Maybe ya’ll have been down the Bateson road before, but this was a 1st 4 me—The folksy, unquantitative style here is clumsy in part, perhaps, because the material is dated. No longer would most critical theorists be as ready to imply that blame for schizophrenia so directly falls upon mothers. No, Bateson does not equally point at fathers and psychotherapists, although he briefly visits their potential enabling behaviors. I would argue that the behaviors of power figures such as fathers—who wielded, at the time the article was written, an even greater imbalance of economic power than they do now in addition to their constant physical intimidation—probably did more to produce the mothers’ mixed signals than did any inherent evilness on the part of the mothers. My argument does not require rocket science, Bateson’s does. Physicians (the four behind the article were male) heal thyselves. Nor did Bateson subpoena power figures such as professors and priests who have perpetuated a society of mixed signals and unequal communication structures in order to perpetuate their versions of sanity. Present company excepted, of course, jes’ sayin’… This article is a good example of how not to use theory to argue your project. It doesn’t hold together and, if taken seriously, could produce terrible consequences. Perhaps the theory somewhat reflects Baudrillard’s later media gripes; but the application here is bad.