The Institute of General Semantics - 75 Years and Still Standing

     For several days in March, 1938, Alfred Korzybski lectured the medical staff at Peoria State Hospital, Peoria, Illinois. His presentation there marked the end of his career as an independent, itinerant teacher (which had ramped up ever since the publication five years earlier of Science and Sanity). By the time of his Peoria lectures, Korzybski and a few of his closest students had already begun the process of setting up the Institute of General Semantics (IGS) in Chicago, which the state of Illinois incorporated in May 1938 as a non-profit institution for "Linguistic Epistemologic Scientific Research and Education". Remarkably today, seventy-five years later, the Institute still exists. It has never been easy. 

Until his death on March 1, 1950—Korzybski would carry on his work at the Institute (which moved to Lakeville, Connecticut in 1946). Korzybski: A Biography provides a detailed account of IGS history during those first 12 turbulent  years. Accounts of the Institute's subsequent years can be found in various now-somewhat-hard-to-find articles by Charlotte Schuchardt Read and others. I've provided some recent updates of the last somewhat tumultuous decade (See my 2011 presentation at the IGS Annual Conference in New York City and my January 2013 blogpost The State of Organized GS-2013: A Blunt Assessment, which both focus on recent organizational difficulties.) However, as Korzybski: A Biography clearly documents, from its beginnings the IGS  struggled with difficulties of various kinds, some of which threatened its survival—even with Korzybski at the helm. Difficulties, sometimes severe, continued after Korzybski's death. (In my years, starting in 1979, of serious involvement in IGS educational, management, and publication activities I was one of a number of people who had to deal with many of these problems). But somehow the Institute survived it all. And despite recent problems and organizational downsizing, it still does. 

Will the Institute of General Semantics survive as a viable organization carrying on Korzybski's legacy for another 75 years? I don't know. I do feel confident that if it is to do so, those people who run the organization now, its Board of Trustees, will need to do a lot more than they already have done to renew their understanding of Korzybski's work and of the aims and history of the organization they are responsible for. And they will need to renew their commitment to carrying on the legacy that Korzybski and others left us. Not just words but actions are needed. Complacency and indifference have a way of sneaking up on even the best of us. And the creeping organizational amnesia (which I've alluded to elsewhere and which may have started long before any of its present members sat on the Board of Trustees) will have to be reversed. Without a deep and thorough knowledge of the discipline of GS, including the history and traditions of the Institute,—which I presently see lacking in the organization—it will be impossible to adequately build upon what's been done already. That's what conscious time-binding requires. In order to learn, it's necessary to realize that you don't already know something. Those who don't know can then get help if they seek it, because there are still a few people around who know quite a bit—hint, hint.

In the meantime, I send the Institute of General Semantics my best wishes—Happy 75th Anniversary and Many More!

Book Review of The Posturality of the Person: A Guide to Postural Education and Therapy by Ron Dennis

Posture, as Ron Dennis defines it, “comprises the flow through space and time of all activity of bodily support and movement in the course of living.” A study of posture in this dynamic sense leads not only to a descriptive understanding of the state of any person’s posture, but also to prescriptive guidelines for assessing the “posturality of the person”, the term Dennis has coined for the quality of postural use and the title of this important book. Dennis, a veteran teacher—and teacher of teachers—of the Alexander Technique of postural education, received the 2012 Certificate of Merit from the American Society for the Alexander Technique. His incisive yet brief book (112 pages) is worth multiple readings—but not just for students and teachers of the Alexander Technique. Although the influence from his study and teaching of the Alexander Technique is certainly not negligible, this book is not specifically about that well-known approach to 'posture' and 'movement'. Rather in the notion of posturality, Dennis connects and extends the core concerns of Alexander Technique teachers to those of physical therapists, physicians, chiropractors, personal trainers, psychotherapists, as well as contemporary movement scientists and other students of human physiology and behavior, including students of Korzybski's general semantics (GS)—but more on that connection shortly.

