4.1.2 Human Response To Symmetry

Now that I have described symmetry let us consider our response to it.

Symmetry is attractive to us cognitively and (more relevant to this website), emotionally.

Sometimes we are drawn to something, or some process, or indeed a relationship, in an emotional way without fully understanding why at a cognitive level. 

For example many people are annoyed by a picture hanging crookedly on a wall.  Why is this?  And long term relationships, where one partner has a lot of power and another has little, (i.e. that are asymmetric) will inevitably be problematic.

It is probably easier to see why a relationship where one person has very little power is problematic – it is a basic human need to have a felt sense of our own power, we have mentioned this a number of times (and will mention it again) – but why the crooked picture irritates is harder to figure out.

I believe that the reason why symmetry appeals to us is because we tend towards symmetry.  For example, we are (approximately) symmetric about a vertical axis (eyes, ears, limbs, etc.), as is evident from Leonardo’s picture above.

For people who live, as we say, to a ripe old age, the passage of life is symmetric.  We go from having no existence, to being born, (dependent) growing up, maturing, reaching a peak of health, fitness and performance, then beginning to decay and then finally reaching old age (often dependent again) then dying, and ceasing to exist again.  (At my age I know all about this)! If this doesn’t happen, that is, if someone dies young, and unexpectedly, it causes far more distress than the death of the person who lives to the ripe old age.

The day is symmetric about midday (and midnight) and the year is symmetric about mid-summer’s day and mid-winter’s day. If we take time to observe the natural world, we will note that it is symmetrical. 

Here’s an interesting one! Stones, large and small, that we find on a beach, are smoothed to either flattish spheres or flattish oval shapes.  They are almost all roughly symmetrical.  I wager that when they broke off from whatever cliff or rock, aeons ago, they were asymmetric random shapes, but isn’t it amazing that through exposure to wind, rain and sea many of them became symmetrical.

From a grain of sand to the Milky Way Galaxy, we can observe symmetry at all levels of our Universe.

We construct our environment (i.e. buildings, transport, dress, etc.) symmetrically not only because it pleases us aesthetically, but also because it is physically, and practically, the best way to construct (and protect) it.

And our sense of symmetry in respect of our physicality (balance) is also evident in how we find it easier to carry two heavy bags than one heavy bag. And did you ever try and walk with one shoe on and one shoe off? And why do we wear matching socks – surely it wouldn’t matter a jot in respect of our comfort, safety, well-being, work performance etc. if we went out in the morning wearing different socks.

Symmetry is also evident in our songs and stories, myths and legends.  A good song or story will contain a contrast that the listener or reader is attracted to.

As a fan of pop music in my youth I remember a song by The Byrds entitled Turn-Turn-Turn which (I later discovered) was a cover of a song written by Pete Seeger in the 1950’s and which (I later again discovered) was a quotation from the Bible (Ecclesiastes 3:1.  They are probably the most symmetrical lyrics that you will ever hear!

Sometimes, curiously, if we are down, we feel better if we hear a sad song.  I believe that this is a symmetric response by us because we perceive the singer of the song to be empathising with us in our feeling down.

When we talk with, or to, pre-verbal children we often use unintelligible sounds like they use because we instinctively know that connection is enhanced by making those sounds; the same as they make. And then when they learn to talk we use simple words and phrases. Interestingly, it is when we are cross or giving out that we use a different tone of voice (and language) – asymmetry.

Most good stories will contain a goodie and a baddie which seem to act as figures onto which the reader can project parts of his/her own personality.  (See the Exercise on Projection below).  This, as we stated in the Chapter in Section One on Important Descriptions, i.e. The Media, also makes things exciting.

Fairness and equality are very important elements in the human experience and there is a symmetrical dimension to acting in a fair manner.

In a kind of global example of the asymmetric relationship I referred to already where one person has no power in a partnership, many of the deepest problems that beset society emanate from injustice, or asymmetry, that is, the reality that one person (or group of people) is getting far more and/or is far more powerful than another.

(Colonialism is an example of asymmetry in power relationships – many wars, terrorism etc. have origins in injustice that arises from asymmetric behaviour).

It is only right that we look at a particular aspect of symmetry in this website – that is, the contrast between doing good and doing evil. These can be considered to be two opposite poles in respect of our human behaviour.

