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Chapter 23 Chapter 23 General Semantics and Others

After discussing vital energy and mind theory, it would be boring to introduce any other prominent psychiatric cult.However, without talking about the "General Semantics" of the Polish-born Count Alfred Korzybski and the "Psychodrama" of the Romanian-born psychiatrist Jacob Moneno, our examination Just incomplete.It should be said that neither of these activities reaches the level of absurdity of the first two superstitions.To this end, general semantics and psychodrama must be seen as arguably ambiguous examples that may or may not have considerable scientific value. Korzybski was born in Warsaw in 1879.He had little formal education.Served as a major in the Russian Polish Army during World War I, he was badly wounded and sent to the United States as an artillery specialist.He stayed in the United States, and for the next 10 years he relied on his own financial resources to write and publish the 800-page "bible" of general semantics - "Science and Sanity".It was published in 1933 by the Earl's International Non-Aristotelian Book Publishing Company.Poorly organized, cumbersome, philosophically naive argument, a tiresome repetition of important ideas plagiarized from talented scientists and philosophers; New vocabulary, confused opinions, idle phrases, and dubious speculations related to psychiatry.

Ellen Reed has written two scholarly papers on the history and various meanings of the term "semantics".It mentions that the Earl did not use the term in the original manuscript of his book Science and Sanity.However, several Polish philosophers adopted the term before the book was published, and Korzybski stole it from them. Most contemporary philosophers who use the term "semantics" use the term only to study the meaning of words and other symbols.In stark contrast, the Earl uses the word so broadly that it becomes almost meaningless.As Head points out, Korzybski sees plant tropism, such as growing up instead of down, as a "semantic counteraction."In Science and Sanity, he writes about a baby vomiting to get a second feeding, "vomiting became her semantic means of dominating 'reality'." Piaget's modern followers tend to refer to "Semantics" and "valuation" are equated, and the definition of "general semantics" is "the study and improvement of the human valuation process".

Korzybski takes no pains to overthrow the habits of thought of the "Aristotelians," despite the fact that what he calls Aristotelians is nothing more than a worthless structure, similar to that of the Greek The philosopher's way of thinking is irrelevant.In fact, the count had great respect for Aristotle (he dedicated his book titles to many thinkers, including Aristotle).But he thinks that the philosopher's reasoning has been seriously distorted by the habit of words.This habit of using words is closely related to the structure of Indo-European languages, especially the subject-predicate form with strong intonation "is"."'Yes' is meaningless," said the Earl.He obviously did not realize that concepts such as "heterogeneous homogeneity" which he constantly uses cannot be defined without adopting the characteristics of mathematical structure.

Another "Aristotelian" habit that the Count lashed out at was thinking in terms of "two-valued logic," in which statements were necessarily either true or false.No one will deny that many errors of reasoning result from the application of "either-or" logic where it cannot be applied, as many logicians since Aristotle have recognized.But what many of the Earl's followers fail to realize is that there is one situation where a dual orientation cannot be avoided.In all the "multi-valued logic" that has been invented, the way of inference is still either "correct" or "wrong".To give a simple example, we might as well assume that a person has a mechanical pencil, which has only 3 colors: red, blue, and green.If someone tells us that his pencil is neither blue nor green, our conclusion is red.This is a "correct" inference in the three-value system.It would be "wrong" to infer that the pencil is blue, because it would contradict one of the premises.No one has yet succeeded in creating a logic that dispenses with the binary orientation of either-or, and of course gives the dichotomy another name.There is no reason to be unhappy about this, and seeing it makes it clear that the mass attacks on double-valued logic in ordinary semantics are nothing more than fighting harmless windmills.

The struggle of philosophers of many schools against the habit of mind of bad linguistics has existed for centuries.But it is found that Science and Sanity says almost nothing about this fact.John Dewey, for example, is never mentioned in the book (only in later editions of the bibliography), and few modern philosophers have been more vocal in their struggles with what the earl called "against the Aristotelians." Resolute or struggle for a longer time.In fact, with the exception of Bertrand Russell, the book secretly slanders almost every important contemporary philosopher. Korzybski's intense self-importance is well known to anyone who knew him or read his books.He considers himself one of the greatest living thinkers, and his book Science and Sanity is the third in a monumental trilogy.The first two are Aristotle's "Organism" and Bacon's.Like Hubbard, he believed that his cure could cure almost any type of neurosis, and could raise the intellect of most people to the level of a genius like himself.He believed that all professions, from law to dentistry, should be based on a common semantics, and that only by spreading his ideas could the world be saved from destruction.In the preface to the second edition of Science and Sanity "he appeals to his readers to urge their governments to put into practice the principles of general semantics, and expresses his conviction that his society will eventually Be part of the League of Nations.

