Korzybski: A Biography (Free Online Edition)
Copyright © 2014 (2011) by Bruce I. Kodish
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Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift’s book for ‘children and philosophers’, remained one of Korzybski’s favorites. “This little book”, he had written early in 1946, “is old but today more alive than ever.”(1) Having spent a lifetime wrestling with human folly in many forms, Korzybski seemed particularly taken by the book’s depiction of the yahoos—greedy, short-sighted man-creatures used by Swift to represent humans, capable of ‘reason’ but far from behaving ‘reasonably’. By the end of 1946 and start of 1947, the continued yahoo-like behavior of some of the leadership of the Society for General Semantics, crossed a threshold he could no longer discount nor delay confronting.
Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift’s book for ‘children and philosophers’, remained one of Korzybski’s favorites. “This little book”, he had written early in 1946, “is old but today more alive than ever.”(1) Having spent a lifetime wrestling with human folly in many forms, Korzybski seemed particularly taken by the book’s depiction of the yahoos—greedy, short-sighted man-creatures used by Swift to represent humans, capable of ‘reason’ but far from behaving ‘reasonably’. By the end of 1946 and start of 1947, the continued yahoo-like behavior of some of the leadership of the Society for General Semantics, crossed a threshold he could no longer discount nor delay confronting.
Notes
You may download a pdf of all of the book's reference notes (including a note on primary source material and abbreviations used) from the link labeled Notes on the Contents page. The pdf of the Bibliography, linked on the Contents page contains full information on referenced books and articles.
1. Comments by Alfred Korzybski to “Excerpts From the William Alanson White Memorial Lectures, Second Series by Harry Stack Sullivan and Major-General G. B Chisholm.” AKDA, IGS Scrapbook 5.8-14.
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