Chapter 64 - Hardly A Day Off: Part 4 - Cooper Union

Korzybski: A Biography (Free Online Edition)

Copyright © 2014 (2011) by Bruce I. Kodish 

All rights reserved. Copyright material may be quoted verbatim without need for permission from or payment to the copyright holder, provided that attribution is clearly given and that the material quoted is reasonably brief in extent.

The Introduction to the Second Edition of Manhood of Humanity now became the focus of Korzybski’s attention once again. If he could get it to the printer—along with the other manuscript changes—no later than the first week of June, they had a chance of having the book available for the Third Congress on General Semantics scheduled for July 22 to 24 in Denver. In the interim, he had to prepare for a presentation on “Time-Binding–The Foundation for General Semantics” on Monday evening, March 28 at the Cooper Union in New York City, to open a series of “Five Lectures on General Semantics” scheduled to run at Cooper Union through the end of April. On April 11, Lillian Lieber from the Department of Mathematics of Long Island University would speak on “Modern Logic”, followed by a talk on “Pictures and Meaning” two days later by her husband Hugh; Hayakawa, speaking on “Semantics, General Semantics”, was scheduled for Monday April 18; and the series would wrap up on April 25 with a presentation on “General Semantics and Abstract Art” by Martin James from the New York Society for General Semantics.

Korzybski had been generating a lot of material on time-binding for the Manhood Introduction that he could use for his lecture. He usually spoke extemporaneously even when he had a written speech; but perhaps because he had so much material for the lecture and didn’t feel confident about the organization, he asked Guthrie Janssen to summarize his presentation outline and typed notes into a more condensed and polished written text they could use as a press release. Janssen prepared a typed triple-spaced text within 24 hours, just in time for Alfred and Charlotte’s departure for New York City on the Saturday before the lecture. Korzybski may have used this as a template to further organize his talk.

Janssen’s summary, unfortunately, was not included in Korzybski’s Collected Writings. Janssen deleted a lot of material, but tried to stay as close as possible to Korzybski’s words and outline; and one can see Korzybski’s hand—indeed his handwriting—on earlier typed manuscript versions. An examination of these and Janssen’s final version shows Korzybski’s lecture as an account of his work from the viewpoint of time-binding, including a foray into his personal history, applying the time-binding notion to himself to show some of the important influences that led to his work. He emphasized that he built GS from his study of time-binding and its mechanisms, not from studying ‘thinking’ or ‘language’ or ‘semantics’ as such. He discussed the importance of exponential laws for time-binding, Graicunas’ work, dictatorships, and the relationships among these.(18) 

On the evening of the lecture, a nice turnout of perhaps 200 people was expected; 800 showed up. The publicity from the Time article may have increased Korzybski’s draw. Having gotten another head cold, he wondered later “how I lasted the lecture.”(19) Nonetheless, those attending seem to have found his presentation memorable. Eugene Garfield, who would become well known in library/information science as the developer of the Science Citation Index, wrote in 1953:

Many years ago, I attended a lecture by Alfred Korzybski, the founder of General Semantics. I am sure that the large audience in attendance at Cooper Union Hall in New York will never forget Korzybski’s dramatic technique in getting across the idea that association-of-ideas techniques can lead to poor semantic adjustments. Korzybski had placed a huge placard on the stage which was an enlargement of the familiar Aunt Jemima pancake flour box. Aunt Jemima remained on the stage all the time Korzybski spoke. (20) 

Link to Korzybski's Aunt Jemima story 

Garfield would note his interest in general semantics and time-binding as one of the influences that drew him into the field of scientific documentation and would put Manhood of Humanity as one of the 18 books on his “Basic List of Works In Documentation”.(21) 

Jan Sand, a writer for the online magazine Ovi, also attended Korzybski’s lecture but seemed to have a less satisfying experience, which he wrote about it in a 2007 column:

...I first encountered non-Aristotelian thought in a science-fiction story by A. E. Van Vogt titled “The World of Null A” wherein someone adept in non-Aristotelian concepts could instantly transport himself through space merely by thinking the proper thoughts. A tempting but, unfortunately, unattained so far capability.*      

* [But Van Vogt's character could transport himself through the universe solely because had had an extra brain designed for that purpose, not because he was adept in non-aristotelian 'thinking'.] 

Like most philosophical tracts Korzybski’s book covers a broad spectrum of human cognition and is frequently such a tangle of words and concepts that it presents a virtual jungle of linguistic density that could easily daunt the casual explorer. I once, long ago, attended a lecture by Korzybski at the Cooper Union auditorium in New York City in the hopes that he might lead me through easy paths into reasonable comprehension of his ideas. His lecture remains only a faint memory and the only outstanding characteristic of his presentation that still remains is that his Polish accent was so dominant that the words flew through my mind like a panicked flight of exotic birds leaving behind only the memory of disturbing squawks and violent passage. I left the lecture still puzzled and frustrated. Nevertheless, there is value in his viewpoint. (22)

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. 

18.Korzybski.“Cooper Union Address”,Unpublished. IGS Archives.

19. AK to Kendig, 2/3/1949. IGS Archives. 

20. Garfield 1953. “Librarian Versus Documentalist”. [http://www.garfield.library.upenn.edu/papers/librarianvsdocumentalisty1953.html]. Accessed on 3/26/2010. 

21. Garfield. nd. “Basic List of Works In Documentation”. [http://www.garfield.library.upenn.edu/papers/6.html]. Accessed on 3/26/2010. 

22. Sand 2007. “IS”. [http://ovimagazine.com/art/2387. Accessed 3/26/2010]. 

< Part 3      Part 5 >

Return to Table of Contents 

Chapter 64 - Hardly A Day Off: Part 3 - Yale

Korzybski: A Biography (Free Online Edition)

Copyright © 2014 (2011) by Bruce I. Kodish 

All rights reserved. Copyright material may be quoted verbatim without need for permission from or payment to the copyright holder, provided that attribution is clearly given and that the material quoted is reasonably brief in extent.