After his opening "Introduction" which outlines the aim and content of the book, Dennis' Chapter 2—"Conceptual Foundations"—provides a list of "22 foundational statements" on "the physiological and developmental issues relevant to the approach of posturality being advocated." The remainder of the book does not thoroughly cover all of these premises, which would require a much larger book or even multiple encyclopedic volumes. Instead, Dennis focuses his remaining chapters on statements 19 through 22, which deal with the notion of "lengthening", the process of arriving at an "optimal structural dimension" of the skeleton, especially the spine, for the least amount of unnecessary strain in movement and support. Subsequent chapters on lengthening include: "Length and Lengthening"; "Why Lengthen?"; "Good Grief, How Do I Lengthen?"; "Dynamic Posturality ~ Moving with Length"; "Breath as Postural Process"' and "Where Do We Go from Here", which surveys various manipulative, exercise, and awareness-based approaches to musculoskeletal health, seen through the lens of posturality. The final chapter 9, "Bibliographic Essay", provides valuable recommendations for further reading, including Science and Sanity and my wife's and my book Drive Yourself Sane: Using the Uncommon Sense of General Semantics. Three appendices follow including a case report by Julie Orta, who describes how—through her work with Dennis—she resolved her personal problems with chronic debilitating neck and shoulder pain; and two articles written by Dennis: "Poise and the Art of Lengthening", and "Muscles and Mentals: How We Get Tense".

The relevance of Dennis' notion of posturality to Korzybski's GS seems clear in Dennis' sharp denial of dualism. Korzybski formulated the problem of dualism in terms of what he called "elementalism", unconsciously dividing up what we don't find divided in the non-verbal, process world. In performing this unconscious isolation of related elements, we are likely to thereby neglect important relationships, contexts, and connections. Our language use can express such elementalistic evaluating by suggesting false-to-fact, static, isolated structures. Dennis, who has studied Korzybski's work, demonstrates throughout the book his consciousness of this problem and resolutely and explicitly emphasizes the relatedness of 'support' and 'movement', as well as the non-separability of 'mechanical'/'physiological' factors from our 'emotional'/'intellectual' life. Dennis' "non-elementalism" is also apparent in his emphasis, following scientist-epistemologist Michael Polanyi, on the importance of personal, phenomenological experience in the study and correction of posturality. In so doing, Dennis suggests the need to resolve the radical split between 'objectivity' and 'subjectivity', which has long remained at the center of Western assumptions about human knowledge. Korzybski, who had F. M. Alexander's books in his personal library, definitely considered the relevance of 'posture' to his own work: clearly expressed in his development of the technique of "neuro-semantic relaxation" (See Korzybski: A Biography, pp. 344, 414-415, 646).

In conclusion, The Posturality of the Person will reward those with professional and theoretical interests in musculoskeletal health as well as general readers looking for a sound, clear and practical basis for dramatically improving their own postural use. As psychologist Kurt Lewin suggested, there is nothing so practical as a good theory. Dennis shows that the split between the 'theoretical' and 'practical' can and must be bridged. Although short and simple, this is not “Posture for Dummies”. Wise up and get The Posturality of the Person. 

Poland's Fight and the Essence of Judaism - Korzybski's Response to the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (An excerpt from Korzybski: A Biography)

In honor of the fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which began 70 years ago in April 1943, I'm publishing the first few pages of Chapter 55 of Korzybski: A Biography. This section deals with Korzybski's 1943 response to the fate of Poles and Polish Jewry under the iron heel of the Nazi tyranny:  Poland's_Fight_and_the_Essence_of_Judaism

Ayn Nation Under God - A Review

The full title of Hart William’s book of connected essays, Ayn Nation Under God: A Rational Examination As To Why Ayn Rand Is Full Of It, indicates Williams' intent and point of view quite well. The essays (most of which appeared in slightly different form on Williams' blog from 2005 to 2012)  do not pretend to any faux ‘objectivity’. But despite his generally negative opinion of Ayn Rand’s work, her fans and followers will make a mistake if they dismiss Williams’ ebook, available in Amazon Kindle format, as not worthy of their reading time and effort. For them, and for the non-fans of Rand—in and out of academia—many of whom have dismissed her work as unimportant, Williams provides a most valuable service by treating Rand with the respect she deserves as one of the most influential figures of mid-20^th Century to early 21^st Century American thought. 

