What Do I Like Best About Korzybski: A Biography?

A Brazilian correspondent contacted me through the message board of my Academia.edu page and asked:
Q: About your book, Korzybski: A Biography, what do you like best about it??? 

Regards,
V. S. 

A: What I like best about my biography of Korzybski? Hard to pick just one aspect. For one thing, my wife and I and only a few other people are in Korzybski's direct lineage of student-practitioners. There has been much dilution and distortion of his teachings and I did my best to present those teachings in their fullness and with the widest context I could. GS is not actually focused on language as many people think, but is more concerned with human reaction/evaluation and primarily the study of self. I wanted to do honor to my teachers—and the great teacher Alfred —and I believe I did that without making him into a saint. He was a great man but a man for all that and he had foibles and flaws as we all do. I feel I represented his life in the best way possible.

As well, I'm proud of the book, not only as a documentation of Korzybski's work and how it developed but also as a lively and interesting narrative. With that book, I came of age as a writer.

Korzybski's General-Semantics

"General[-]semantics is not any 'philosophy', or 'psychology', or 'logic', in the ordinary sense. It is a new extensional discipline which explains and trains us how to use our nervous systems most efficiently. It is not a medical science, but like bacteriology, it is indispensible for medicine in general, and for psychiatry, mental hygiene, and education in particular. In brief, it is the formulation of a new non-aristotelian system of orientation which affects every branch of science and life. The separate issues involved are not entirely new; their methodological formulation as a system which is workable, teachable and so elementary that it can be applied by children, is entirely new." 

— Alfred Korzybski , "Introduction to the Second Edition 1941", Science and Sanity, Fifth Edition (1994), pp. xxxviii-xxxix

Korzybski's General-Semantics "Wordle"

Exponential Humanity: Overcoming Challenges to Sanity and Survival in the 21st Century

Originally presented in a talk at the Department of Humanities and the Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay – Jan. 31, 2013

Abstract

Because of the socio-culturally accumulative nature of human knowledge in all its forms, we humans qualify as what Alfred Korzybski called a “time-binding” class of life—exponential by our very nature. As time-binders, we can communicate experience from one individual, group, or generation to another. By this means we have the potential to start where others have left off. This article explores the time-binding roots of the exponential change that has become notable as a major feature of our present so-called 'civilized' life around the globe, with its accelerating accelerations and resulting bottlenecks and breakdowns. I suggest a korzybskian approach to conscious time-binding, sanity, and survival during this dynamic and challenging period of human history. 

Exponential Humanity Overcoming Challenges to Sanity and Survival in the 21st Century

The Problems Of Knowing What Korzybski Actually Taught

The problems of knowing what Korzybski actually taught started to get complicated even during his lifetime as inadequate popularizers—the most prominent of whom was probably S.I. Hayakawa—began the process of watering it down. This became one of the major hassles at the end of Korzybski's life that he had to deal with. The not-so-pleasant details of his conflict with Hayakawa and other of his students, takes up a good part of the last section of my Korzybski: A Biography.

After Korzybski's death, Hayakawa very much became Mr. General Semantics, in the eyes of the media and general public, and through his own writing and his editorship of ETC. then published by the International Society of General Semantics (ISGS). Although, he did help promulgate knowledge and interest in Korzybski's work to some extent, at the same time his work gave the impression to many that they had gotten Korzybski's essence from reading his, Hayakawa's, and others' more limited, non-rigorous takes.

Meanwhile, the Institute of General Semantics (IGS), founded by Korzybski and run by his students and student's students, remained the center of specifically korzybskian general-semantics, with publication of the GSB and books by Korzybski and others as well as an ongoing educational training program continued for just over fifty years after Korzybski's death.