By this time, Mira had gotten less steady on her feet; but otherwise, under the care of her doctors, she seemed to be managing fairly well with a visiting nurse coming twice a week (she would soon have a young woman helper staying with her as well). She had hoped Alfred and Charlotte would be coming to Chicago to visit her before the end-of-year Holiday Intensive. Alfred, continuing to worry about her wellbeing, had hoped so too. But as it turned out, coming to Chicago would have to wait. Recovering from the flu, he still felt weak and didn’t feel up to rushing to get to Chicago then. Instead he decided to make another trip to New York City with Charlotte in early December to deal with publishing issues and to work on a writing project of some importance to him—a review of the recently published Resolving Social Conflicts: Selected Papers on Group Dynamics by the late Kurt Lewin, whose physico-mathematical way of ‘thinking’ Korzybski felt very much in synch with.(3) 

AK with Charlotte Schuchardt in New York, December 1948

The book, edited by Lewin’s widow Gertrude, dealt with issues related to changing the cultures of groups and societies (e.g., Germany) in the direction of democratic values; conflict resolution; and psycho-social problems of minority groups using the example of Jews coping with antisemitism—all topics of great interest to Korzybski. (However seriously he took the review, he couldn’t get it into adequate shape before having to return to Lime Rock, and ultimately it never got published.) While still in New York, he thought he could go out to see Mira in January even though he would really have to rush, since he’d been invited to give a seminar at Yale University at the start of February. But it would turn out that January would have too much going on with too little time for a visit to Chicago.

While 1948 had been Korzybski’s least busy year in number of presentations, his 1949 schedule already included many seminars, lectures, and talks, some connected with the upcoming Third Congress on General Semantics in Denver. In addition to all else, he would have to continue working to finish the Introduction to the Second Edition of Manhood, and otherwise preparing the book for print, advising on other Institute publications of his works, other writing projects, etc. When was he going to see Mira?

On December 31, mid-Holiday Intensive seminar, heavy rains overflowed the creek between the Institute and the Lime Rock Lodge, inundating the Lodge and requiring them to evacuate it with everything and everyone to the Indian Mountain School in Lakeville, where they still managed to have a New Year’s Eve party that night and continue the seminar the next day. The Institute appeared unaffected by the rains. But early the next morning Kendig got a nasty surprise: the Institute basement had filled up overnight with four feet of water. A laborer had borrowed the Institute sump pump and, after returning it, failed to plug it in. They had a huge mess to clean up with water-logged books, files, pictures, trunks, etc. In his lecture that day, Korzybski—who normally devoted seminar time to talking about organizational and management issues—used the incident as an example of ‘the eternal need for supervision’ to make sure that ‘little things’ that might lead to heavy consequences got done, even while respecting vertical-horizontal structure in an organization and so working to avoid Graicunas-style overload.*

*[Ralph recalled that in this final part of what became known as the Flood Seminar, “AK seemed to have shed 20 years. He was vigorous; high-spirited; his face looked much as it does on the back cover of S&S, 4th edition. He spoke with verve, élan and wit – astonished us all.” (Ralph C. Hamilton to Bruce Kodish, 11/17/2005.)]

In January 1949, after the ‘Flood Seminar’, the Institute had some important personnel changes. Werner von Kuegelgen, whose wife Fritzie had done secretarial work for the Institute, began working as IGS accountant and sales manager. A German who had spent the war years in Berlin as an economist on the Price Control Board, von Kuegelgen had come to the U.S. and Lime Rock in August 1948, where Fritzie, an American citizen, and their three children had arrived two years before. The Institute accounting, sales procedures, etc., greatly disrupted during the move from Chicago, still needed major overhauls. Von Kuegelgen, who had a doctorate in Economics as well as practical experience in accounting and financial management, would get the IGS books, etc., into very efficient shape over the next year. Meanwhile, Ralph Hamilton, who had already moved from the Institute in November, was phasing out of his job as Korzybski’s assistant; although over the next year he would still occasionally meet with Korzybski and do editing work for the Institute. Meanwhile, 19-year-old David Levine, who had been working at the Institute as a general assistant since the fall, picked up some of Hamilton’s duties. After getting his Bachelor’s degree from the University of Chicago in June 1948, Levine had gone to work at the ISGS office until getting laid off because of slumping Society finances. He had immediately called the Institute and asked Kendig if she had work for him. She offered him a working scholarship at that summer’s seminar-workshop at Millbrook and after the seminar offered him a complete “support package” in exchange for work at the Institute. He had worked in the office, and had started to type and do research for Korzybski. Now at the end of January, Kendig asked him to come to Yale as part of the IGS staff to help Korzybski with his seminar there.

The invitation to lecture at Yale that Korzybski had received from F. S. C. Northrop, Sterling Professor of Philosophy and Law, reflected a genuine interest in Korzybski’s work among both students and professors there. The Yale student organization provided a generous honorarium for Korzybski and expenses for him and his staff. A distinguished list of professors, including Northrop, had signed on as Honorary Sponsors. Robert Redpath obtained a grant from the Blue Hill Foundation for student scholarships and 65 people, mostly Yale students, registered to attend the seminar, which ran from Tuesday to Sunday, February 1 to 6. Redpath helped organize the event with Fred Sanborn, another Korzybski student and ‘Yalie’. Besides the seminar (totaling 27 hours of lecture by Korzybski), an evening Colloquium was held over three successive nights with an average attendance of 150. Various professors held forth on their interpretations and applications of Korzybski’s work with Korzybski responding afterwards.

On the preceding Saturday, Levine, Kendig, Charlotte, and von Kuegelgen (who would be attending his first seminar) drove down to New Haven from the Institute with Korzybski. Levine “...watched in fascination as Korzybski came down the stairs from his second floor office, to get into Kendig’s automobile for the trip.”:

He held onto the railing with a “death grip” and moved slowly, in obvious pain. But there was a determined expression on his face and an aura of confidence about him...I thought to myself, “Neither heaven nor hell would keep this fellow from his seminar at Yale.” We got him safely buckled into his seat in the front passenger’s [side]. Korzybski was wearing his usual khakis and a warm, lined trench overcoat that gave him a distinctly military air. His heavy cane was perched on the back seat, ready at hand. I traveled with Charlotte in her little coupe. (4 )

On Monday, January 31, the day before the start of the seminar, a luncheon organized by Robert Redpath was held in Korzybski’s honor at the Yale Faculty Club attended by about 15 professors, including faculty sponsors and colloquium speakers.(5)  F. S. C. Northrop, a former student of Whitehead’s, was among those who met Korzybski there and Korzybski greeted him with great enthusiasm. Northrop belonged to that select group of philosophers whom Korzybski would designate with a more honorable title—for him—an up-to-date ‘epistemologist’. Philosophical commentator Bryan Magee, who studied with Northrop in the 1950s, would note his genius for teaching and considered him as a polymath, “in the same class as Bertrand Russell and Karl Popper.”(6) But Northrop would not become nearly as well known as either of those two men. Northrop had immersed himself deeply in the sciences and in comparative socio-cultural history, and in particular had a deep concern for the epistemological and cultural implications of the relativity and quantum revolutions in mathematical physics. In a time when philosophy and other academic disciplines seemed to be moving towards more and more minute analysis and specialization, Northrop’s interest in and talent for synthesis led him to transcend disciplinary boundaries in a way that probably helped put his work increasingly in the shadows of academic fashion.