A veteran print journalist, blogger, screenwriter, novelist and all-around scribe (see His Vorpal Sword) Williams adduces a great deal of evidence to show that Rand—founder of a philosophical school she called "Objectivism"—has become a revered figure and a major inspiration for the Republican Right (especially its more secular wing representing finance and banking) and the allied Libertarian movement, both of which cherish and feel bolstered by Rand’s uber-individualist, anti-government, but pro-corporate outlook. Williams has carefully studied Rand’s work and his “rational examination” focuses on her basic premises: her view of ‘reason’, which he finds inadequate, and her basic understanding of human nature, which he finds lacking, indeed monstrously so. His criticism seems to me—a student and advocate of Alfred Korzybski’s non-aristotelian viewpoint—devastatingly apt.

Although Williams has not studied Korzybski’s work, he has clearly been influenced by some of the ongoing non-aristotelian currents that Korzybski saw developing in the  scientific, intellectual culture of his time, which he sought to systematize and enhance by means of the teachable system that he called “general semantics”. Non-aristotelian I should emphasize was not for Korzybski anti-Aristotle, not even anti aristotelian logic. Aristotle’s logic, for example, may still remain useful—where it applies. But Korzybski did reject the essentialist structural assumptions or metaphysics which Aristotle’s logic in particular embodies when interpreted, as Ayn Rand did, as the overarching basis for human ‘rationality’ and ‘reason’ rather than as a limited set of guidelines for some forms of discourse.

 In his first and perhaps best chapter (written especially for the book), Williams, who as a college philosophy major studied mathematical logic, gives his take on Rand’s trumpeting of the aristotelian ‘laws of thought’ and ‘pure logic’ as the basis for ‘reason’ (in Atlas Shrugged, she titled the three sections of the book “Non-Contradiction”, “Either-Or”, and “A is A”). Williams writes that when he first saw her “A is A” years ago, he said “When?”: “A is A sometimes, but other times it’s not exactly A. In fact, when you say A, you are just specifying THIS A at THAT exact moment in time, which that A will never be again. But it’s close enough for government work, or, in this case, anti-government work.” Williams further discussion of aristotelian logic seems quite in keeping with Korzybski’s take: overdependence on it by using it as a general orientation, as Rand and her followers do, leads to evaluational rigidity and inflexibility.

William’s critique of Rand’s view of human nature also appears quite devastating. Rand cut her heroes from a cartoonish mold where, just as with the fabled politician, they built with their own two hands the log cabin they were born in. She elevates to sacred doctrine an extreme individualism that takes little to no account of the social matrix upon which any individual human accomplishment is based. Perhaps Williams doesn’t know much about Korzybski’s characterization of humanity as the time-binding class of life, but throughout the book he demonstrates his implicit understanding of the time-binding character of humanity and its incompatibility with Rand’s extreme version of individuality, embodied in the title of one of her books The Virtue of Selfishness. Rand erroneously embraces “[a]n almost universal human trait…the ability to discount the endless contributions of others to our thinking process, while magnifying our own ‘original’ thinking beyond all measure. This is the basis of the American mythos of the ‘Self-made man…”

Rand’s extreme elevation of the virtue of selfishness has no place for altruism at all, at all.  According to Rand, Williams notes, “[o]nly when this awful, ridiculous moral notion of self-sacrifice and altruism is rejected will the thinkers/creators/Atlases be free to create. Until then, Galt [one of Rand’s heros in Atlas Shrugged] says, they’re out.” 

On the contrary, “Man is a SOCIAL animal,” Williams writes, “but Ayn Rand and her adherents insanely reject this fundamental truth. As a result, while a few have enriched themselves, our society is falling apart, and our infrastructure is rotting.” Thus Rand’s work provides the perfect theoretical basis for the current extreme view of individualism supported by ‘tea-party’ advocates, ‘libertarian’ think tanks, and the right-wing Republicans, among others. An example of the latter is former Republican Vice-Presidential candidate, Paul Ryan, a staunch right-wing Catholic, who during the campaign attempted to distance himself from the staunch atheist, Rand, he once admired and touted. But despite his new found love for St. Thomas Aquinas, Ryan still seems to be pushing the virtue of selfishness. Not very christian according to some christian’s measures, but then again, as Williams points out, “nobody ever went broke providing millionaires with a rationalization for the morality of greed.” At the moment, Congressman Ryan seems to be doing quite well. 