However, over the last 10 years, that korzybskian thread got snipped and lost at the Institute of General Semantics. The ISGS folded, the IGS took over its assets, mainly some bookstore books, some documents, and the journal ETC. GSB got retired with no fanfare and we now have people running the IGS who for better or worse were never significantly involved in studying, transmitting, and building upon the specific korzybskian tradition that existed there before their time. The present IGS seems more in the pattern  of the old ISGS rather than the old IGS  with, for example, ETC. now the official IGS journal. This kind of thing can happen. People die and move away, etc. Others who get involved afterwards don't know what happened before them and fail to ask necessary questions. History and tradition gets forgotten. It may happen especially to organizations that have been around for a long while. As a result, the long-term culture of the organization can  sometimes change drastically. It has happened at the Institute of General Semantics (founded in 1938). Dating. 

The fact remains that now the IGS has lost a large part of the specific korzybskian tradition (much of it 'oral') that developed there. For example, I don't see how anyone of my teachers and co-workers in the old IGS would have chosen to name a book award after S.I. Hayakawa—with all due respect to him (he did do some good work along with all the confusion he caused). I have written about this institutional loss of memory publicly, addressing the issue directly in my presentation at the 2011 IGS International Conference in New York City, where I was given the IGS's 2011 S.I. Hayakawa Book Prize (Oh, the irony). Here's a link to the audio and text of my presentation: http://korzybskifiles.blogspot.com/2011/11/korzybskis-legacy-what-is-it-how-do-we.html

As one of the few alive, like Jeff Mordkowitz and my wife Susan Presby Kodish, who apprenticed with Korzybski's students, I feel an obligation now to help inform everyone interested of what that tradition consists of. I 'inherited' (as the person appointed by Charlotte Schuchardt Read to serve as Korzybski's literary executor following her and Robert Pula) a tremendous amount of material after the IGS closed Read House in Texas in 2009 (and then the nearby rented office in 2010). I intend to share as much as I can of the material that I have from there as well the large amount of stuff I've gathered over a lifetime of korzybskian study and research. 

But people who care  and desire to learn must ask questions.

Will you dare to inquire?  

From the Korzybski Files Vaults: "What 'Is' General-Semantics? by Robert P. Pula

Robert P. Pula, my teacher, co-worker and dear friend probably qualifies as the most important post-Korzybski scholar and teacher of GS I have known. Here is a brief (three-page) handout, undated but probably from some time in the 1970s, where he succinctly answers the question, "What  'is' General-Semantics?" Worth your time to download and study.

"What 'Is' General Semantics?"

Semiotics Pioneer, Charles Morris, Describes 'General Semantics'

"The work of A. Korzybski and his followers, psycho-biological in orientation, has largely been devoted to the therapy of the individual, aiming to protect the individual against exploitation by others and by himself." 
— Charles Morris, in Signs, Language and Behavior (1946)

Looking Out My Window - The Transparency Illusion

Looking out through a window (or making a 'window frame' with your hands), notice what you see through it. Now, look at the window. What do you see of the window itself? What is on the window (smudges, reflections, glare, distortions, et cetera)? Also notice some of what gets blocked out from your view through the window. Now return to look out through the window again. As you look onto the scene, can you extend your awareness to include the window as well? Can you stay aware of what is not within your view? 

Looking through my window, it can seem easy to forget, and it sometimes takes some time to realize, that I am looking through a window. It may take some effort to look at a window I am looking through and to figure out how it may be influencing what I see. 

Each one of us is looking at the world through windows, literal windows, and metaphorical ones: the 'windows' of our 'senses', the 'windows' of our language, the 'windows' of the family and the culture we were born into, the 'windows' of our profession, the 'windows' of the doctrines we hold so dear, et cetera. Windows that we do not see. 

Neurocognitive linguist Sydney Lamb calls this the transparency illusion: 

"A window or a pair of glasses functions best when it is as invisible as possible. The person who wants to study windows must therefore make a special effort to look at the window rather than through it." (Pathways of the brain: The neurocognitive basis of Language. Benjamins, 1999, p. 12-13)

And though we may not be able to remove all of the 'windows' or 'glasses' we look through, many of us could use a radical new prescription. 

The Orphans and the Inheritance: Using the Gifts of the Past

Korzybski provided us with a most precious legacy: a framework of knowledge about human knowledge, a pathway and discipline for becoming more conscious of our consciousness in useful ways for our individual development and social advancement.

