Has anyone on this list ever heard of or know the extent of the influence
of Alfred Korzybski and his efforts to develop and establish a system of
non-aristotelian general semantics in his 1933 book _Science and Sanity_.
I know Buckminster Fuller, Margaret Mead, and Robert Anton Wilson were all
influenced? Was Chomsky? Did Chomsky's discoveries in linguistics support,
challenge or otherwise speak to general semantics.
Any comments are welcome.
In my continuing attempts to convince others of the importance of
psycho-logics to politics, I offer this from Korzybski's 1941 preface:
"It seems extremely short-sighted in 1941 that governments should
employ permanent specialists in chemistry, physics, engineering, etc.,;
other specialists who advise how to eliminate lice from poultry, raise
pigs, conserve wild life, etc. -- and yet have no *permanent* consulting
board of specialists who would advise how to conserve and prevent the
abuse of human nervous systems. Even a Chamberlain would have intelligence
and/or honesty enough to pass a problem of a 'magnetic mine' to a
physicist and engineers, and not to party politicians, who know nothing
about such mechanisms, but would nevertheless be ready to debate
'politically' on the subject.
"For example, if consulted, such a suggested body of governmental
specialists would have studied _Mein Kampf_ and various speeches of
Hitler, Goebbels, etc., as a part of their duties, long ago, and would
have advised their governments that psychopathological people are getting
in control of world affairs and that their words cannot be trusted at all.
There would have been no 'appeasements', etc., and other measures would
have been taken to cope with the depth of the problems involved."
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