The book's title, Ayn Nation Under God, might have been better titled Ayn Nation Under Galt, but then again maybe Hart Williams’ title is appropriate if we accept Albert Ellis's affirmative answer to the question that was also the title of his book critiquing Rand, "Is Objectivism A Religion?" At any rate, Hart Williams' book provides a remarkably non-aristotelian look at what is unfortunately becoming (at least to me) Ayn Nation Under Rand. If you want to understand a great deal more about the present, polarized, aristotelian orientation that dominates the political climate in the U.S. you can't do better than read Hart William's book. My summary and quotes don’t do justice to his writing. He tenders his conclusions with a large portion of supporting detail served with verve and wit in an extremely inexpensive book. All the more reason to get: Ayn Nation Under God

Foreword to the Second Edition of Selections from Science and Sanity

In 2010, Lance Strate, then the Executive Director of the Institute of General Semantics (IGS), and Corey Anton, Series Editor of the IGS's New Non-Aristotelian Library Series, asked me to write this "Foreword to the Second Edition" of Korzybski's Selections from Science and Sanity, originally edited by Guthrie Janssen with Korzybski's consultation and approval. Although I would have advertised that fact and posted this much sooner, a number of unforeseen events intervened that kept me from doing so. But given that this is the 80th Anniversary year of the original publication of Science and Sanity, it seems like a good time to remedy that situation. 

I opine that this new second edition of the authorized abridgment of Korzybski's famous work is not without some graphical design and editorial problems. For one thing, I'm not crazy about the book's large size (11 and 1/2" by 9") or its green cover which I find unattractive. This Second Edition of Selections from Science and Sanity is also missing the original first edition's marginal page references to the unabridged book, which I find regrettable. More seriously, at least one of Korzybski's important diagrams was botched on page 152 by the book designer and appears completely indecipherable. That  designer also originally deleted italics in the text, which Korzybski used for emphasis. This last mistake was later corrected after I pointed it out, but as an writer and editor myself, I know how little slips and creeping errors can corrupt a text, so a thorough editorial run-through with the First Edition seems advisable.

Still, if you haven't read Science and Sanity, I consider this Second Edition of Selections from Science and Sanity most welcome as a readily available, inexpensive, and more inviting (because much shorter) version of Korzybski's great work. So without further ado, here is a link to my "Foreword to the Second Edition of Selections from Science and Sanity". 

The book can  be purchased from the Institute of General Semantics or from Amazon.com. 

The Unity of Human Problems Through Method

Here's the abstract and a link to a final draft of my keynote presentation at the January 14, 2013, Conference on GS and Transdisciplinary Inquiry at CHM College of the University of Mumbai, Ulhasnagar, Maharashtra, India, organized by Deepa Mishra, PhD.  A conference volume is in the works.

My article includes in complete form, a short and previously unpublished essay by Korzybski's co-worker, M. Kendig, entitled "Note on Unity of Problems Through Method", which provided the title and serves as the connecting theme (I think of it as the 'sauce') of my piece. Thanks, dear Kendig.

Abstract: Interdisciplinary. Transdisciplinary. Where did these notions come from? Rigid boundaries often unduly separate different academic departments and fields. How do we get beyond polite general agreement about the need for transcending these boundaries, and actually do it? Korzybski/General-Semantics scholar Bruce I. Kodish discusses a  little-known discipline that does this explicitly, general semantics, a transdisciplinary discipline, i.e., a discipline with tools applicable across many different disciplines. General Semantics (GS) functions more specifically as a meta-discipline, a discipline that provides a formulational framework and a language for understanding and talking about other disciplines. After discussing the core notion of interdisciplinarity (along with related terms), I’ll present an overview of GS, emphasizing some of its interdisciplinary/transdisciplinary aspects. I’ll conclude with some suggestions for how GS can provide tools for interdisciplinary/transdisciplinary ‘thinking’, for better appreciating and making use of the unity of human problems through method. 

