{"id":894,"date":"2010-12-04T08:41:29","date_gmt":"2010-12-04T13:41:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/?p=894"},"modified":"2010-12-04T08:41:29","modified_gmt":"2010-12-04T13:41:29","slug":"general-semantics-defined-socially","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/2010\/12\/04\/general-semantics-defined-socially\/","title":{"rendered":"General Semantics Defined, Socially"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last night’s post<\/a> was about sane interactions, and how I got to wondering whether Alfred Korzybski’s famous field general semantics might have more of a social interest in sanity than an individual one.\u00a0 That is, does Korzybski interest himself in your<\/em> sanity for the greater goal that he’s trying to build a saner humankind<\/em>?<\/p>\n

I think there’s something to that.\u00a0 In his first work, Manhood of Humanity<\/em>, Korzybski talks about humans as distinct from animals and plants.\u00a0 He notes that past generations of humans pass information to future generations of humans.\u00a0 He isn’t<\/em> talking so much about, say, your deceased grandfather writing you a letter for you to open in 2015.\u00a0 Korzybski is focused on the macro scale.\u00a0 He’s focused on humankinds-of-old cooperating with humankinds-of-now and -of-the-future.\u00a0 The book’s title includes the word “humanity”; the title of the book isn’t Manhood of You<\/em>.<\/p>\n

His next book, Science and Sanity<\/em>, is cited as an exploration of this mechanism, this passing of information from one generation to the next.\u00a0 In Manhood<\/em> he called this mechanism “time-binding,” and Science and Sanity<\/em> is supposed to be an exploration of its workings.\u00a0 So in that sense, Science and Sanity<\/em> would also<\/em> be interested in humankind a bit more than just-you.<\/p>\n

Now, back Manhood of Humanity<\/em>.\u00a0 To my recollection (and my recollection may be mistaken), Korzybski doesn’t talk about sanity in Manhood<\/em>.\u00a0 The topic is implied\u00a0in the disdain he expresses for world war.\u00a0 Korzybski implicitly<\/em> encourages a saner humankind in the book.\u00a0 He sees a generally broken humanity at the time of its writing, one that needs to be “re-engineered” in order to work better and to make progress in its work.\u00a0 Insane intereactions complicate and\/or limit productivity.<\/p>\n

It is in Science and Sanity<\/em> where Korzybski explicitly talks of sanity.\u00a0 (Note the title of his book!)\u00a0 The thinking I believe he had was this: Re-engineering humanity in order to make it saner requires the re-engineerings of many different individuals to make them saner.<\/em> So to speak, you can’t operate on a population; you have to operate on patients<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Korzybski then turns his focus on language, and language’s intimate\u00a0role in the time-binding mechanism.\u00a0 At the same\u00a0time he focuses on thinking, and its role in the time-binding process and its intimate relationship with language.\u00a0 (The relationship is so intimate, perhaps it should be called “language-thinking”–hyphenated, to show their extensional connection and character, to show that it is nearly impossible to distinguish the two empirically, etc.)\u00a0 And eventually he arrives at particular lessons to the reader (“you”) for making changes that would effect saner interactions.\u00a0 Korzybski spends a lot of time at war with the “unsane”; that is, the not-sane.\u00a0 Perhaps it is unsane individuals who lead to in<\/em>sane interactions?<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Now onto general semantics defined socially.\u00a0 Here are a few attempts at defining and clarifying general semantics while focusing less on its individual relevance and more on its humankind relevance.\u00a0 That is, these definitions show what general semantics means to society and\/or humanity.<\/p>\n

‘<\/span><\/div>

General semantics is a field interested in the development of sane interactions.<\/p>\n

General semantics is the study of sane interactions.<\/p>\n

General semantics studies the roles thinking and language play in sane and insane interactions.<\/p>\n

General semantics aims to improve social interactions to bring about a saner society.<\/p>\n

General semantics studies interactions and makes recommendations to make them saner and more productive.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Nothing too mind-blowing here.\u00a0 These definitions are simple, as full well they should be.\u00a0 But they are unique from many general semantics definitions I’ve seen in that they are less focused on the relevance of general semantics to you<\/em> and more on the relevance of general semantics to society<\/em>.\u00a0 And that’s a potentially inspiring kind of definition.\u00a0 Many people want to change society.\u00a0 General semantics provides means and methods for gradually doing so.\u00a0 I myself am able to manage and effect my social interactions from unsettling insane ones to more constructive, saner<\/em> ones with the lessons learned from general semantics.\u00a0 I make for\u00a0a better, more comfortable world\u00a0immediately around me with general semantics.\u00a0It really is wonderful stuff.<\/p>\n

If you’d like to learn more, visit the website for the Institute of General Semantics at http:\/\/www.generalsemantics.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last night’s post was about sane interactions, and how I got to wondering whether Alfred Korzybski’s famous field general semantics might have more of a social interest in sanity than an individual one.\u00a0 That is, does Korzybski interest himself in your sanity for the greater goal that he’s trying to build a saner humankind? I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[94,9,63,68,13,203,12,210,111,209,38,67,15,202,95,69,207,31,208,11],"class_list":["post-894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-semantics","tag-alfred-korzybski","tag-definition","tag-engineering","tag-human-engineering","tag-insane","tag-insane-interactions","tag-insanity","tag-institute-of-general-semantics","tag-language","tag-language-thinking","tag-manhood-of-humanity","tag-personal-engineering","tag-sane","tag-sane-interactions","tag-sanity","tag-science-and-sanity","tag-thinking","tag-time-binding","tag-unsane","tag-unsanity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=894"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":899,"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894\/revisions\/899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benhauck.com\/offthemap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}