"I Am The Very Model Of A General Semanticist"

I've been going through the remains of the IGS archives in my possession and found some files from of my friend and mentor, the late Kenneth G. Johnson, a long-time and important korzybskian GS scholar. One of the things I found was this  song parody of the Gilbert and Sullivan classic, "I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General". It looks like it may have been written by Ken. Or (because of the female voice, used) one of his students. His name wasn't on the typed page with the parody. However Ken definitely did write  humorous poetry, some of which I'll present here in a future blogpost. This parody very much has his signature humor. Enjoy!:

I Am The Very Model of A General Semanticist
"I am the very model of a general semanticist
My feet are firmly planted, I'm no longer a romanticist.
I'm very well informed about psychoses and neuroses, 
But I'm losing all my friends since I acquired halitosis. 
I'm very good at recognizing everyone's hostility
And I can point a finger at their lack of objectivity. 
At picking out projections I am certainly without a peer 
I think it's such a shame that all my friends won't stick around to hear. 

"I am the very model of a general semanticist.
I utilize its principles in bringing up my hordes of kids. 
I've thrown away my Doctor Spock and substituted Summerhill,
I gratify their every need instead of giving them a pill.
I haven't found a school around to use their creativity,
They won't admit a child who isn't toilet trained at puberty. 
They're well-adjusted, self-expressive, uninhibited and free,
I wish to hell that I could find a mother-substitute for me. 

"I am the very model of a general semanticist.
I'm well enough to do away with three of my psychiatrists. 
I know the very latest in extensional devices
And I've traded all my virtues for a gorgeous lot of vices.
My husband is much delighted with my growth in self-development
My intellectual progress is the cause of some resentment.
However, I have found a way to cope with his hostility, 
And find it has a very good effect on his virility.

"I am the very model of a general semanticist 
In every way at work and play I have become an optimist
In matters economical, political I'm vehement
I am the very model of a general semanticist."

From the Stray Thought Bin - Wonders of the World

Despite its many horrors, the world remains a place of many wonders to explore. And you the wonderer, not apart from the world, remain among the most wondrous parts of it. 

Wittgenstein - On the Function of his Writing

"I should not like my writing to spare other people the trouble of thinking. But, if possible, to stimulate someone to thoughts of his own."
— Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1947

Foreword to Philosophical Investigations, trans. by G. E. M. Anscombe, Basil Blackwell: Oxford, 1953. p. x.  

Gad Horowitz on The Process We Label "Self"

"The process we label "self " is discontinuous. It renews itself from moment to moment. Almost non-metaphorically, you can say, and it has been said, that there is death every moment, that there is a gap or pause between this moment of life and the next, this moment of self and the next. 
     In this gap or pause one can appreciate the discontinuity of life and the possibility that this offers for liberation from the burden of insensate habit that ordinarily obfuscates the possibilities of fundamental change from one moment to the next. The speedier life gets, the more intense the illusion becomes of the continuity of self speeding through time."
     — Gad Horowitz, excerpt from "Berlin Dharma: Motion, Thinking, Noise", a five-day interview-event, 14-19 February, 2007, interviewed by Shannon Bell: Berlin Dharma on Youtube.*

*Quoted on p. ix, "Introduction" [by] SHANNON BELL AND peter kulchyski of Subversive Itinerary: The Thought of Gad Horowitz, ed by shannon bell and peter kulchyski. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2013. 

The Explorer – A Poem by Ted P. Daly

The Explorer *

I cannot dance in simple bliss

To the tinkling symbols of the age; 

Or join with full abandon

The parade of waving flags; 

Or step with unmixed joy 

To the strains of another's  song; 

Or choose between ploughshares and the sword

As those who chant for peace or war. 

I press beyond the soothing myth, 

Beyond the parables of truth

To a land of tingling consciousness, 

Of pure, if thinner air. 

Oh, many have been lost here, 

The landmarks are very few, 

But whatever I may find, 

I shall report to you. 

* from March Through Russia and Other Poems (1969) by Ted P. Daly. Philadelphia, Pa.: Dorrance & Company

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? 