The Unity of Human Problems Through Method: Korzybski's General-Semantics as a Transdisciplinary Discipline

From the Stray Thought Bin – 'The Jew'

'The Jew' remains the all-purpose Other. 

From the Stray Thought Bin – The Relativity of Values

The world doesn't look the same to a man and a louse.

Chain Indexing

The Chain Index, which Korzybski developed in the mid-1940s has significantly bedeviled generations of students of Korzybski's work. "Supermoderator" in the RGS forum has done what I rate as a better job of explaining it than even Korzybski did.

The 'chain' part comes from the analogy to the "chain reaction", for example when there is a doubling or other multipication of some process with each iteration of the process, for example, a nuclear or chemical chain reaction (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chain_reaction ).

With the chain index, we make our own little chain reaction of differences, of differentiating one thing in our classification or naming, so one thing becomes two things or more depending on the context of time and place (although the time dimension can be taken care of with the device of dating). Further differentiating as to context, can go on indefinitely, although it is probably often not necessary.

It's not only organism(1)-as-a-whole-in-environment(1) different from organism(1)-as-a-whole-in environment(2). It's every thing-as-a-whole-in-its-environment different from 'itself' in a different environment. Ken Keyes called it the "when index". It remains a matter of assessment to decide whether the differences makes a difference to us or not (in a particular time and location). In other words, our assessments of this should best be chain-indexed as well if we want to remain careful evaluators. 

Want to join the chain-indexing gang? 

IGS Announces Terrence Deacon Will Be the 61st Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecturer

The Institute of General Semantics has selected anthropologist Terrence Deacon as the 61st Annual Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecturer (AKML).

Dr. Deacon has done groundbreaking work on human origins, the origins of language and human cognition, and the role of culture in evolution. His latest book, Incomplete Nature, has garnered a lot of interest for its cutting-edge  revisioning of basic formulations for human science. His  AKML presentation this October should be very interesting. 

Balvant K. Parekh - Z'L (His Memory a Blessing)

Balvant K. Parekh, founder of Pidilite Industries, major Indian philanthropist, founder of the Balvant Parekh Centre for General Semantics and Other Human Sciences in Vadodara, Gujarat, India, and winner of the IGS 2011 Talbot Winchell Award for service in the interest and promotion of general semantics, died on January 25 in Mumbai at the age of 89. Here is a short obituary.

He had been suffering from Parkinson's Disease for some time and although his condition had gotten worse in the last three months, he had looked forward to my visit to India which he had sponsored. We had been in close contact but I was not able to have a personal meeting with him before his unexpected death. A great and unfortunately rare human being, a humane and caring industrialist, he cared for people above profits, though his business profited greatly through his good works. He was greatly loved  by all of his employees from drivers and cafeteria workers to top-level managers. 

A serious student of korzybskian general-semantics, that work crystalized for him his own philosophy of dedicated service to his employees, customers, and humanity.  

Here is a 2007 video of Mr. Parekh speaking to a group of GS students in India on communication in business. 

Here is a link to an interview with him in a human resources magazine, Human Factors, where he explains his use of GS in his approach to HR (Human Resources) and in dealing with employees needs and concerns during M &A (Mergers and Acquisitions): "Employees Are the Jugular Vein."

May B. K. Parekh's legacy of good works live on. 

Rolf Sattler on "Science: Its Power and Limitations"

The power of 'science' comes from understanding the limits of human knowledge. In this important article, "Science: Its Power and Limitations", Plant biologist Rolf Sattler discusses the work of some formulators (going back to William James) of the cutting-edge non-aristotelian view of science and human knowledge that Korzybski hoped to advance with his work. 

Here's the link: Science: Its Power and Limitations

India Notes 2013: "Radical General Semantics" Reading List with Article Links

Here is the Reading List—with links to the actual downloadable readings—on "Radical General-Semantics" that I prepared for the rGS Introductory Seminar-Workshop in Jaipur, Rajasthan, India and the rGS Advanced Workshop in Vadodara, Gujarat, India conducted in January 2013 for the Balvant K. Parekh Centre for General Semantics and Other Human Sciences. 