However, we must provide the proper receptacle for that inheritance, as we must provide for any gift of knowledge. This gets to an important aspect of time-binding, the potential we have as humans, the capacity we have—which may or may not operate—to benefit from and apply to the present what others have learned in the past. 

Some insight into this comes from an analysis of a saying in the Jewish Pirkei Avot: "Apply yourself to the study of the Torah, for it is not your inheritance." This appears problematic and has required explanation as it seems to contradict this passage in the Hebrew Bible: "Torah is the inheritance of the congregation of Jacob." (Deut. 33:4)

A contradiction? 

In Talmudic discourse, " [Rabbi] Beis Yisrael offers a different explanation. Torah knowledge itself is an inheritance of the Jewish nation. However, one must apply himself to study the Torah, for it, [the necessary preparation one needs to acquire that precious heritage] is not yours by inheritance—one must exert himself in the preparation. This is analogous to a group of orphans who were to receive a large inheritance from their father, consisting of money and precious gems. The executor of the estate instructed them to bring luggage to carry away their shares. "What!", they exclaimed, "Such a magnificent estate and we must bring suitcases? Aren't there any among the items left to us by our father?" "No", answered the executor, "your father bequeathed you a fantastic fortune, but he didn't leave you even one basket or piece of luggage. That you must provide yourself." (Artscroll Pirkei Avot, p. 114)

This, as I hope you can see, does not just apply to Jewish Torah teachings, but to any important learning from others both living and dead. Korzybski, and others pursuing his work, have provided us with a most precious legacy. However, we must provide the proper receptacle. Without study and application—work—we cannot benefit from that inheritance. 

"General Semantics: An Approach to Effective Language Behavior"

My friend Steve Stockdale, former Executive Director of the Institute of General Semantics (2004 through 2007) has been involved in developing this online course: "General Semantics: An Approach to Effective Language Behavior" For that reason alone, I feel confident in recommending it to anyone who wants to try an online course and would like a structured introduction to the subject.

I say this despite my qualms about the course's focus on language behavior here, which I consider too narrow and therefore potentially confusing if you want to develop a comprehensive understanding of Korzybski's work.  Because I see GS as a value-infused, applied study of human evaluation/epistemology (how we know what we know) and a non-aristotelian foundation for the human sciences, I would not describe 'general semantics' as this course description does.

I have come to this view, because such a focus on 'language' by people like S. I. Hayakawa, has historically misled students into neglecting a great deal of Korzybski's work that doesn't fit into the 'language studies' box. However, the radically inter-disciplinary nature of 'general semantics' has traditionally made it difficult to classify it in terms of traditional academic boxes. So here we are. It's an old story.

That said, we surely can't leave 'language' out of the picture. As Korzybskian scholar and former Executive Editor of the General Semantics Bulletin, Jim French has written: "As a field of study, general semantics is not predominantly about language but (one might say) about neuro-evaluating; and yet language and how we use it play a prominent role in apprehending and using the discipline." ("Editor's Essay 2001, General Semantics Bulletin, 65-68, p. 8-10)

Reflections on E-Prime: A Follow-up to Shakespeare In E-Prime

My good friend, Devkumar Trivedi of the Balvant Parekh Centre for General Semantics and Other Human Sciences in India, sent me this email in response to my last post putting Hamlet's soliloquy in E-Prime. E-Prime (E') was formulated by Korzybski's student David Bourland who advocated eliminating all forms of the verb "to be" from the English language.

Dev writes:

Hi Bruce,

1     What a telling and hilarious spoof on proponents of E-prime !

2     The structures of ordinary English as taught/learnt in many countries are embedded deeply in neural network of most students by the age of fifteen years, generally a long time before they ever even hear anything of GS. The challenge is to unlearn the structures, which is not easy.

3     Hence, awareness to understand the adverse impact of the identificatory and opinionating 'is' , and to contain the degree of damage by misevaluation appears a more feasible approach. In history attempts have been made by reformers to change spellings etc. [ G.B. Shaw even created a fund for it ], but language meanders autonomously, disregarding reverence and obedience to creative writers as well as scholars. You know the spelling of fish given by Shaw ?; Ghuitio.

