Chapter 10 Vicissitudes of Commitment Summary and Analysis

In chapter 10, Mary Catherine Bateson tackles another potential roadblock on the way to creative success, separation or division as a result of distrust or doubt. She starts with the statement that all five women in this project are idealistic. Then, she breaks down some of the hurdles each of them has gone through while still maintaining their idealism.

All five of the women have repeatedly salvaged the capacity for commitment in an imperfect system. After the period of disillusionment, they have learned to build a new kind of commitment that does not include dependency.

Mary describes a very difficult time when she was at Amherst. She uses a garden as a metaphor for what happened by saying that if you work all day on your garden, you may forget that your neighbor covets it. The...