In one scene from the recent BBC Sherlock Holmes series, featuring Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock and Martin Freeman as Dr. Watson, Watson enters Sherlock’s home and finds him standing upside down. Watson asks Sherlock what he is doing and why he is in that position. Sherlock replies, saying something like, “I’m examining the problem from a different perspective.”
Introduction
Recently, during an interview for the YouTube channel Destinazione Libertà, Marco Guzzi posed an interesting question that invites careful reflection, both on an individual and collective level. He asked, “why are we unable to stimulate a nonviolent revolutionary movement that aligns with the times we are living in, although we have every reason to do so?” (Guzzi and Destinazione Libertà, 2024). Why indeed? The ongoing wars, both new and old, along with the series of crises currently affecting society—such as economic, political, social, and health crises—clearly indicate that a change in direction is both necessary and urgent.
However, by surveying and examining the diverse range of protests and social movements over the years, it becomes evident that, admittedly, none of them has succeeded in bringing about significant change. My focus here is on how individuals relate to one another, as I believe this is one of the key aspects on which society is built, develops, and presents itself in the outside world. For example, consider the #MeToo Movement, which began in the US and, more broadly, in the Anglophone world before spreading globally. On one hand, it started with the purpose of drawing attention to what can be defined as a distortion of the relationships between men and women. On the other hand, it ended up becoming another tool that further intensified these distortions, leading to important and rather negative implications.
Another example is the so-called ‘Decolonisation project’ concerning university programmes, which also started in the US and the Anglophone world before, once again, spreading basically everywhere. Here as well, the initial intention was to make room for intellectuals and academics who had generally been overlooked or, rather, confined to their own countries or regions of origin, especially those from the so-called ‘Global South’. This too turned out to be another way to increase and further exacerbate relational distortions between those defined as ‘ethnic minorities’ and, more generally, between the non-Western peoples and the Western peoples (primarily white).
Therefore, all in all, we have yet to see a shift in thought or logic that could be applied to our daily lives and influence how individuals and groups interact with one another. The only change we observe regularly is the attempt to reverse roles within the existing power dynamics between those who hold power and those who do not. In other words, the reality is that, so far, various protest movements have not proposed an alternative logic to the prevailing power logic or the us-vs-them mentality. Instead, each movement positions itself as the rightful holder of power, claiming superiority over other groups and those currently in power, demanding precise obedience from others because they consider themselves ‘the best’, ‘the righteous’. Thus, Guzzi’s question arises naturally: why can’t we propose something truly new and, therefore, non-violent?
In this article, I intend to offer a reflection, trying to shed more light on why we seem unable to propose anything truly new, non-violent, and therefore, positive. For this purpose, I will start from the very brief paragraph I included before this introduction, which describes an episode from the recent BBC TV series featuring Sherlock Holmes. I will then link this episode to some points taken from Gestalt psychology, which is, of course, much more complex than how I present it here.
Interpretive Frameworks
As reported at the beginning, when Dr Watson finds Sherlock upside down, he understandably asks why he is standing in that position. Most of us would likely have the same reaction if we encountered someone standing upside down when coming back home or going to work. It would strike us as strange, or even weird. But why? Different psychological schools suggest that our behaviour depends on what has been called ‘cognitive schema’ or ‘cognitive beliefs’, which we mainly reference unconsciously (e.g., Welch Larson, 1994). In short, our minds receive too many stimuli from the external environment to process all at once. Thus, our cognitive processes, which attribute meanings to each and every entity that surrounds us, select some of these stimuli as essential for making sense of our environment and what happens around us (e.g., Sclavi, 2003). In this way, they create interpretative frameworks through which we can understand and navigate our surroundings, as well as make decisions (Sclavi, 2003). Gestalt psychology pays particular attention to how the process that creates these interpretive frameworks is formed.
As the word itself suggests (in German, Gestalt means shape), Gestalt psychology explains that our cognitive processes distinguish between elements that are key to understanding our surrounding environment, and others that are secondary and can therefore be left in the background. Once external stimuli are sorted in this way, the elements are organised into a schema – a shape – to which a specific meaning is assigned (e.g., Henle, 1979; Sclavi, 2003, pp. 23–28). Moreover, in this interpretive framework all the elements as well are given a specific meaning, according to which they relate one another. To better understand this part of Gestalt reasoning, I believe it is useful to consider Theodore Roy Sarbin, a psychologist and professor, who is best known for being a pioneer of what has been defined as narrative psychology.
Sarbin (1986) explains that in order to understand our surroundings, we human beings create narratives, or plots, which help us attribute meaning to the entities and events around us. Therefore, we might say that organising external stimuli into frameworks, schema, or shapes – whichever term we prefer – is nothing other than the creation of a narrative, in which each element has a specific meaning or role. Furthermore, depending on the meaning attributed to each element, the interpretive framework will inform us of the relationships that exist, or may exist, between all the elements it includes, and will consequently suggest how we should behave in a particular situation. However, as Marianella Sclavi (2003) aptly points out, any single interpretive framework will provide a limited range of behavioural suggestions. This has at least two implications.