Korzybski had been aware of Northrop’s work for a long time, including Northrop’s first book, the 1931 Science and First Principles listed in the bibliography of Science and Sanity. In his 1947 book, The Logic of the Sciences and Humanities, Northrop had attempted to establish a common epistemological framework for all forms of knowledge that included aesthetic experience and theoretical science and that had a place for values and value judgments. As Northrop recounted, Korzybski gave him a “warm and enthusiastic report on the merits of this same book. He told me that the only trouble with the book was that I packed so much into each sentence that only an informed reader paying attention to the meanings of words appreciates what is being said.”(7)

As with many of those contemporaries whose works he admired, Korzybski seems to have known Northrop’s work much better than Northrop knew his. (Northrop continued to refer to Korzybski’s work as a kind of ‘semantics’.) But Northrop was interested and open to learning more. Korzybski had known about the luncheon in advance and worked for some time on the short speech that he gave there describing his own work (recorded and later published in the May 1949 issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry). He began with a tribute to the late Yale mathematical physicist, Willard Gibbs, whom he considered “one of the greatest scientists this country has ever produced.”(8) This impressed Northrop, who also admired Gibbs:

This made it immediately clear to me that [Korzybski] was not one of those nominalistic semanticists who think the meanings of all concepts reduce to inductively given particulars [e.g., Hayakawa’s Bessie the Cow1, Cow2, Cow3, etc.] One cannot know and understand Gibbs’ work without recognizing the important role of what I term concepts by postulation as well as nominalistic particulars in scientific knowledge.” (9) 

Dave Levine, who took care of the microphone, speaker, and recording equipment for Korzybski’s lectures and took notes for Korzybski, described his performance in the sessions at Yale as a “tour de force...His personal remarks were kept to a minimum (much to our relief) but he sprinkled his talk with touches of humor and little ‘stories’ that captured his audience, made them laugh, and made them listen...I was amazed at Korzybski’s stamina.”(10) 

Seminar attendee Thomas A. Gleeson, a graduate student in meteorology would agree with Levine’s assessment. Gleeson had already read Science and Sanity twice, had been working to make applications to himself and his work, and felt that, as he later wrote to Korzybski, “this seminar seemed tailor made for me. I had, I believe, a grounding in GS from S&S, etc. that seemed to be a definite prerequisite to the course.”

The course served to enhance a non-verbal ‘feeling,’ a perspective for the subject; and this was due to the stresses, intonations, gestures, etc. imposed on the verbal subject material. Thus my curiosities were satisfied, I filled a notebook completely, —and now the ‘photograph’ of the blackboard diagrams is framed on an easel on my desk in lieu of a model of the structural differential, as a constant reminder of the methodology. (11) 

Yet Korzybski had his problems. After the first full day of lectures Charlotte wrote to Mira about how things were going: “Edgy dear...The Count is doing very well. I haven’t seen him so full of pep for a couple of years. The program is quite a killing one, but he seems to be enjoying it.”(12) With the large class and short amount of time, Korzybski couldn’t personally meet all of the students, as he preferred to do. In addition, as Charlotte wrote: “Many of them don’t know S&S which makes it difficult. But the Count is giving good lectures.”(13) Many of the Yale students—as well as faculty—seemed primed with non-useful preconceptions about Korzybski’s ‘semantics’. Gleeson noted a “bull session” he had late into the second night with five or six of the students who “were rather unfamiliar with GS, not to mention S&S”:

They were, to put it mildly, quite unreceptive to the subject matter of the lectures. They appeared not too well equipped to attack GS more generally, but rather picked at details in the lectures, (a practice you warned against, I believe, as a deterrent to the learning process). My arguments on the pro side were somewhat limited, for I had learned from previous experience how inadequate arguments can be in like circumstances. So I just listened. (14) 

Regarding the colloquium, Korzybski had his difficulties too—especially so on the second night when social psychologist Leonard Doob gave a talk focusing on Korzybski’s work as an approach to language and ‘semantics’. Korzybski found Doob’s questions to so misconstrue his work, that he struggled to answer without contradicting and embarrassing Doob. He wanted to be polite but apparently felt irritated enough to ask Doob if he had read Science and Sanity. Doob, as he later wrote to Korzybski, felt miffed. The next day in class, Korzybski mentioned in passing his discouragement with the session, though not mentioning Doob by name. His critical comments got back to Doob. The two men corresponded after the seminar and existing letters show that they not only honestly discussed what happened—including ‘hurt feelings’, etc.—but also expressed genuine admiration for each others’ work. Much later, Doob’s 1952 textbook Social Psychology devoted several pages to Korzybski and GS as a school of “semantics” of “interest to social psychology along with Ogden and Richards.”(15)  If his understanding of Korzybski’s work remained superficial, at least he gave what he did understand of the extensional devices, etc., some honorable mention, and made some applications, however tentative, in subsequent parts of the book.

In his letter to Korzybski, Thomas Gleeson observed how easy it seemed for Doob and others to have “missed the point” about Korzybski’s work:

Which only reminded me of difficulties I’d had in the past in trying to answer acquaintances who’d asked me what GS is. I never did succeed in answering them well ‘in just a few words,’ partly because of my poor presentation perhaps, but also, (and this is more to the point,) because a new orientation cannot be imparted ‘in just a few words.’ Finally, I just tell them, “Read the book.” Others have balked at this task, saying they haven’t the ‘time.’ The latter have often been content to read, Language in Action, or a similarly less adequate presentation. After reading such a popularization they have made such remarks as, “I knew this stuff all the time! Why all the fuss about calling it ‘General Semantics?’,” or, “Would you say General Semantics is a branch of pragmatism or empiricism?”, or , “I guess you could sum it all up by saying, ‘Don’t make generalizations,’ couldn’t you?,” (quite a generalization in itself,) etc. (16) 

Since driving wasn’t allowed on the Yale campus, colleagues had to use a wheelchair to take Alfred around in a timely fashion from the campus residence where he was staying to the lecture hall. After their return to Lime Rock, Time Magazine, one of a number of periodicals that had sent reporters and photographers to cover Alfred’s visit to Yale, ran a story on him, “Always The Etc.” in the “Education” section of its February 14 edition. Somewhat flippant in tone, it had a number of factual errors; for example, according to the article Korzybski had spent most of his time at Yale in the wheelchair and in addition used the wheelchair to ‘whisk’ around the halls of the Institute. Still, as Charlotte wrote to Mira, the article could have been a lot worse. Mira for one, felt delighted to see it. The coverage of Alfred’s work in the national weekly—a much deserved sign of recognition—seemed to her like a wonderful valentine.(17) 

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. 

