Kicking the Cat!

Interview made by Stewart Brand to Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead - originally published in the CoEvolutionary Quarterly, June 1976, Issue no. 10, pp. 32-44.
This is only a fragment, the rest of the interview can be found at - For God's Sake Margaret! -

Bateson: ...Well, it [the camera] should be off the tripod.

Mead: So you run around.

B: Yes.

M: And therefore you've introduced a variation into it that is unnecessary.

B: I therefore got the information out that I thought was relevant at the time.

M: That's right. And therefore what do you see later?

B: If you put the damn thing on a tripod, you don't get any relevance.

M: No, you get what happened.

B: It isn't what happened.

M: I don't want people leaping around thinking that a profile at this moment would be beautiful.

B: I wouldn't want beautiful.

M: Well, what's the leaping around for?

B: To get what's happening.

M: What you think is happening.

B: If Stewart reached behind his back to scratch himself, I would like to be over there at that moment.

M: If you were over there at that moment you wouldn't see him kicking the cat under the table. So that just doesn't hold as an argument.

B: Of the things that happen the camera is only going to record one percent anyway.

M: That's right.