Firstly, anything that falls outside of the interpretive framework of reference is perceived as strange, impossible, weird, and abnormal (Sclavi, 2003, pp. 26–27). This very point recalls the first part of the dialogue between Dr. Watson and Sherlock Holmes. When Dr. Watson asks what he is doing and why he is standing upside down, we can infer that from Dr. Watson’s perspective, that position is unusual. To put it in another way, standing upside down is not a behaviour that Dr. Watson considers possible within his own interpretive framework.
The second implication is that, if we are unaware that our interpretive framework is just one among many – only one way of making sense among many others – we may end up believing that the behavioural options suggested by our interpretive framework of reference are the only possibilities. This leads us to the second part of this very brief dialogue between Dr Watson and Sherlock Holmes.
Sherlock replies that he is viewing the problem from a different perspective. In other words, we could say that Sherlock is de-constructing his own interpretive framework and creating a new one. As Sclavi (2003) notes, if for instance, we consider certain external stimuli that were previously deemed secondary as key, while considering those initially seen as key as secondary, we will see a new interpretive framework developing with a different meaning. The new framework will then suggest different relational dynamics among its elements – each of which will be now assigned a different meaning – and different behavioural options (see also Sclavi, 2008).
Sclavi (2003) further emphasizes that there are times in life when we must think outside the box, stepping beyond our interpretive frameworks and looking at things from an entirely different perspective, as the one we normally use is not helpful. Sclavi refers to these cases as Type 2 changes. The circumstances requiring an interpretive framework change are often those that appear to have no way out or solutions. Therefore, returning to the dialogue between Dr Watson and Sherlock, when the detective finds himself at a dead end in one of his investigations, he tries to reconsider the situation by reshuffling the elements and examining them through a new interpretive framework, acting in a way that ‘normally’- that is, according to his own usual way of seeing things – would be regarded as ‘weird’.
A matter of perspectives
To conclude, going back to the initial question, one reason we have not managed to stimulate a non-violent revolutionary movement that resonates with the current times is that we have not yet managed to break free from our usual interpretive frameworks. I previously mentioned power dynamics, which are always put forward, and the only difference between these dynamics lies exclusively in who wields power. Therefore, to borrow from Sclavi’s terminology, what is effectively being proposed at present is a Type 1 change, which maintains the same interpretive framework, rather than a Type 2 change, which involves a shift in the interpretive framework.
This also helps us understand why it seems so difficult to move away from the destructive us-vs-them mentality. In observing the ongoing armed conflicts around us, it often seems that enmity is the only possible relational dynamic among actors who view each other as enemies. In the best-case scenario, this kind of relationship may lead to some level of tolerance, or at the very least, to the actors coexisting without direct confrontation. In the worst-case scenario, when the situation escalates beyond a given threshold, enmity leads to the very outbreak of physical violence. This violence may result in one party submitting to the other or, with the annihilation of one of the parties involved (e.g., Sclavi, 2003, pp. 25–28).
However, if the goal is to avoid destructive situations – something we often hear – and to bring about something really new, we must choose a path that does not lead us to self-destruction, both as individuals and as a society. Thus, in short, if we really aim to change the current course we are on, I believe that de-constructing our usual interpretive frameworks and trying to see people and things around us from a completely different point of view (maybe by standing upside down, precisely like Sherlock!) is a viable approach. After all, various psychoanalytical and psychotherapeutic techniques include physically moving from one place to another within a given space. This helps to change one’s way of examining a given issue and facilitates its resolution. Therefore, fostering a non-violent revolutionary movement also depends on how we manage to change our understanding of the surrounding environment, striving to perceive all living and non-living beings differently and to relate them and us to one another in ways that are outside our usual patterns of thought.
Bibliography
Guzzi, M. and Destinazione libertà (2024) ‘L’oligarchia brama la Terza Guerra Mondiale: solo la Pace ci salverà’. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_ILbLd0bFU (Accessed: 25 September 2024).
Henle, M. (1979) ‘Phenomenology in Gestalt psychology’, Journal of Phenomenological Psychology, 10(1), pp. 1–17.
Sarbin, T.R. (1986) Narrative Psychology: The Storied Nature of Human Conduct. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger.
Sclavi, M. (2003) Arte di ascoltare e mondi possibili. Come si esce dalle cornici di cui siamo parte. Milan: Bruno Mondadori (Sintesi).
Sclavi, M. (2008) ‘In Theory. The Role of Play and Humor in Creative Conflict Management’, Negotiation Journal, 24(2), pp. 157–180.Welch Larson, D. (1994) ‘The Role of Belief Systems and Schemas in Foreign Policy Decision-Making’, Political Psychology, 15(1), pp. 17–33.