The items on the Reading List were carefully selected to provide a comprehensive introduction and broad survey of the rich literature and wide scope of the radically generalist orientation and discipline that Alfred Korzybski originated.

To get anywhere in mastering the korzybskian extensional discipline, you must read. And the students in both seminar-workshops did read. Having come prepared by studying what I provided, they astonished me with how far they had already gotten in their theoretical knowledge and application to their work, mainly as English teachers. 

Click here to download Reading List on "Radical General-Semantics" .

GS and Literature: Some Articles by David Maas

Dr. David Maas, teaches English language and literature at Wiley College in East Texas. He's an old friend and one of the few people who went through the teacher training program of the old Institute of General Semantics and became a certified teacher of GS. He's written a slew of articles on GS and literature and language instruction. Here are a few of them, kindly posted by The Free Library: David Maas Articles

India Notes 2013: Auto-Rickshaw Ride from City Palace (Jan. 24, Jaipur)

India Notes 2013: Swastikas

Everywhere I looked I found swastikas.

India Notes 2013: A 'Stickle' Warning!

At Jaipur National University, where the B.K. Parekh Centre

held its National Workshop, the dorm room I stayed in could

get very cold at night, but we were warned very stickle, "No

electrical hitters!"

The State of Organized GS-2013: A Blunt Assessment

On January 10, I'll be flying to India, where I will stay for almost four weeks, to teach introductory and advanced seminar-workshops and give other presentations on "Radical General-Semantics" on behalf of the Balavant K. Parekh Centre for General Semantics and Other Human Sciences, located in Vadodara, Gujarat in Western India. 

Many, if not most, people now interested in Korzybski's work don't know that organizational GS has begun to thrive in India over the last decade, while the original GS organizations in the U.S. have concurrently gone into sharp decline. I need to go into a little recent history to make that point clearer. This will put the amazing growth of GS in India in a fuller context. 

By the first decade of the 21st Century, the San Francisco Bay-Area International Society for General Semantics (ISGS), one of the two main GS organizations, could no longer sustain continued existence. It was absorbed into the Institute of General Semantics (IGS) in 2003-2004. Within a few years the IGS—after the promising opening of a dedicated teaching and archival center in Fort Worth, Texas—became ridden with contention-filled internal disputes among its board of trustees, and between some board members and the then Executive Director, Steve Stockdale.  Mr. Stockdale eventually resigned under difficult circumstances at the end of 2007. In 2009, the board of trustees of the by-then hobbled IGS, sold the Fort Worth center, "Read House" and moved to a rented office about a mile away, until relocating to the New York City area in 2010, where the office now appears to be a post office box in Queens. 

Most of the archival material so carefully preserved for years, then brought together at Read House by Mr. Stockdale and used by me in researching Korzybski: A Biography, was destroyed in the move and the small amount of remaining material is now orphaned—scattered among a few individuals, including myself, who managed to scavenge it before it got dumped as well. Most of the members of the IGS Board and its then Executive Director, Dr. Lance Strate knew nothing of the trashing of the archives by the few board members responsible. Both he and a few other members of the board were informed of the travesty by me after I found out.  

I want to emphasize here that I have the highest esteem for Dr. Strate, a man of great integrity and a friend, who later resigned his position. Dr. Corey Anton, another friend and man of integrity, remains on the IGS board, and has produced with Dr. Strate, the recent excellent volume Korzybski And..., published by the IGS. This and other activities of those two men represents a high point in the generally dismal recent history of the Institute. So things don't seem entirely doom and gloom for the Institute—just mainly. 

Presently, the severely downsized IGS—despite the presence of some good people on its board—suffers from a significant case of organizational amnesia, a loss of connection to the 'spirit' of Korzybski's work, and a subsequent loss of vitality, passion, and fruitful action. And honesty. As a result, the Institute of General Semantics (2012) no longer qualifies, as it did for just over 50 years after Korzybski's death, as the world center of korzybskian tradition, scholarship, and training. A painful admission for me. I openly addressed some of these issues, although in more general terms, in my 2011 presentation at the IGS Annual Conference in New York City). 