Earl's Institute for General Semantics, near the University of Chicago, was founded in 1938 with funding provided by Cornelius Crane, a wealthy Chicago bathroom fixture manufacturer.The house number of the Institute was originally 1232, but was later changed to 1234, so that it could be written together with "East 56th Street" to form a continuous 6-digit number.Earl always instructs his students in the same tone as the TV show.In the course of his lectures, he would stop suddenly at the most striking moment, and his students would shout "No!" or "Yes!" role of leader.In many respects, the spread of general semantics is what Piaget calls "a paranoid-like semantic epidemic" on p. 800 of Science and Sanity.His followers caught the epidemic under the charisma of this leader.

According to the earl, people are "unsound" when their mental picture of reality is slightly different from the real world.If the inner world is very skewed, they become "mentally deranged".The main root of all this is the Aristotelian tendency of thought which distorts reality.For example, it assumes that an object is either a chair or not a chair, and obviously there are all kinds of things, but one kind of thing is called a chair. Whether it is called a chair or not depends on what people think of "chair". definition.But it is impossible to give an exact definition. "Chair" is just a name we gave to a group of more or less similar things, but they spread in all directions according to the continuum and became other things that are not called chairs.As HG Wells says in an essay on metaphysics in The First and Last Things:

…Think of the armchairs, the reading chairs, the dining room chairs and the kitchen chairs, the chairs that have become benches, the chairs that have outgrown the boundaries of chairs and become settees, dental chairs, imperial thrones, singing Theater benches, chairs of all kinds, those grotesque fungal things that get in the way on the floor of an arts and crafts show, and you'll see that this simple word actually means a bunch of What a blur.If you're dealing with a savvy joiner, I guarantee you there's no way to define a chair or something like that. The non-Aristotelian view essentially recognizes the above-mentioned basic facts.There is no such thing as a pure "chair".There are only chairs 1, 2 and 3, and so on.This numbering practice is what Korzybski calls "indexing."The same chair is always changing.A chair at one moment is not the same chair at the next moment because it has been exposed to the sun, weathered, used, etc.We call this situation "dating".We're talking chairs from 1952, chairs from 1953, and so on.The Count believed that sane people, and many insane people, could be taught to think in these and similar non-Aristotelian ways to help them regain their sanity.For example, a neurotic may hate all mothers.The reason may be that some circumstance in his childhood made him hate his mother.Not getting rid of Aristotelian habits, he thought all mothers were the same because they were all called mothers.But the word, as Korzybski has repeatedly said, doesn't mean that.When one learns to index mothers, that is, to call them Mother #1,

When mother No. 2 and mother No. 3, he will see that other mothers are different from his own mother.In addition, even his own mother is not the same mother in his childhood.Rather, the mother of 1910, the mother of 1911, the mother of 1912, and so on.Knowing all this, the neurotic's hatred of mothers will be greatly weakened. Of course, the non-Aristotelian approach goes beyond indexing and dating.For example, in order to understand the degree of abstraction, the count invented a teaching aid.It's called a "structural differentiator".This is a set of small plates with holes punched in them, and the holes are connected together in various ways with strings and dowels. Time magazine called it the "semantic rosary."

Clearly, there is nothing "sane" about the various common semantic devices set up to teach good habits of thought.In psychiatry, these devices could be useful for doctors of all stripes when talking to or giving instructions to patients.But Korzybski and his followers exaggerated their therapeutic value to an extraordinary degree.At various conferences, ordinary semanticists demonstrate that semantics can be used as a cure for alcoholism, homosexuality, kleptomania, bad reading habits, stuttering, periodic migraines, nymphomania, impotence, and Numerous other neurotic and psychosomatic disorders.At one conference, a dentist reported that teaching his patients general semantics made them more emotionally stable, thereby reducing the acid in their mouths.As a result, the filling stays in the tooth longer.