3. Charlotte Schuchardt to Kendig, 12/17/1948, IGS Archives. 

4. David Linwood [Levine] 2005, “Institute of General Semantics – 1945 to 1950: A Personal History”. Unpublished. 

5. Charlotte Schuchardt to Kendig, 2/5/1949. AK Archives, Box 22, Folder 1. 

6. Magee 1997, p. 130. 

7. Northrop, Letter to Editor, General Semantics Bulletin 8 & 9 (Winter Spring 1952), p. 95. 

8. Korzybski, “On General Semantics and Physico-Mathematical Method”, Alfred Korzybski Collected Writings, p. 667. 

9. Northrop, Letter to Editor, General Semantics Bulletin 8 & 9 (Winter Spring 1952), p. 95. 

10. David Linwood [Levine] 2005, “Institute of General Semantics – 1945 to 1950: A Personal History”. Unpublished. 

11. Thomas A. Gleeson to AK, 2/21/1949. IGS Archives. Gleeson went on to a distinguished career in meteorological research and education becoming an elected Fellow of the American Meteorological Society. 

12. Charlotte Schuchardt to MEK, 2/3/1949. AK Archives, Box 22, Folder 1. 

13. Ibid. 

14. Thomas A. Gleeson to AK, 2/21/1949. IGS Archives. 

15. Doob 1952, pp. 115-119. 

16. Thomas A. Gleeson to AK, 2/21/1949. IGS Archives. 

17. MEK to AK, 2/13/1949. AK Archives, Box22, Folder 1.

< Part 2      Part 4 >

Return to Table of Contents 

From The Stray Thought Bin: "Aun Aprendo."

So much to learn, so little time; use every moment. 

Chapter 64 - Hardly A Day Off: Part 2 - Home At Work

Korzybski: A Biography (Free Online Edition)

Copyright © 2014 (2011) by Bruce I. Kodish 

All rights reserved. Copyright material may be quoted verbatim without need for permission from or payment to the copyright holder, provided that attribution is clearly given and that the material quoted is reasonably brief in extent.

Ralph C. Hamilton, living at the Institute for most of the time from September 1947 until January 1949, working as a personal assistant to Korzybski, gained a unique view of his mentor. Ralph, a veteran of World War II in his late twenties, had enough background and maturity to meet Korzybski as more of an equal than either of two younger men, Dave Levine and Dave Bourland, who filled similar roles for shorter periods after him. For its intimate feel of Korzybski’s daily life, I’ll quote extensively from Ralph’s recollections (2): 

I lived at the Institute. My room was on the third floor. It was a room-and-board arrangement. Charlotte did the cooking. I washed the dishes – often fixed my own breakfast, sometimes lunch. Dinner was usually in AK’s office en famille – AK, Kendig, Charlotte, me... I had some minor chores about the house – keeping the kitchen kerosene water heater fueled, some snow shoveling in winter, going shopping weekly with Charlotte, etc. I ran off mailings and related material on the third-floor mimeo machine, took care of the library, read and wrote reviews on books—mostly scientific—sent to AK for review, had “consultations” and “junior seminars” with AK in his office when he had some issue he wanted to get off his chest, typed his letters (he dictated directly to the typewriter), provided technical or scientific comments, if asked, on matters he was interested in—in fact saw him daily or twice daily.

He kept a police whistle on his desk. One blast, Charlotte. Two blasts, me. He used to say, “I hate that whistle. But I have to use it.”

Occasionally, some oddball, weirdo, or interested person found the Institute and wanted to talk. When any showed up on the front walk or at the door, I was summoned by Kendig or Charlotte and he was handed to me for interview. I was usually able to spot, in something he was concerned about, an aspect where GS could be applied. And he generally went away happy. This happened perhaps three or four times during my stay there.

During the ’48 winter seminar, I think it was, Douglas Kelley remarked to me, “You’re keeping him alive. He needs someone to talk to.” And he explained that in contrast to the Chicago scene, there were no scientifically trained people around Lakeville AK could talk to, except me. I have doubts that the matter was that vital.

Anyway, I became a sort of technical assistant and commentator. He would give me a scientific article, have me read it, and then talk to me about it, partly for my benefit, partly to get his notions about it formulated and clarified. My main duty during seminars, was to take full notes of AK’s lectures. He would review the notes each night to see if he’d said the necessary and if anything more was needed; this was an education in itself.

During this time I was not otherwise employed; did have some time to work on my own stuff. I was not paid by IGS. We had agreed that being steeped in a GS environment, including daily “lectures” from AK, plus room and board, were fair exchange for my services. And Kendig and Charlotte, because I was a singer, encouraged me to further community relations by joining the Lakeville Methodist Church choir and taking part in other musical choruses, oratorios and such. I was a soloist at the church.

Korzybski had gotten somewhat overweight by this time, though not markedly so. Still, except for an occasional cold, he seemed generally healthy and vigorous.

Regarding his mobility, Ralph didn’t see any marked change since 1946, but he had probably become less active. Limited by his war-damaged left leg, Korzybski stayed mainly on the second floor, only occasionally coming down to the ground floor for a party or other event. Using his cane, he seemed to have little trouble crossing between his room and office.

He seemed to enjoy his food. For their dinners in his office, Charlotte would run up and down the stairs with the Eastern European food she had cooked that Alfred liked—kasha, potato pancakes, sausage, etc. Ralph recalled Korzybski patting his stomach at the end of such a meal saying, “I et too much but it was good”, then looking over to Ralph and saying “Skinny, you must eat.” A fairly constant smoker, who knew it wasn’t good for him, Korzybski at least wasn’t one of those people Ralph had known who would light up the next cigarette with the embers of the previous one. He used a cigarette holder and lit up about once every hour or so. Ralph, not a smoker himself, didn’t recall the brand. (Dave Bourland recalled it as Lucky Strike.) Alfred normally kept a glass of rum-and-water on his desk (he liked Ronrico), sipping from it occasionally, the frequency of refill depending on his mood of the day. Once in a while, he would appear to get a bit clouded toward day’s end with a slight slurring of speech, but Ralph recalled “no change in interests, values, concerns.” Ralph recalled Guthrie Janssen once joking that when Korzybski said ‘I speak of cases...,’ Ronrico was what he had in ‘mind’. (But Korzybski was not the only person at the Institute—as he put it—‘not a non-drinker’.)

