Thompson 
might be willing to cooperate because of the positive tone to this kind of research in his 
article.
     Jim said further: It is obvious that this is not real sociometry but it be a way to 
gain some attention if the results are interesting. Then we can see what real sociometry 
might reveal.      I would add that on my website  www.blatner.com/adam/papers.html 
there are various papers about sociometry, role theory, psychodrama, and the like, in 
addition to other papers on psychology and philosophy and other subjects.
    The key dynamic is the recognition that rapport  (what Moreno called "tele"), feelings 
of wanting to connect in some way, is important, it is (in my opinion) an overlooked part 
of depth psychology, and also group dynamics, both small group and large group--large 
social networks.      Thanks for thinking and writing about this important topic. If I can 
help as resource, let me know. Sincerely, Adam Blatner, M.D.