Korzybski's theoretical explanation for the therapeutic effects of non-Aristotelian thinking on the body was dismissed by his followers as neurologically unreliable .This theory has to do with the cortex and thalamus, positing that the cortex is involved in rational thinking and the thalamus is involved in emotional reflexes.Korzybski recommends a “semantic pause”—counting from 1 to 10—to give the cortex time to make harmonious, normal decisions before acting on the impulse of an emotional response.A person who develops this habit of self-control will have a "neural-semantic relaxation" in his nervous system, thereby achieving normal blood pressure and improving health. There is an interesting case in this regard.Noticing that a friendly tug on a student's arm can ease a student's tension, the earl invented a special method of muscle relaxation.This is the method proposed by Charlotte Schuchalt's "The Relaxation Method of Semantics", published by the Institute of General Semantics in 1943, namely to grasp the muscles of various parts of the body and shake them. These theories of the Earl are not mentioned in modern works of philosophy of science and neurology.Russell's treatises, for example, which deal with subjects on which Korzybski considered himself a great authority, do not even mention the earl in passing.Not because of stubborn prejudice and orthodoxy.The reason is simply that Korzybski's seemingly erudite writings make no meaningful contribution to any of the fields involved.Most of the Earl's followers also acknowledged this, but they insisted that the value of his work lay in the first great synthesis of modern philosophy of science and neurology. Is it true?Few philosophers or professional neurologists think so.On matters of logic, mathematics, science, and epistemology, Science and Sanity is less a successful synthesis than a plagiarism of a great deal of recent work.The earl's works are more like a hodgepodge of concepts copied from various materials available at the time.Many of the count's ideas gave the appearance of freshness only because he had invented new names for them.For example, his early work, "Manhood of Man" published in 1921, described plants as "energy combiners", animals as "space combiners", and humans as "time combiners".Translated, it means that plants grow by energy; animals are different from plants and can move around in space to meet their needs; while people make progress by past experience.All this, in Aristotle's view, is nothing more than platitudes. True, Korzybski also made a valiant attempt to unite the philosophy of science with neurology and psychiatry.However, precisely because of this, his research slipped into the realm of superstition and pseudoscience.According to most psychiatrists, teaching a patient general semantics simply has no therapeutic value in the sense that Earl's followers believed.What the count was right about was copied by him, and what he created originally could, with good reason, be regarded as the product of "insanity". Kazuei Hayakawa, who in many ways was more normal and saner than the earl, still waved the banner of common semantics in Chicago. In 1946 Korzybski moved his headquarters to Lakeville, Connecticut.Shortly before this, Hayakawa Kazuei parted ways with the earl.Hayakawa continued to edit his lively little journal, working with the International Association for General Semantics.The association was created in Chicago in 1942 and has nothing to do with the Lakeville gang.His 1941 Language in Action (retitled Language in Thought and Action in 1949) remains the best popular work on Korzybski's views.One evening, at a jazz concert in Chicago (Kichiei Hayakawa was a fanatical authority on jazz), he was asked where his differences with the Earl were.Hayakawa pondered for a moment (probably to allow his reason and emotions to concentrate) and then replied: "It's words." After the Earl's death in 1950, his superstitious influence appeared to be waning.More and more people, including Kazuei Hayakawa, have found Korzybski's pretentious writings, and almost every point of value can be found in greater detail in the writings of others.Because of this, many of the readers he won over from the ranks of sci-fi fans, especially in California, also abandoned ordinary semantics for the more seductive notion of ideas. The case of Van Vogt in Los Angeles is an example of this new trend.Van Vogt is an author of pulp science fiction.Many of his novels are about characters like Superman.One of them is called "The World of A", which tells the story of a society A, or Korzybski's non-Aristotelian future society.A few years ago, van Vogt proposed that general semantics should be transferred to secrecy by branch.He worried that another Great Depression might occur in the United States, falling into the hands of Communists who opposed Korzybski's views.He even proposed the establishment of the Church of General Semantics and the establishment of the Holy Book of General Linguistics.But the idea turned out to be a failure and to no avail.By this time van Vogt had lost his former enthusiasm for semantics and Dr. Bates' eye training.He is the leader of the California chapter of the Mindfulness Movement. Jacob Moreno's psychodrama movement also seems to have passed its heyday.The fetish for psychodrama has never been very enthusiastic, though.Psychodrama is a form of therapy in which the patient is placed in an improvised dramatic episode related to his neurosis or psychopathy.It is closely related to the "drama therapy" approach widely used in the diagnosis and treatment of neurotic children. Psychodrama is performed on a relatively empty circular stage. The stage is divided into three layers according to concentric circles, and each layer has a different symbolic meaning.There was neither set nor curtain, only two pillars in the background, a table and some chairs on the stage.The band is about 80 people.There are tall boxes