Korzybski & Kendig tête-à-tête at a party gathering, circa 1949

Regarding Korzybski’s daily routine and working habits, Ralph noted:

AK was usually at work in his office by 0900 or earlier, and kept at it, often until well after dinner. He worked slowly, taking pains that everything was just right; pausing now and then to hold forth to me on the meaning and implications of whatever it was; sometimes with applications to me personally—sort of “counseling.” His work consisted of correspondence; study of some scientific development with respect to its own field and to GS; preparation and editing of articles, etc., etc. He was not much involved in day-to-day business such as administrative details (Charlotte), membership, relations with trustees, planning programs, overall finances (Kendig), etc.; but was kept briefed. Routine, business, promotional and other correspondence was mostly handled by Kendig, Charlotte, and their assistants according to responsibilities listed above. AK took care of correspondence with his friends, scientific connections, media, etc. 

Korzybski still did some of his own two-fingered typing, sometimes having to bandage his fingers to protect them when they got raw. But he had Ralph type his letters (except for personal ones to Mira or more confidential ones to students, which Charlotte continued to type). Ralph would sit at the typing table in front of Alfred’s desk and sometimes they might get done 6 to 10 letters per day if they contained brief responses to something. With other ‘heavy’ letters to E.T. Bell or to Kelley for example, they might do one or two per day. Alfred might dictate for a while, then at some point stop and give Ralph a ‘junior seminar’, before saying “Continuity” so that Ralph would read back what he had written so far and they could go on.

Korzybski saw educating Ralph as an important part of their work together. When Ralph first arrived at the Institute, Alfred arranged with Doctor Overholser, an Honorary Trustee of the Institute and the Superintendant of St. Elizabeths Hospital, to have Ralph go down there for a few days for a supervised tour of the place. Alfred told Ralph, “You will find yourself” among the psychiatric patients there. After Ralph returned, he reported he had actually done so. Later, when Ralph would abstract an article or book for Alfred and give a report on it, Alfred seemed as interested in Ralph’s process as in the reported content. He might give Ralph a gentle scolding, “You don’t read. Remember this when you read, study the author.”

Ralph observed that the amount of work to be done at the Institute seemed tremendous:

AK and the staff were, each of them, riding a formidable backlog. There were not enough hands, or heads knowledgeable in the underlying theme of IGS (“Linguistic Epistemologic Scientific Research & Education”); not enough hands to run the ship, not enough funding. AK used to say, “We ought to be funded by the Government.” 

Nonetheless, Korzybski plunged and plugged ahead. Ralph “likened his passion for getting every detail right to a cowboy leaping from his horse to wrestle a mouse to the ground. It could get trying. Without this focus to a tremendous overall drive he would not have produced his work.” Ralph found him slow as a reader, marking just about everything he read. His work model in writing, as he stressed to Ralph, was: “First spit it out, then go back and fix it up.” Having eaten very little breakfast, Korzybski would have lunch and then continue working in the afternoon. After dinner, he would usually either go back to work, if he had something pressing to do, or retire to his room.

Despite the amount of work, Ralph and Alfred had many conversations:

We had all kinds of conversations: scientific, political, reminiscences about his youth in Poland, WWI, selling war bonds in the US, the moment of inspiration when the conception that became GS occurred to him, personal stuff, etc., etc. He was a one-way “conversationalist.” His hearing had been blasted during the war and he had great difficulty hearing what you were saying (especially when he had something important to say) and that double barrier was sometimes impassible. But that was minor. I would not have missed any of those conversations.  

Among the topics of conversation was the U.S. Congress: “Ah, that filibuster! It’s short of criminal! Saunders approves it, I say it should be prohibited.”

As to opinions, he used to say, “In the old, ‘democratic’ way, everyone has a ‘right’ to his opinion. In the new way, scientifically, no one has a ‘right’ to his opinion—if he has not studied the matter and informed himself.” 

Working daily with Korzybski for over a year typing letters; ‘delousing’ his writings; chasing down some piece of scientific data for him; helping him with seminar preparation, note-taking, diagramming, demonstrating, etc., gave Ralph Hamilton a great deal of data for some strong impressions about Korzybski’s output and personality. Regarding Korzybski’s output (his lectures and writings):

AK had a feel for, an insight into the existence and importance of basic levels of process, submicroscopic (‘nanotech’) and sub-conscious. He lived in a multiordinal, multidimensional world, of structure and function, misrepresented by our language and A [aristotelian] orientations. I think it was this that gave his prose, written and spoken, its convoluted and often labored approach. He was trying to convey his “take” on things to his readers and hearers. And it was this that made diagrams and models (e.g., Structural Differential) and such visualizations necessary in his seminars and lectures. Such means enabled him to show several levels, dimensions, etc., at once: the structure of things...Mathematics too, is, or represents, multidimensionality, e.g., matrices, simultaneous equations, etc. 

Alfred’s analytical ability and what he called ‘feel’ seemed especially noteworthy:

You studied the data, you explored the structure involved, you visualized it and so on, until you had the feel. You could fly by the seat of your pants. You could feel the relations, patterns and structures involved...AK applied his “feel” to people too. He looked from his office window once and saw, some 80 yards away, a couple headed for the Institute. At that distance he couldn’t see who they were. He watched them for a couple of seconds and said to Charlotte and me, “That man is in love with that woman.” I knew who they were. He was right. And from such “feel” he derived his caring for the people he worked with; his ability to see “where they were at.” Which was sometimes uncomfortably acute.

Ralph noted the force of Korzybski’s personality:

The first impression you got on meeting AK was vigor and directness and openness. These came with courtesy. If you hit it off, the courtesy grew into consideration and, over time, caring. He cared about anyone associated with him, and spiced it with an impish humor. “Warm” was the word most used at IGS. Robert Heinlein described him: “He had gusto.” (Said of a character representing AK in the tale “Blowups Happen.”) If you didn’t hit it off, and he still had dealings with you, you soon found out. And if you needled him he was quite ready to lower the boom without malice.

Regarding Korzybski’s ‘impish’ humor:

On one occasion, at his desk, anent something he and Charlotte had been reading, AK (glancing sidelong at Charlotte), remarked to me “But you know, human bodies really ugly.” CS: “Now don’t start that.” AK (grinning at me): “You go out to the beach and look at the people. Ugly!” And so on, for a couple minutes. Charlotte, in a sort of resigned protest, walked out and sat on the steps outside the office door, while AK, still grinning, continued in this vein a bit. This was blaspheming part of Charlotte’s creed: beauty of the human body. With her dancing and related work, she aimed at perfecting the human form, in motion and rest. And AK in the role of Puck, mischievous but benign. Kendig could smile at this. But sometimes the mischief came her way, and it was her turn to protest. And Skinny got his share too. But, I wasn’t inclined to protest...As Charlotte strove...to develop beauty in the human form, so AK, you might say, strove to develop sanity. He kept at it in the face of what he saw at the beaches and hospitals and governments—manhood, as Lewis Carroll put it, involved in ambition, distraction, uglification and derision. 