A disturbing aspect of symmetry that I have observed is that, in the history of the world, great civilisations seem to develop a capacity for organised systematic cruelty.  Looking at it from this viewpoint – and this is a little gloomy – it appears that the principal benefit to humanity from becoming civilised is not that it makes us better people, but that it increases our capacity to do things properly.

There is symmetry here. In many societies, do-things-properly-creativity-good is often matched by do-things-properly-destruction-evil.

This could be building a prestigious university which fosters great minds and nurtures their creativity to produce original ideas that lead to advances in philosophy, literature, art, science and engineering and/or building ostentatious palaces with the intention of keeping ordinary people in their place, and/or exploiting a less industrially developed country’s resources to amass the wealth to build that palace or university in the first place – having the ability to impress with a superior attitude and then using divide and conquer skills, all of which results from being highly organised anyway.

But the element of civilisation – and once again, this might seem a bit gloomy – that fosters respect for others, morality, compassion, relationship etc., while being thought of as being important, always seems to have far less influence when it comes to our general behaviour.

The Roman Empire (considered to be a great civilisation) promoted the notion of salus populi suprema lex esta (the welfare of the people shall be the supreme law). However, in almost all Empires that I have knowledge of anyway, adherence to this lofty goal seems to be mere lip-service. The more civilised we become in fostering advances in philosophy, literature, medicine, science etc., the more we seem to be capable of being cruel, destructive and harmful to those that we can dominate.

The reasons for this – in society – may be rooted in the prevalence of narcissism arising from trauma which I described already.

And I’m not saying that all the above is inevitable, it is just an interesting (and troubling) feature of symmetry, and encourages us to think about how it is so influential.

And finally, we note from the Sub-Chapter on Interesting Parallels in Section Two that our disgust at one group of people who kill in one context (no state sanction) is almost symmetrically matched by our approval and reverential attitude to others who kill under different circumstances (state sanctioned).

Our attitudes are polar opposites which depend on the perspective they are viewed from.

Now I’d like to discuss an interesting aspect of symmetry with respect to human behaviour – that of mimicking.

I remember, many years ago, on an old black-and-white TV, watching a man named Desmond Morris on the Late Late Show.  He was being interviewed about his books The Naked Ape and People Watching. Even though I was quite young at the time I found him to be a fascinating and entertaining scientist (he is actually a zoologist) as he pointed out how we, unconsciously, mimic each other’s behaviour. 

Since then, neuroscience [1] (the scientific study of the brain along with the body’s nervous system) has discovered the existence of mirror neurons.  An understanding of mirror neurons offers a chemical explanation of how we can read another person’s mind, how we empathise, feel the distress of someone close to us, or, indeed, how we determine whether someone is laughing with us or laughing at us.

Research shows that mirror neurons fire (that is, send a signal to make a specific and appropriate connection in the brain or body through the nervous system) both when someone actually does something and when someone watches another person doing the same thing.  The neural mirroring is the mechanism by which our behaviour and emotions (and even our intentions) can be identified even when we try to hide them with words.

Our intuition informs us that we can do this, and it is interesting that science is now proving what has been intuitively known since the dawn of time.  Well, in Asia anyway; much of Eastern philosophical thought is based on the interconnectedness and interdependence of people – something that the Western World seems to be re-learning in more recent times – please see the post on yin and yang!

(I will return to the subject of rediscovery of ancient wisdom in a later Chapter).

Of course, it is also scientific proof of Morris’ observations, he was obviously right – we do mimic – all the time.

Symmetry in human behaviour led me to think about how, in families affected by addiction, children take on defined roles, e.g. hero, clown, scapegoat etc.   (We came across this in the Chapter on Systems Theory).

I have observed that the more debilitated the family is from addiction the stronger and more pronounced the role is.  (For example, very irresponsible – the so-called black sheep – may be mirrored by very responsible – the hero – or very funny – the clown – might be mirrored by very serious – the carer.

And considering compassion, in human encounters in general, in order to offer compassion we have be able to receive compassion ourselves.  Compassion is quite an intimate thing – and the impact of compassion is higher in an atmosphere of trust.

And when supporting very hurt people, while compassion is almost always appreciated immediately, it might take a little while for it to impact fully.

[1]. Further reading on neuroscience is widely available for anyone interested.  A good, readable, book is The Developing Mind; How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are by Dan Siegel. Another interesting book on its applications for working with children is The Science of Parenting by Margot Sutherland.  The above are just two of many.