I have worked behind the scenes for a number of years to attempt to get redress for some of the mistakes that the IGS Board of Trustees bears responsibility for, sorely hoping not to have to make public the Institute's 'dirty laundry'. But I have finally come to the conclusion that the Institute of General Semantics' ongoing problems cannot be addressed and its healthy survival ensured until the painful history of past mistakes is faced and openly acknowledged by those involved. I guess that most of the present Board of Trustees don't know anything of what transpired. Those who do know something don't seem to have enough power yet to deal with those few colleagues directly responsible for the archives disaster. Given my long and public history with the organization, people from around the world interested in the korzybskian non-aristotelian outlook have contacted me—especially since the publication of Korzybski: A Biography—wanting to learn more and get involved with the Institute. It is difficult to refrain from telling them that mainly 'there is no there, there' at the IGS anymore. I do tell people who ask and wonder what's going on at the Institute, not to expect too much. 

The korzybskian stream still flowed strongly at the IGS for most of the years that my wife and I worked there in many capacities, however difficult the financial and organizational challenges that we faced at the time. But however much money the IGS has now, mainly from bequests, the korzybskian stream there has pretty much dried up. Unless mistakes are acknowledged, the lost links with the Institute's history and tradition restored, and present-day organizational challenges addressed openly and with action; I'm afraid that the Institute will slowly fade away. In its present condition, it seems to me more than anything else an impediment to carrying on Korzybski's legacy in the 'information age'. 

This little bit of painful history puts in clearer context the growth of Korzybski's work in India, where the Parekh Centre founded in 2009 by philanthropic industrialist Mr. B. K. Parekh, head of Pidilite Industries, has been thriving. Under the steadfast leadership of Professor Prafulla Kar and his staff and associates, the Parekh Centre has indeed become the most active and engaged independent GS organization on the planet with a dedicated building; a regular newsletter; a new journal, Anekant; and a vital and varied educational program offering a large number of courses and trainings all over India. The 'spirit' of doing and a desire to connect to the korzybskian tradition seems quite apparent there. Interest in GS is growing throughout the subcontinent nation. Thus the Parekh Centre's invitation to me, as perhaps the most prominent of the small number of living korzybskian-GS scholar-practitioners. (Accurate; though it sounds pretentious, even to me. It hasn't gone to my head; a fish can't get very big in a very, very small pond.)

So Korzbyski's work has really taken off in India. I'm looking forward to my trip there and want to give the Indians a giant  korzybskian boost; they've already given a huge boost to me. People interested in Korzybski's work in India and elsewhere, including the United States, should no longer look to the present Institute of General Semantics as a significant center of the discipline. Maybe this can change, but under its present leadership and board of trustees, the Institute of General Semantics has lost its direction. Right now, it's time to look to India, for the future of Korzybski's work.*

*There is also a lively, very active group in Australia, which I would be remiss in not at least acknowledging here. More on them later. 

From the Stray Thought Bin – 'Verifiable Truth'

What kind of difference would it make if I sought to falsify

my maps rather than verify them? Can any of my maps 'be' 

100% verifiably 'true' for all time? Would I talk and act more 

carefully if I held my own maps and those of others as 

tentative forever? As far as I know, the best I can achieve 

remains—as Korzybski said—maximum probability of 

predictibility.

GS & Stoicism: A Personal View

GS has stoicism in its family tree, as I noted in this article here a short while ago. Guillaume Andrieu, the Editor of the New Stoa Newsletter has just published an interview with me where I discuss in more detail my own history with stoicism and discuss its relationship with Korzybski's work.  Here it is: New Stoa Spotlight on Bruce Kodish

From the Stray Thought Bin - 'Every Diamond-Moment'

Every moment is like a diamond with untold many facets and the consciousness of that moment can touch only a very few. 

From the Stray Thought Bin - 'Lazy Thinking'

Unfortunately, thinking carefully and deeply about things that matter most takes more time than many people wish to give it and as a result they succumb to sloganeering and superficial thought. 

