From the Stray Thought Bin - "Injustices"

Imagined injustices may be the most damaging of all. 

Quote of the Day- "Expect the Minimum"

"If you expect, say 'nothing', in the actual living, bumping against facts, impact with the environment, you will find the facts better than you expected. You will be encouraged. You will not be cynical; you will not be bitter, etc. Life then will be happier for you as living protoplasm reacting to the impact of the environment. Expect the minimum."* 
———Alfred Korzybski


*General Semantics Seminar 1937: Olivet College Lectures, Third Edition. p. 90

From the Stray Thought Bin - "The Believer in Magic"

For the believer in magic, words are just words with no substance behind them. Yet he wants his words to be something more and so he takes them as the substitute for substance. 

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

Sanity, adequate adjustment to life facts (including ones' own potential), seems like an art that requires taking unceasing aim at a perpetually moving target. Still, it's important to aim. 

From the Stray Thought Bin - "Mastering Our Psycho-Logical Destinies"

In everyday life, most of us are 'slaves' to the makers of our vocabularies, while the power to examine our assumptions and revise them (the postulational attitude) provides a way to master our psycho-logical destinies. 

Work In Progress (12/30/2010)

Damned hard to do much weblog posting lately.

My excuse?

Finishing up the biography of Korzybski that I've been working on for the last seven years.

Two days ago I wrote the last sentence of the final chapter.

Today I finished writing Acknowledgements and am starting on Language Notes and Polish Pronunciation Guide. I still have an Introductory Note for the Endnotes Section in the back of the book.

Then we print out the whole manuscript, do the final edit and proofreading before doing the index.

We have a designer and a basic cover design that needs to get done.

And then...gulp...the book will be just about ready to come out.

Korzybski: A Biography due to be published in the Spring of 2011.

Korzybski & GS in India 2010

Here's a report on the third national workshop-cum-seminar on “Alfred Korzybski and His Impact on Language, Communication and Cultural Studies” organized by Balvant Parekh Centre for General Semantics and Other Human Sciences, Baroda, India and the English and Foreign Languages University, Shillong, India. The workshop took place in Shillong from 25th-27th October, 2010.

Korzybski Conference in India

Quote of the Day- "Humanity"

“Humanity is a peculiar class of life which, in some degree, determines its own destinies; therefore in practical life words and ideas become facts—facts moreover, which bring about important practical consequences.”
———Alfred Korzybski*

* Manhood of Humanity, Second Edition. 1950 (1921), p. 47. 

From the Stray Thought Bin - "...And More Maps"

Some people seem to use the saying "The map is not the territory," as a way to wash out all claims and viewpoints into some kind of tepid equivalency: "It's all just opinions...B.S. ...your narrative...your map...my map...maps all we have...yadda yadda yadda." Post-Modernist Couldn't-Care-Less-ism.

Sure, up to a point, we can't get beyond viewpoints and opinions.  Everything that is said is said by someone—opinions and viewpoints...Maps.

But...

We do presume some 'territory'. (At least I do.) There are 'things' we bump into whether we want to or not.

Some viewpoints provide a better look at a presumed territory. Some opinions seem more useful. We shouldn't be shy. Some maps  give us greater predictability, seem more useful, thus better than others for given purposes in dealing with the 'territories' of life. Including the fact that other  people may operate by dramatically different maps.

We can and should strive for more fruitful viewpoints, more informed opinions, better maps. Which presumes that some maps may be better than others for some purposes. Indeed, yes.

And yes, our maps will still not be the territories they represent—ever. As far as I know.