If you have ever done yoga, or gone for acupuncture, or read anything about Chinese medicine or healing, you will have noticed a similarity between the discussion on symmetry in the previous posts and the Chinese philosophy of life (and the natural world, and human behaviour in general) as expressed in yin and yang. This philosophy forms the basis for understanding of the benefits to humanity of complementarity.

That is, rather than seeing different forces or elements of life as being in opposition, it is more helpful to view them as complementing each other – and that each element has value in itself.  (I gave a small taster of this in the Chapter on Cause, Effect and Nurture, when I highlighted the benefit/value of darkness).

Yin and yang proposes that everything in the natural world is interconnected, interrelated and interdependent (i.e. Systems Theory as I described it in Section Three).  Yin and yang is manifest in symmetry as I referred to above, e.g. day-night, winter-summer, north-south, male-female, fire-water, bigger-smaller and order-disorder (which I will be referring to again in the Chapter on Energy – Sub-Chapter on Entropy). 

Relevant to this website, in respect of healing and medicine, Yin and Yang implies balance in the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual spheres.

This symmetry is not only valued in healing but is desirable for healthy living in general.  Because an entity cannot exist without its opposite, yin and yang also implies the kind of thinking that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, which we have also come across before.

Below is the perfectly symmetrical yin-yang symbol – which, when I look at it for a few moments, has a kind of a hypnotic effect on me.

As I stated already, symmetry is all around us.  It is part of the natural world – and isn’t it all very interesting?

But what, you may well ask, has it to do with protection of children?

A very practical aspect of the application of symmetry in family support work and/or child protection would be a sense of appreciation that someone in distress (including, or indeed in particular a child) might have that a support worker is mirroring some element of their struggle to find a solution – a bit like the effect of listening to the sad song that I mentioned above – or the parent in the example I gave of the child with the cut knee.

We discussed attachment at length already.  I believe that if I am a child, and I am in distress and I feel cared for, and I feel that the person helping me acknowledges that I have something to contribute to my own healing and well-being, the attachment to my care-giver leans towards the secure.

We learn from a young age to intuit what another feels, and feeling cared for unconditionally will speed up the process of healing and enhance its quality. The symmetry is in the relationship.

Looking at it from that perspective, generally speaking, I don’t really see a lot of symmetry in child protection practice in Ireland. That is, I don’t perceive the Pillars reaching out to families in distress and inviting them to be involved – in a genuine way – in their own healing. (My observations on how much the Pillars care are in this post).

In fact I have often wondered at the vast amounts of energy wasted because of the asymmetry – manifest in one way knowledge flow – that abounds, and is built into the paradigm of helping. (Not to mention the cost).

With a symmetric response, a wide array of highly complex messages can be conveyed – very powerfully – with a small number of words, or even with no words.  The reason for this; is, of course, unlike Data in Star-Trek [1], we have an ability to both describe and interpret emotional signals so not everything is literal. (We also know this from studies that have proven the existence of mirror neurons – examples of symmetry in our non-verbal communication).

Just to recap, an asymmetric response in a healing process would be to take the position of expert and dispense knowledge, advice, or maybe medication, in a detached professional manner with little or no empathy for what the other’s needs are.

Now there is an undeniable asymmetry between children who need help or support, and many practitioners who help them. For example, it may exist between teachers and children, doctors/nurses and children who are patients, therapists and children, even youth club leaders and those in the club etc. etc.

Of course, giving advice or coming up with a solution for someone, or giving medication, is appropriate if that is what is asked for directly or needed at that time. Or, indeed, in the case of a child, if he needs a particular boundary to be imposed. This is the one-way knowledge flow that we described already.

So it is important to remember that it is in the relationship that symmetry exists, not really in who knows what or what is done or what is to be done.  (This will be evident once again in the post on energy transfer following).

For example a nurse or doctor may give very direct advice, but still have what we call a good bedside manner that ensures that there is an element of symmetry in the relationship.  The same goes for a teacher. Of course, from time to time symmetry is not possible – and it is appropriate that the person in the position of helper takes over completely; (for example in an emergency – or in a disciplinary situation).

This dip into asymmetry should, however, be the exception rather than the norm.

[1]. Data (pronounced Day-Ta) was a very clever android in Star Trek, a Science Fiction TV Series. He had a very highly developed brain, in respect of cognition, and took everything literally; but could not intuit what people were saying or feeling. This gave rise to many funny little sketches where people misunderstood each other on the spaceship during their various voyages!