Ralph recounted what happened near the end of 1948 when, deciding to leave his ‘informal’ unpaid Institute job, he told Korzybski. (Ralph would stay in touch and later, over the next year and into 1950, worked pro tem for the Institute for pay):

...I began to see that I’d done what I could at IGS, and IGS and AK had done what they could for me. More, at that point, would on my part be a surfeit with relatively little, by comparison, application in work. I knew AK would not take to my leaving and would vigorously try to persuade me to stay; and that I wouldn’t have much success in explaining my view, by reason of the one-way communication I’ve described. I left a note on his desk saying how much benefit I’d gained, how much I appreciated it, and how, regretfully, I must get a job and get to work. I would leave on such a date. Two blasts on the police whistle soon followed, and, bracing myself, I reported to the mentor. He asked, “How have I failed you?” I said I didn’t think he had; that I was much more capable now of doing the job I needed to find. He doubted it; asked me to cite how I would perform; how I would use my hands (always a big point with him) in talking to those I had to deal with; etc. Not much reassured, he gave me advice: act more extensionally, get in more direct contact with people, drop the theorizing and integrating for now—all sound, all valid. And shrugged his shoulders and sighed, and wished me well. 

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. Korzybski 1947, pp. 420-421. 

2. Ralph’s observations were gathered in number of phone interviews and letters between 2005 and 2009. After an initial phone conversation in October 2005, I mailed him an extensive list of questions to prime the pump for later discussions. Most of the material quoted here is from a remarkable 20-page letter stimulated by these questions that he began writing soon after our first contact. (Although dated November 17, 2005, Ralph’s letter was postmarked March 8, 2006.) The material in this letter-memoir was supplemented by interviews (Nov. 21, 2005), (Nov. 28, 2005), other letters (Mar. 7, 2006; Mar. 13, 2007), and phone conversations (Dec. 30, 2009). I remain in contact with Ralph, who has become a friend.  [2014-15 Update: on July 26, 2011 Ralph—in his 90s—died after a brief period of failing health. Ralph gave me a tremendous amount of time and help; I'll miss him. I had just sent him a bound galley proof of this just published biography. His son, also named Bruce, told me that he was able to tell his father that the book was out, and that Ralph had a prominent place in it. Ralph smilingly replied, 'That will ensure my notoriety.']

< Part 1      Part 3 >

Return to Table of Contents 

From the Stray Thought Bin: Et Cetera Strikes Again

When you know you don't know things you know, 

You can open yourself to that known unknown; somehow let it flow.

What we call 'intuition', no? 

Chapter 64 - Hardly A Day Off: Part 1 - Introduction

Korzybski: A Biography (Free Online Edition)

Copyright © 2014 (2011) by Bruce I. Kodish 

All rights reserved. Copyright material may be quoted verbatim without need for permission from or payment to the copyright holder, provided that attribution is clearly given and that the material quoted is reasonably brief in extent.

Korzybski took hardly a day off; then only, it seems, when forced by exhaustion or illness. He was mainly speaking for himself, when he told Ken Keyes in 1947, “We just work and work and work. No rest for the wicked, Saturday or Sunday.”

...We have some years ago discovered that once a week we simply have to take one day off completely. Simply we are dull the next week, and unfortunately as far as I am concerned, it turns out that I never have a Saturday or Sunday. When the weekend comes, then I have to start on something else to work, but occasionally I am just dead. Naturally. (1) 

Such devotion to work in his later years was not anything new, of course. From his childhood on the farm at Rudnik when he was told “Alfred, do it!”, he had always devoted himself with extra measure to whatever task he had set before him. In his final years he continued to push himself as hard as ever, though age had perhaps mellowed his intensity.

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. Korzybski 1947, pp. 420-421.

Part 2 >

Return to Table of Contents 

Chapter 63 - "What – Me Worry?": Part 4 - "What – Me Worry? "

Korzybski: A Biography (Free Online Edition)

Copyright © 2014 (2011) by Bruce I. Kodish 

All rights reserved. Copyright material may be quoted verbatim without need for permission from or payment to the copyright holder, provided that attribution is clearly given and that the material quoted is reasonably brief in extent.

Meanwhile planning had begun for the anticipated big event of 1948, the Third Congress on General Semantics, first announced in the fall of 1947. A postcard to members in February gave the dates and location, October 29 to 31 at the University of Denver, and included a request for getting abstracts to Kendig by March 1. In March, Kendig made another call for papers and announced a Pro Tem Committee for the Congress, with herself and Douglas Kelley as Co-Chairs, Korzybski consulting, and Hansell Baugh assisting them. In April, she took a whirlwind trip for the Institute to Washington D.C.; then to Denver for several days of planning with Elwood Murray and others at the University of Denver; then back to Lime Rock by way of Chicago, where she stopped to see Mira, and met with a number of people from the ISGS to promote—if she could—cooperation with the Institute. She returned to Lime Rock exhausted, but the plans for the Congress seemed well under way. Almost immediately, however, things began to unravel. 

It came down to a manpower shortage. Guthrie Janssen had just left the Institute. In a little more than a month, Hansell Baugh, another highly productive member of the IGS staff, would leave. The relative isolation of Lime Rock had begun to wear on him. In April, he had gone on vacation to New York City and the city’s attractions grabbed him and wouldn’t let go. By the time he left the Institute at the start of June, Kendig—awash in contributor’s papers to evaluate—was beginning to drown under them and the growing wave of other programming and planning details. She had committed herself to teach in the first two weeks of Elwood Murray’s five-week Basic Communication Workshop “Evaluation in Communication” at the University of Denver starting July 26 and then would have to rush home for the mid-August IGS seminar-workshop being held in Millbrook, New York. When would she have time to work on the Congress? With Douglas Kelley going to England to represent the Institute for a mid-August International Congress on Mental Health, delaying the Denver Congress until sometime in 1949 seemed inevitable. The delay, until an as-yet-uncertain date the following summer, was announced in early August; although to keep some momentum going, the Committee decided to hold a Congress Colloquium for planners and participants in Chicago over the same weekend in October for which they had planned the Congress.