From The Stray Thought Bin - "Skeptics and Skeptics"

The best skeptics not only doubt, but doubt their doubt and often doubt that too. 

Aristotle's Non-Aristotelianism

"Essentialism", an emphasis on 'essences' expressed in definitions and a rigid insistence on 'laws of thought' characterize what Korzybski called the aristotelian orientation. But despite the essentialism which Aristotle got from his teacher Plato, Aristotle himself went beyond it in several ways that show he was not himself a strict 'aristotelian'. 

For example, although Aristotle systematized the search for essences in his logical works, the focus of this search for him seems somewhat different from that of Plato. 

Plato had clearly emphasized the secondary importance of the visible world compared to the more important world of ideal forms or essences that he postulated. Aristotle, on the other hand, emphasized the importance of the world we live in, with the forms or essences existing within the objects around us that we see and touch.

Despite the essentialistic drift of his logic, this 'realistic' bent of Aristotle makes his philosophy in some ways more congenial with Korzybski's "non-aristotelian" perspective than some people might expect.  There are  places in his writings related to logic and methodology where Aristotle indicates some quite non-aristotelian sounding (in the korzybskian sense) leeway in what are still referred to as the aristotelian "laws of thought".

For example, in Metaphysics, he wrote: "...however much all things may be 'so and so', still there is a more and a less in the nature of things." (Book IV: Ch. 4, p. 743) In De Interpretatione, he noted that certain statements may have an "undecided" or indeterminate value, neither "true" nor "false". For example, take the statements "A sea-fight will take place tomorrow." 

"One may indeed be more likely to be true than the other, but it cannot be either actually true or actually false. It is therefore plain that it is not necessary that of an affirmation and a denial one should be true and the other false." (Ch. 9, p. 48)

Aristotle also moved beyond the two-valued approach of his logic in his work on ethics and politics. In Nichomachean Ethics, he emphasized the doctrine of the "golden mean", which involves each individual finding the best intermediate third value between two extremes. So courage provides a mean between excessive fear and over-confidence, and temperance lies between the extremes of self-indulgence and 'insensibilty'. (Book II: Ch.7, pp. 959-960)

In his Politics, he emphasized that the individual and society did not have to exist in opposition to each other: "Man is a political animal" who develops his excellence in the company of others, while the State can function to aid the individual in his self-development. 

Despite these exceptions, Aristotle and followers put into place a system that, when carried into the orientation of everyday evaluating and science, became rigidified. This "aristotelian" orientation has outlived its usefulness as an overarching approach.

Korzybski emphasized his admiration for Aristotle even as he criticized and sought to go beyond aristotelianism:

"To avoid misunderstanding I wish to acknowledge explicitly my profound admiration for the extraordinary genius of Aristotle, particularly in consideration of the period in which he lived. Nevertheless, the twisting of his system and the imposed immobility of this twisted system, as enforced for nearly two thousand years by the controlling groups, often under threats of torture and death, have led and can only lead to more disasters. From what we know about Aristotle, there is little doubt that, if alive, he would not tolerate such twistings and artificial immobility of the system usually ascribed to him." (Science and Sanity, Fifth Edition, p. xciv)

To conclude, Korzybski was certainly NOT anti-Aristotle nor anti-aristotelian logic. Instead, he objected to aristotelianism as an orientation or system involving the basic structural assumptions about the world ('metaphysics') and human knowledge ('epistemology') that he saw underlying Aristotle's systematic views (epitomized in the view of aristotelian logic as 'the' logic). Korzybski felt the need to challenge and revise these structural assumptions in the light of later scientific investigations, since overemphasizing aristotelian logic as 'the' logic encouraged an essentialist, what he called an "intensional" orientation in science and life, involving "identification" or "confusion of orders of abstraction". For Korzybski, aristotelian logic still had a place in useful formulating but could no longer be given an exclusive or dominating position. The main emphasis of Korzybski's work in "general semantics" (GS) was not on 'logic' as such, but on what might be called "psycho-logic", i.e., understanding and enhancing the entire scope of human evaluating including thinking-feeling-perceiving-doing, etc.; our evaluational reactions. 

References

McKeon, Richard. 1941. The Basic Works of Aristotle. New York: Random House.