for patients with glorious fantasies.The first such theater was opened by Dr. Moreno in Vienna in 1922.The Psychodrama Institute, headquartered in New York, has similar theaters at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan and St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington. The patient can play all sorts of roles—one's own father, one's mother, one's own childhood, Hamlet, God, and so on.If the patient's condition involves a love triangle, it can also be contrived to have the three real parties appear on stage at the same time.As one can imagine, the reaction to their presence in person was often dramatic.Sometimes colored lights are also used to heighten the emotional atmosphere.Thus, if a patient wanted to play the devil, a crimson light alone was projected onto the stage.This will give him the feeling of being surrounded by blood-red flames in hell, thus enhancing the healing effect. Usually, the patient takes part in the play, and other roles are played by either other patients or trained actors and actresses.In psychodrama jargon, a character who takes on other roles is called a "supporting supporting actor."If the patient is embarrassed to perform or refuses to participate in the performance for some reason, he can be replaced by an auxiliary supporting role, and the patient watches the performance in the auditorium. This is called the "reflection method". Drama is used both in diagnosis and in treatment.Sometimes patients achieve a Freudian state of emotional cleansing (purging of neurotic tendencies) while performing.Sometimes this emotional cleansing effect comes later, when the therapist has commented and analyzed the plot.In order to be able to more accurately comment on the plot, audio and video recordings are often made.Audiences also experience therapeutic benefits from watching the show, which could be an inexpensive form of group therapy. Of course, it would be too simplistic to describe fully the theory of psychodrama, since the therapy is almost as complex as the idea theory.There are many new words here, such as farsightedness, preparatory movement process, social drama, audience group, psychomusic, natural drama, etc., but this book is limited to space to discuss them one by one. Nothing Moreno has published is more inexplicable than The Word of the Father, published by Beacon Press in 1941.This book claims to be a new revelation from God.Moreno states in his preface and notes that all previous revelations are only partial expressions of God's truth.This book is the "final and complete expression."For the first time in history, God speaks in the "first person."Of course, these words were spoken through a person, through "an isolated and unknown person somewhere on this continent".Moreno wrote that his name did not appear on the cover any more than a tree bears the gardener's name on its trunk.The reason is that this revelation, like the tree, comes from God. After hearing such propaganda, people will turn over the pages with trembling fingers, looking forward to immortal thoughts.Goodness, it turned out to be nothing more than some religious cliché!At the top of each page were printed a few short sentences in capital letters, surrounded by blank space.God's opening words are: I am god heavenly father creator of the world this is my word Father's word Here are the words of the Father, printed in full on page 128 of the original book: you cannot serve two masters to serve me Moreno's method, much like Reich's therapy, belongs to a new trend. Instead of letting the patient lie passively on the sofa, let the patient play an active and dynamic role.A hundred new therapeutic tricks are emerging among more surly people who know the fur of the Freudian school.For example, the Los Angeles psychotherapist Dr. Francis Rigardet used to induce vomiting among his patients as a treatment.In his term it is called "causing the gag reflex".The following is the doctor's description of this valuable new method, quoted from his article "Positive Psychotherapy" in the Winter 1952 issue of The Complex. The second step in this physical therapy involves retching the patient with a spatula and a lumbar disc.Often, the patient feels embarrassed and resists vigorously.As long as a brief explanation is given to the patient, or the therapist simply states that this is not the time for intellectual discussion and that discussion must wait until later, the patient will generally comply.My method is to make the patient vomit a dozen times according to his reaction.The pattern of vomiting is an excellent indicator of the strength or weakness of the suppressed organs.Some people vomit very gracefully without making a sound.It is safe to say that this type of patient is the most difficult to deal with.Their character armor is almost impenetrable, and their personalities are rigid to the point of rigidity.For such patients, they should be encouraged to vomit loudly, not to hide their discomfort and disgust, and ask them to vomit as much as they want.Others cough and spit, but still can't vomit.Others will laugh at it, thinking that this practice is just a prank.But there are also some people who will vomit out all the internal organs and six lungs. If any of Rigardet's patients was hostile, he was encouraged to "let it out in every possible way. One effective way was to directly lead him to write forthrightly all the obscenity and obscenity he had learned...  ". Other ways the doctor vented his anger were by having patients pound pillows, tear up phone books, or punch inflated rubber clowns with sandbags underneath.Of the rubber clowns, he writes, "...need to be replaced two or three times a month. But the emotional outlet obtained from this method is utterly extraordinary. In my 12-plus years of psychiatric practice time, I can say with complete honesty and humility that I have never seen such a daunting performance."
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