They met on Saturday evening, October 30, at Abbot Hall on the Chicago Campus of Northwestern University where, after introductions from Kendig, Douglas Kelley, the moderator, explained what the program committee was looking for in papers, i.e., rigorous applications of non-aristotelian methodology. Elwood Murray spoke on the arrangements in Denver and suggested a general theme, “A Method of Integration Without Regimentation”. Each of seventeen people intending to present, gave three-minute summaries of their papers. Although successful, Kendig found her weekend in Chicago fraught with tension: she and Kelley had met with Institute Trustees there and she also conferred with Francis Chisholm and the ISGS Board of Directors on the long sought and frustrating issue of better coordination between the two organizations. After returning to Lime Rock, she collapsed into bed for two days.(12)

Several months earlier, in July, when the October Congress still seemed imminent, Korzybski had come to New York City with Charlotte to get away from the hubbub of the Institute in order to put together an Introduction to the Second Edition of Manhood—but he couldn’t complete it. The trip had started off badly. After their arrival at the train station, a stranger had picked up Alfred’s bag (borrowed from Ralph Hamilton) containing his papers and his copy of Manhood. Visits to the police proved fruitless in getting it back. Then, once they got down to work, Korzybski found the process of formulating the Introduction painful and difficult. They had nice rooms on the 12th floor of Hotel 33 on West 51st Street, a new place for them, across from Radio City Music Hall. Neither of them seemed to have gotten out much; although Charlotte, more mobile, had various items of business to do around town. Alfred spent much of the time in his room reading, mulling, and then talking over the proposed content while Charlotte took notes. He was reading a number of books on Russia, among them, John Fisher’s Why They Behave Like Russians and David Shub’s new biography Lenin, which soon took a prominent place on his recommended reading list for students. Shub, a writer for the Jewish Daily Forward in New York, had participated in the early Russian socialist movement and had known Lenin before 1917. His portrait of Lenin left no doubt that the Stalinist dictatorship of 1948 constituted a logical extension of Lenin’s earlier regime and vision. Both derived not only from Marxism, but also from the heritage of the older Russian autocracy. The book reminded Korzybski of his own days living as a subject of the Tsarist regime, and jogged his formulating about dictatorship from the perspective of time-binding. 

By the time he and Charlotte returned to Lime Rock in early August, after rather agonizing efforts, he had a lot of notes Charlotte had taken and, however inadequate, a tentative first draft. Although the front matter of the recently released Third Edition of Science and Sanity had listed a 1948 Second Edition of Manhood under “Volumes Already Published”, the delay of the Congress removed some of the incentive for producing the Introduction so quickly. Korzybski must have felt a measure of relief.

Charlotte described some of Korzybski’s process of working in a letter to Kendig on August 5, just before their return. Alfred had apparently responded somewhat gruffly to something Kendig had said to Charlotte (probably in a phone conversation) that Charlotte, in turn, had conveyed to him. Charlotte didn’t want Kendig to take his reaction personally:

He is so wrapped up in ‘thinking’ that nothing else makes the slightest impression on him. I can barely talk to him myself. He says that his present evaluation of Manhood, introduction, rather, is the most difficult thing he has written since Manhood, more difficult than writing S&S. He now has to include them both in his evaluation. It has been very painful for him, and I get kicked out regularly when he wants to be alone. It is a most frustrating and painful procedure all the way around. No talking, pleading, cajoling, considerations of the seminar [scheduled to start in one week], etc., etc., make the slightest bit of difference. Perhaps that is ‘what it takes’. Perhaps if you and I were like that we would get some creative work done. Well, this is just by way of sympathies, not really trying to be an explanation, but trying to point out that persons – you or I – or situations – the Institute, the seminar – etc., just don’t matter in this instance, and while feelings of bitterness, etc., may be justified from one point of view, from Alfred’s point of view they are un-understandable to him, at least at present. Present things that you and I and others would be deeply concerned in, simply do not enter his consciousness particularly. (13)

Still, whatever his creative agonies and apparent gruffness, he was managing to maintain at least a pinch of humor. On July 30, Charlotte wrote a letter to Kendig, including in the envelope a postcard with the by-then ubiquitous image (non-copyrighted) of the big-eared, gap-toothed smiling boy that Mad Magazine would later take as its mascot “Alfred E. Neuman” in the 1950s. The card had “to MK from AK [and] CS” written on its back. Charlotte ended the letter by referring to the boy’s by-this time equally ubiquitous catchphrase underneath the picture: “Didn’t you love the little ‘What – Me Worry’ card? A. says to send to all our trustees.”(14)

Maybe he had gotten beyond worry, but he certainly seemed to have serious concerns about completing the Introduction and getting out the Second Edition of Manhood of Humanity without further delay. It would take up a major part of his time and effort during his remaining lifetime. Over the next year and a half, he would have several more sojourns in New York City at Hotel 33 for concentrated work on it with Charlotte. He would produce many more drafts of the Introduction and his fussiness about making it as good as possible reflected the importance he gave to it—even as it increased the book’s delay. His concern about clarifying his own intellectual legacy against the background of growing misrepresentations of his work, including those by students—e.g., getting past the confusion of his work with ‘semantics’—probably added impetus to his struggles here. Not surprisingly, more than he had ever done since the earliest days of his work, he would emphasize time-binding in his presentations and writing; stressing its foundational importance to his work, its connections to his subsequent formulations and those of others, and its unexplored implications, particularly in human relations and politics.

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. 

12. Kendig to Elwood Murray, 4/ 9/1949. IGS Archives. 

13. Charlotte Schuchardt to M. Kendig, 8/5/1948. IGS Archives. 

14. Charlotte Schuchardt to M. Kendig, 7/30/1948. IGS Archives.

< Part 3   

Return to Table of Contents 

Chapter 63 - "What – Me Worry?": Part 3 - "What I Believe"

Korzybski: A Biography (Free Online Edition)

Copyright © 2014 (2011) by Bruce I. Kodish 

All rights reserved. Copyright material may be quoted verbatim without need for permission from or payment to the copyright holder, provided that attribution is clearly given and that the material quoted is reasonably brief in extent.

In February, back at the Institute, Korzybski had as his most immediately pressing task getting out Selections from Science and Sanity and the Third Edition of Science and Sanity. That month, he finished his 7-page “Author’s Note” to Selections mainly “dealing with the misinterpretations of general semantics and confusions with semantics.”(7) (As it was going to press, Korzybski added a note on Allen Walker Read’s paper “An Account of the Word ‘Semantics’”, published in August 1948, since it provided supporting data for his efforts to differentiate his work from ‘semantics’.) By the beginning of April, the Institute announced publication and began taking orders for the initial limited printing run of 3000 copies of Selections. As an “experimental” production, it had a plain, blue, thick paper cover showing only the title, so production remained relatively simple. The 274-page volume, with later additions (an index produced by David Bourland that summer and some extra text from S&S put in several decades later) stayed in print for many years and provided an easy-to-handle format of Korzybski’s work for use by university classes and reading groups, perhaps more inviting to those who felt leery about tackling “the blue peril” itself. 