From the Stray Thought Bin - What Every Human Deserves

What every human deserves: 'ideas' worthy to live by.

Election Maps

A map is not the territory it supposedly represents, but rather, only more or less similar in structure to the supposed territory.

Election maps

www-personal.umich.edu

Korzybski on Poetry

"...poetry often conveys in a few sentences more of lasting value than a whole volume of scientific analysis." 
— Alfred Korzybski, 
p. 437, Science and Sanity

Korzybski's Legacy (2012): What 'Is' it? How Do We Carry It On?

I presented this a year ago at the 2011 Alfred Korzybski Memorial Lecture Weekend Conference in New York City. What I said about the state of general semantics and the Institute still holds. Since the 2012 conference is coming up, this seems like a good time to re-post this for anyone with an interest in the condition of Korzybski's legacy today.  Click right here to link to the downloadable file: Korzybski's Legacy...

From the Stray Thought Bin - "Thinking About Thinking"

My endless inquiring makes it possible for me to achieve something at any given date— I get to think about my own thoughts of the situation in which I find myself. 

I even think that I think of it. 

This gives me the power of flexibility to go with change. 

I embrace the infinite progressive sequence of abstracting myself to a higher level of abstraction, of mapping a map, mapping myself, a process I seek to continue indefinitely. 

I don't call a halt to the process, because I momentarily have to stop at a given point in it. 

I accept the 'infinite' and accept that though I'm a part of it, I can't possess it. 

I don't identify myself with one fixed point along the way. 

I look 'down' from my viewpoint at a date and appreciate the  broader view. 

Because I  don't reject the  knowledge that I do have because it always has some degree of uncertainty, I take courage. 

I can pinch my finger. 

I can feel my breath.

I can feel the ground beneath my feet. 

It is not words. 

Whatever I say it 'is', is not it.     

From the Stray Thought Bin – "What You Say"

Take care of what you say. You may be listening. 

From the Stray Thought Bin - "The Pursuit of Sanity"

The pursuit of sanity is a never-ending effort to hit an ever-moving target. 

Stoicism – General-Semantics' Family Tree

Marshall McLuhan proposed one way (among others) to understand any particular human innovation: asking what earlier innovations, inventions, form(s) of media/technology, does this recall? An interesting exercise to do with Alfred Korzybski's General-Semantics (GS). 


Despite its potentially confusing name, GS is not primarily focused on language and 'meaning' as commonly understood.
Korzybski explicitly said that he was investigating human nature, i.e., time-binding, which he considered the defining activity of human existence. After his first, 1921 book Manhood of Humanity, where he explored time-binding and it's implications, he spent the rest of his life exploring the mechanism of time-binding, how it works and the practical application of this understanding by individuals. 


It boils down to the old stoical adage: live according to nature. Which means in part, finding out about your own species and individual natures. The stoics, saw human capacity for 'reason' as what differentiated us from animals, and they taught their students practical ways to apply 'reason' in their lives. 


I have found no better way to understand Korzybski's work and its place in the long span of human intellectual achievement, than to see him as one of the great figures in the stoic tradition though he did not emphasize that. His work appears to me a great contribution to that still living stream of practical wisdom for living. 

From the Stray Thought Bin – 'Agreement'

The only thing they could agree on was that their incomprehension of each other was mutual. 

From the Stray Thought Bin - 'Word Is Not Thing'

Words as words can qualify as 'things' as well. And the words about those things are not those things either. Some people, strangely, seem to have difficulty understanding that. Words seem quite slippery things, don't they? 

From the Stray Thought Bin - 'Don't Assume'

The only assumption I tell people not to assume is the assumption that they can have no assumptions. 

From the Stray Thought Bin - 'Troubleshooting'

To some people, a great troubleshooter may just look like a big trouble-maker. 

From the Stray Thought Bin – 'The Speed of Thought'

‘Thinking’ does not occur in a timeless, fleshless void; if relativity has abolished infinite speeds in physics, then the speed of ‘thought’ is not infinite either. 

From the Stray Thought Bin – 'Bad Students'

Do you realize that a 'bad student' may be a good learner?