He wanted to demonstrate the phonetic anarchy of spellings. Did not succeed. How much more difficult to change the very structure of language, to 'standardize' it and teach from nursery classes upwards !

4     Shakespeare in E-prime appears contrived, constricted and convoluted. Oh the economy beauty and simplicity of 'is' !

       
       Warm wishing,      Dev

N.B. The methodology of skits, singing, dancing etc., I fully endorse and actually follow in my workshops. Nobody likes to see the visage of a funeral facing teacher !

I replied as follows with these reflections on E-Prime:

Hi Dev,

I agree with your sentiments about E-prime ponderousness.

 I knew Dave Bourland. He seemed the epitome of the courtly gentleman and I liked him personally, but he held onto his contentions about E-Prime with the tenacity of a bulldog biting a burglar. 

Bob Pula once told me (and wrote about somewhere) about seeing Dave Bourland at an IGS sponsored event, where Dave introduced his new wife on the order of 'Bob, this constitutes my wife, Karen.' Bourland denied he said this. But I believe Bob.  

I have come to see 'identification' as a default stage of evaluative development. 

Absence of 'is' does not at all guarantee non-identifiying consciousness of abstracting. 

Whatever I say is in the 'is' is not in it. 

E-Prime works when it does because it tends to force the user to reword in more actional, descriptive language.

Useful but not the panacea that Bourland and others seemed and seem to want to make it. 

The possibility of identifying remains as long as we have language with subjects, verbs, and objects—forms which appear as the one set of solid universals that exist in all languages (cf. Gregory Sampson). 

Rejecting totally and for good, all forms of the verb "to be" seems uncalled for (too radical a reform in English where  'Is' exists as partly as a kind of generic all-purpose verb and verb helper). 

Very useful as a way to shorten lengthy ponderous expositions like this email is in danger of becoming. 

When I use, 'is' I often put quotes around it (sometimes with my toes so nobody sees—seriously, I do) which affords me the opportunity to distance myself and question for a moment as to whether I might be identifying. 

The 'is of identity' that Korzybski advised eschewing? Aristotle's "A is A" as an orientation. 

So 'is" and "to be" forms only constitute 'ises of identity" when the person using the words is actually identifying. 

Again, whatever I say is in the 'is' is not in it. 

The words mark potential identifications and are actually for that reason useful to retain in the language as visible indicators of possible problems. 

Otherwise, the identifications just get buried in other usages which may not appear so obvious.   

Thank you, "Is".  

Well, enough of that for now. 

Warm best regards,...

But please, experiment rewording with E-Prime, by all means. It is not a cure-all but if it helps you to become more conscious of what you say and what you 'mean', well, all to the good. 

Shakespeare Recast in E-Prime

I dug this out of some 'ancient' notebooks of mine, from the first general-semantics seminar-workshop I ever attended—a two-week one back in 1979. The Institute of General Semantics had a long tradition of a mid-seminar party on Saturday night, where participants and staff would put on some kind of 'behavioral performance'. Everyone could do something. Skits, songs and other musical performances, dramatic presentations, etc., all provided ample opportunity to play on themes and issues related to what we were studying in this intensive course in 'general-semantics': the endlessly fascinating topic of evaluation and mis-evaluation in human behavior—not only in others' behavior, but in our own as well. The talent displayed in the shows I saw over the years awed me. In this one, besides some wonderful playing of his original piano compositions, lead lecturer Robert P. Pula, presented this recasting of Hamlet's soliloquy in his friend David Bourland's E-Prime, a program for eliminating all forms of the verb "to be" from written and spoken English. Bob didn't qualify as a major fan of this approach and decided to give it a little poke with this performance piece which, I recall, he hammed up wonderfully, lots of laughs. His friend Andy Hilgartner's suggestion to verbalize some nouns also came in for some good-natured ribbing. After the show, I asked Bob for his index card notes and tucked them away in my notebook, till now. So now here, published for the first time: Shakespeare's Soliloquy for Hamlet Recast in David Bourland's E-Prime by Robert P. Pula, with the assistance Stuart A. Mayper (1979) and a little editing from me (2013):  