The publication of Selections came in time to provide a kind of ‘parting gift’ for its compiler Guthrie Janssen, who got married that month to Guila Beattie and was leaving his employment at the Institute. Jan and Beat were moving to New York City and would be missed. (Although in the fall they ended up returning to Lime Rock to live and would continue involvement with Korzybski and the Institute.) Besides his editorial work, Janssen had served as the Institute’s membership secretary. These duties would be taken over by Maxine K. Mallach, affectionately known as ‘Mac’, a young woman from Lime Rock, who had started working at the Institute in June 1947. Before the war, she had studied at the American Acadamy of Dramatic Arts in New York City, then served as a sergeant in the WACs (the Women’s Army Corps) in New Guinea. After the war, she worked for a business in New Canaan in Southwestern Connecticut before starting as a typist and office assistant at the Institute, an easy walk from her home where she lived with her parents. Having shown exceptional competence in dealing with IGS office intricacies, she soon became Kendig’s assistant and the seminar registrar before taking over Janssen’s duties as membership secretary as well. With great fondness for Korzybski and esteem for his work, Mac would continue working devotedly for the Institute, over a span of four decades, playing a pivotal role in keeping the IGS operating during some later lean and rather difficult times.

Real pressure existed to get out the Third Edition of Science and Sanity as soon as possible. A letter from Mira on January 16 reflected the wide interest and demand for the book: 

Alfred my dearest one: – 

How a great idea makes strange people kin, to which add this strange coincidence. This noon I was struggling to open the front door and get food bag in when a young woman did both for me and carried the heavy bag up to Apt. *When lo and behold* I saw S&S on her arm. She lives in small apt. just south of this on the alley; is librarian in science library * that smallish bldg Charlotte will remember near lily pond at a 59th St. entrance. It seems that there are 4 copies of 1st Ed. And 4 copies of 2nd ed. and always a waiting list for S&S. The last one of the list was so disappointed that when later a copy came in she grabbed it to satisfy her curiosity and was enthralled at the combination of my being your wife and the beautiful things here. Her husband is a butcher and apparently has had a very limited existence. She offered to bring any books from that library, [I] immediately remembered two on arthritis. Such eager young people are pleasure. (8)

In March, pretty much done with Selections, Alfred, Charlotte, and others worked on page proofs for the Third Edition’s new and revised front material and on its new jacket cover, which would include a quote from his ‘credo’, “What I Believe”, that he was in the process of finishing:

The progress of modern science, including the new science of man as a time-binder, has been due uniquely to the freedom of scientists to revise their fundamental assumptions, terminologies, undefined terms, which involve hidden assumptions, etc., underlying our reflections, a freedom prohibited in ‘primitive sciences’ and also in dictatorships, past and present. (9)

He had written “What I Believe”, at the invitation of Indian author/editor Krishna M. Talgeri for a book The Faith I Live By, a “symposium” of essays with a list of invitees besides Korzybski that included Gandhi, Nehru, and Montessori, among others. The book seems never to have gotten published. Nonetheless, Korzybski would make good use of the essay; besides using a quote from it for the S&S cover, he would later have the essay printed for distribution to Members of the Institute in September 1949 and include it in the content to add to the Second Edition of Manhood. As he wrote in a letter to Members that accompanied that September 1949 mailing, “What I Believe” was “really a summary of my whole life work. ...”(10) 

The essay touched briefly, even impressionistically, on major themes in his work, connecting them to the overarching theme of time-binding. Topics included: discussion of his personal background and purposes in developing the notion of ‘time-binding’; understanding not statistical averages but human potentialities within a theoretical ‘deductive’ framework as the sine qua non for an applied ‘science of man’; the consequent importance of studying human reactions at their best and worst; time-binding and dictatorships; adequate versus inadequate linguistic and grammatical structures and the necessity of developing an adequate “unified terminology of evaluation” for a science of man; the overwhelming importance of “non-verbal, or what I call silent levels” and a working “consciousness of the differences between...the silent and the verbal levels, [as] the key and perhaps the first step for the solution of human problems”; the role in human knowledge of “relations, as factors of structure” and of postulational methods; religions and sciences; the importance of inferential knowledge; and the significance of “self-reflexive and circular mechanisms” as “the uniquely human types of reaction which made our human achievements possible.” He concluded by discussing the historical importance for humans of becoming conscious of their capacities as time-binders: “...this consciousness may now mark a new period in our evolution.”(11) 

By the end of April, the Institute had reprints of Korzybski’s new “Preface To The Third Edition 1948” to send as its latest mailing to members. And by the end of May, the Institute received its first copies of the Third Edition, although most of the 5000 books from this first printing would be stored with a firm in New York City. Science Press, the book’s printer, had changed ownership and management and, under the new name of Business Press, would no longer serve as the Institute’s distributor. The Institute office processed orders, printed shipping labels, and sent them to the New York firm, which did the wrapping and shipping. 1,000 back-ordered copies went out immediately and the remaining books sold quickly, approximately 4000 over the next year, a quarter of the total copies sold since the book’s original 1933 publication. By the end of 1948, Charlotte was scrambling to arrange a second printing, which included getting a new printer and getting the printer’s plates shipped from Business/Science Press, etc. (The second printing, ready by May 1949, sold equally quickly, requiring a third printing in 1950.) Mira wrote to Alfred, telling of her pride and delight at seeing a copy in the window of a nearby bookshop. Unlike many of the delayed projects and unmet deadlines that had plagued the Institute since its inception, the publication of the Third Edition of Science and Sanity had come through as announced at the January luncheon.

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. 

7. Korzybski. “Author’s Note” to Selections from Science and Sanity in Alfred Korzybski Collected Writings, p. 615. 

8. MEK to AK, 1/16/1948. AK Archives, Box 22, Folder 1. 

9. Korzybski, “What I Believe”, in Alfred Korzybski Collected Writings, pp. 655-656. 

10. Korzybski, “Letter to Friends and Members”, September 1949. Alfred Korzybski Collected Writings, p. 663. 

11. Korzybski, “What I Believe”. Alfred Korzybski Collected Writings, pp. 643-663. 

< Part 2      Part 4 >

Return to Table of Contents