"Existing or not existing. That constitutes the questioning. Whether we postulate the greater nobility of tolerating in our neuro-linguistic systems the slings and arrows of what we perceive as outrageous fortunes or to take arms, legs, thoraxes, et cetera, against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them. To die, to sleep no more and by a sleeping to say we end the heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh seems heir to: I formulate this as a consummation devoutly wished. Sleeping, perchance dreaming, ay, that constitutes the rubbing—for in that death sleeping what dreamings may come when we have shuffled off this mortal coil, must give us pause. The respect that makes calamity of so long living consists in that. Who would seminars bear, grunting and sweating under a weary life but that fear of something after death, that undiscovered country from whose Bourland no traveler returns, puzzles the will and makes us rather bearing familiar illings than flying to others not known. Thus consciousness of abstracting doth make cowards of us all, and thus the native hue of resolution sicklies o'er with the pale castings of semantic reactions, and enterprises of great pith and moment, with this regarding, their currents turn away and lose the naming, action."  

Charlotte Schuchardt Read on "Living In An 'As If' World: Some Reflections on 'The Map Is Not The Territory"

My friend and mentor Charlotte Schuchardt Read, Alfred Korzybski's personal secretary and literary assistant, once suggested:

“In learning to feel the deeper significance of the map-territory premise we can: 

1. Be more awake to our own personal role in making our maps.

2. Increase our ability to make needed revisions as we check with the territory. 

3. Realize, through continual experiencing, that we each live in our “as if” world, and develop awareness of this. 

4. Gain greater appreciation of the other person’s world and his/her way of expressing it. 

5. If the temptation arises to say ‘This is nothing new,’ we can say ‘This can be a new experience, newly experienced today.’ 

Perhaps it would be useful to state the premise as: ‘The territory is not the map.’ Would this make a difference? I don’t know. 

Many questions arise as we progress toward a more unified view of our universe and our place in it. The multiordinal map-territory analogy can remain a helpful guide, provided we are aware of Korzybski’s third premise: The map is self-reflexive—the mapmaker is in the map—and provided we remember that the premises, like all premises, are only maps.”*

*Charlotte Read, “Living in an ‘as if’ World: Some Reflections on ‘The Map Is Not the Territory’ ” in Developing Sanity in Human Affairs (Contributions to the Study of Mass Media and Communications, Number 54), Ed. Susan Presby Kodish and Robert P. Holston. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, p. 75

Abstracting in Philosophy, Science and Everyday Life

The central korzybskian notion of abstracting resonates with the work of Kant, Schopenhauer and other philosophers who had previously explored this epistemological territory. 

For example, Schopenhauer, who built upon Kant’s work, very much seemed to be talking about abstracting when he wrote:

‘The world is my idea’ [This has also been translated as ‘The world is my representation’]: this is a truth which holds good for everything that lives and knows, though only man can bring it into reflected, abstract consciousness. If he really does this, philosophical discretion has evolved in him. It then becomes clear to him, and certain, that he knows not a sun, and not an earth, but only an eye that sees a sun, a hand that feels an earth; that the world which surrounds him exists only as an idea – that is, only in relation to something else, the one who conceives the idea, which is himself." (1)

What, then, makes Korzybski's model of abstracting special?: it brings previous philosophical discussion about epistemology (how we know what we 'think' we know) into a scientific, naturalistic framework, one that is workable both for further research and application in everyday life. My korzybskian transformation of the passage from Schopenhauer reads:

Anything I experience or know about the ‘world’ consists of my abstractions: this truth, as far as I know, holds good for everything that lives and knows, though only a human can bring it into reflected consciousness. If one really does know this, philosophical-scientific-mathematical discretion (consciousness of abstracting) has evolved. It then becomes clear, and as ‘certain’ as anything, that one knows not a ‘sun’, and not an ‘earth’, but only the result of one’s eye-brain-nervous-system transactions with a ‘sun’ and hand-brain-nervous-system transactions with an ‘earth’. Each one of us participates in the ‘world’ as an integral part of it. The ‘world’ (which includes what is called “the body”) exists—as each of us experiences and knows it—only in terms of abstractions at various levels. These abstractions exist only in relation to something else, the one who abstracts, oneself.

This notion of abstracting provides a key for Korzybski’s critique of aristotelianism in philosophy, science and everyday life. (2)

1. The World As Will and Idea. Abridged in One Volume. Ed. & Trans., Berman & Berman. London: Everyman. 

2. This passage from Dare to Inquire: Sanity and Survival for the 21st Century and Beyond, p. 157.

"When I Told Her She Was Sexy..." – A Poem by Kenneth G. Johnson

When I Told Her She Was Sexy...
by Kenneth G. Johnson*

"You're projecting," she said, 
Her face turning red, 
"The sexiness you see 
is all in your head." 

"You're right!" I agreed
With the lovely objector,
"But I like the way
You run my projector." 


*The late Kenneth G. Johnson—Professor, Department of Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee—authored the popular General Semantics: An Outline Survey, among other works. Ken remains one of the most important of the scholar-teachers of korzybskian GS at the Institute of General Semantics after Korzybski's death. 

"Authoritarian" – A Poem by Kenneth G. Johnson

Authoritarian
by Kenneth G. Johnson*

A perfect world 
This would be
If everyone 
Would be like me. 

Or better than
The way I am, 
The way I like 
To think I am. 

*The late Kenneth G. Johnson—Professor, Department of Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee—authored the popular General Semantics: An Outline Survey, among other works. Ken remains one of the most important of the scholar-teachers of korzybskian GS at the Institute of General Semantics after Korzybski's death. 

"Expectations Anticipated" – A Poem by Kenneth G. Johnson

Expectations Anticipated
by Kenneth G. Johnson*

I do what I do 
Because what I do 
Is what I believe
You expect me to do. 

You do what you do
Because what you do
Is what you believe 
I expect you to do.

How can I know you? 
How can you know me? 
When reflexpectations
Distort what we see?


*The late Kenneth G. Johnson—Professor, Department of Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee—authored the popular General Semantics: An Outline Survey, among other works. Ken remains one of the most important of the scholar-teachers of korzybskian GS at the Institute of General Semantics after Korzybski's death. 

"To A Neurone" – A Poem by Kenneth G. Johnson

To A Neurone

by Kenneth G. Johnson*

Twitter, twitter little neurone

Though the impulse be not your own

For without your ceaseless twit

I would cease to be—a wit?

*The late Kenneth G. Johnson—Professor, Department of Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee—authored the popular General Semantics: An Outline Survey, among other works. Ken remains one of the most important of the scholar-teachers of korzybskian GS at the Institute of General Semantics after Korzybski's death. 

"GS Seminar" - A Poem by Kenneth G. Johnson

GS Seminar
by Kenneth G. Johnson*

We learn we are creative stuff
And that five senses aren't enough
We learn to feel that which we sit on
And what to do when we are spit on. 
Delay your reactions — that's the trick,
Until the cortical neurones click. 
And then with every thought intact
Take careful aim and spit right back. 

*The late Kenneth G. Johnson—Professor, Department of Mass Communication, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee—authored the popular General Semantics: An Outline Survey, among other works. Ken remains one of the most important of the scholar-teachers of korzybskian GS at the Institute of General Semantics after Korzybski's death. 

KORZYBSKI: A BIOGRAPHY - UNSOLICITED, UNPAID ENDORSEMENT I JUST FOUND ON FACEBOOK DWAYNE POLOWAY

From the Stray Thought Bin - Becoming/Developing/Consciousness

Do you really want to develop 'more consciousness'?

"More consciousness", what do you mean?

Do you actually know what it will cost you? 

What it will cost you to more clearly see? 

Those strange dots of high weirdness growing? 

Strange outbreaks of madness you say "Glory Be!" 

Do you even take any much notice? 

You notice and quick look away? 

Do you really want to know?

Who or what are you trying to be? 

To be.

To be. 

TO BE YOU.

Do you? 

Do you? 

Do you think?

Much more important can you feel as you see?