Editing General semantics (section)

== History ==

=== Early attempts at validation ===
The First American Congress for General Semantics convened in March 1935 at the Central Washington College of Education in [[Ellensburg, Washington]]. In introductory remarks to the participants, Korzybski said: <blockquote>General semantics formulates a new experimental branch of natural science, underlying an empirical theory of human evaluations and orientations and involving a definite neurological mechanism, present in all humans. It discovers direct neurological methods for the stimulation of the activities of the human cerebral cortex and the direct introduction of beneficial neurological 'inhibition'....<ref>Korzybski, Alfred. "An Outline of General Semantics". In ''Papers from the First American Congress for General Semantics'', collected and arranged by Hansell Baugh (1938). New York: Arrow Editions. p. 1.</ref></blockquote> He added that general semantics "will be judged by experimentation".<ref>Korzybski, Alfred. "An Outline of General Semantics". In ''Papers from the First American Congress for General Semantics''. p. 4.</ref> One paper presented at the congress reported dramatic score improvements for college sophomores on standardized intelligence tests after six weeks of training by methods prescribed in Chapter 29 of ''Science and Sanity.''<ref>Trainor, Joseph C. "Experimental Results of Training in General Semantics upon Intelligence Test Scores". In ''Papers from the First American Congress for General Semantics'', pp. 58–62.</ref>

=== Interpretation as semantics ===
General semantics accumulated only a few early experimental validations. In 1938, economist and writer [[Stuart Chase]] praised and popularized Korzybski in ''The Tyranny of Words''. Chase called Korzybski "a pioneer" and described ''Science and Sanity'' as "formulating a genuine science of communication. The term which is coming into use to cover such studies is 'semantics,' matters having to do with signification or meaning."<ref>{{cite book |author=Chase, Stuart |title=The Tyranny of Words |year=1966 |publisher=Harcourt, Brace |location=New York |page=7}}</ref> Because Korzybski, in ''Science and Sanity'', had articulated his program using "semantic" as a standalone qualifier on hundreds of pages in constructions like "semantic factors," "semantic disturbances," and especially "semantic reactions," to label the general semantics program "semantics" amounted to only a convenient shorthand.<ref>Kodish, Bruce I. ''Korzybski: A Biography''. pp. 343, 439.</ref>

[[S. I. Hayakawa|Hayakawa]] read ''The Tyranny of Words,'' then ''Science and Sanity'', and in 1939 he attended a Korzybski-led workshop conducted at the newly organized [[Institute of General Semantics]] in Chicago. In the introduction to his own ''[[Language in Action]]'', a 1941 [[Book of the Month Club]] selection, Hayakawa wrote, "[Korzybski's] principles have in one way or another influenced almost every page of this book...."<ref>{{cite book |author=Hayakawa, S. I. |title=Language in Action |url=https://archive.org/details/languageinaction0000haya |url-access=registration |year=1941 |publisher=Harcourt, Brace |location=New York |page=viii}}</ref> But, Hayakawa followed Chase's lead in interpreting general semantics as making communication its defining concern. When Hayakawa co-founded the Society for General Semantics and its publication ''ETC: A Review of General Semantics'' in 1943—he would continue to edit ''ETC.'' until 1970—Korzybski and his followers at the Institute of General Semantics began to complain that Hayakawa had wrongly coopted general semantics.<ref>Kodish, Bruce I. ''Korzybski: A Biography, p. 554''.</ref> In 1985, Hayakawa gave this defense to an interviewer: "I wanted to treat general semantics as a subject, in the same sense that there's a scientific concept known as gravitation, which is independent of Isaac Newton. So after a while, you don't talk about Newton anymore; you talk about gravitation. You talk about semantics and not Korzybskian semantics."<ref>Shearer, Julie Gordon (1989). "From Semantics to the U.S. Senate: S. I. Hayakawa". This interview has been posted through the Online Archive of California. The cited statement by Hayakawa can be located via an internet search for Shearer + Hayakawa + "Keeping ETC. Independent of Korzybski" .</ref>

=== Lowered sights ===
The regimen in the Institute's seminars, greatly expanded as team-taught seminar-workshops starting in 1944, continued to develop following the prescriptions laid down in Chapter XXIX of ''Science and Sanity.'' The [[structural differential]], patented by Korzybski in the 1920s, remained among the chief training aids to help students reach "the silent level," a prerequisite for achieving "neurological delay". Innovations in the seminar-workshops included a new "neuro-relaxation" component, led by dancer and Institute editorial secretary Charlotte Schuchardt (1909–2002).

But although many people were introduced to general semantics—perhaps the majority through Hayakawa's more limited 'semantics'—superficial lip service seemed more common than the deep internalization that Korzybski and his co-workers at the Institute aimed for. [[Marjorie Kendig]] (1892–1981), probably Korzybski's closest co-worker, director of the Institute after his death, and editor of his posthumously published ''Collected Writings: 1920–1950'', wrote in 1968:<blockquote>I would guess that I have known about 30 individuals who have in some degree adequately, by my standards, mastered this highly general, very simple, very difficult system of orientation and method of evaluating—reversing as it must all our cultural conditioning, neurological canalization, etc....

To me the ''great error'' Korzybski made—and I carried on, financial necessity—and for which we pay the price today in many criticisms, consisted in not restricting ourselves to training very thoroughly ''a very few people'' who would be competent to utilize the discipline in various fields and to train others. We should have done this before encouraging anyone to popularize or spread the word (horrid phrase) in societies for general semantics, by talking ''about'' general semantics instead of learning, using, etc. the methodology to ''change'' our essential epistemological assumptions, premises, etc. (unconscious or conscious), i.e. the ''un''-learning basic to learning to learn.</blockquote>

<blockquote>Yes, large numbers of people do enjoy making a philosophy of general semantics. This saves them the pain of rigorous training so simple and general and limited that it seems obvious when ''said'', yet so difficult.<ref>{{cite magazine|last=Kendig |first=Marjorie |date=1970 |title=Reflections on the State of the Discipline, 1968 |url=https://generalsemantics.org/resources/documents/gsb37-kendig.pdf |magazine=General Semantics Bulletin |edition=37 |page=70 |publisher=Institute of General Semantics |access-date=August 23, 2022}}</ref></blockquote>

Successors at the [[Institute of General Semantics]] continued for many years along the founders' path. [[Stuart Mayper]] (1916–1997), who studied under [[Karl Popper]], introduced Popper's principle of [[falsifiability]] into the seminar-workshops he led at the Institute starting in 1977. More modest pronouncements gradually replaced Korzybski's claims that general semantics can change human nature and introduce an era of universal human agreement. In 2000, [[Robert P. Pula|Robert Pula]] (1928–2004), whose roles at the Institute over three decades included Institute director, editor-in-chief of the Institute's ''General Semantics Bulletin'', and leader of the seminar-workshops, characterized Korzybski's legacy as a "contribution toward the improvement of human evaluating, to the amelioration of human woe...."<ref>{{cite book |author=Pula, Robert P. |title=A General-Semantics Glossary: Pula's Guide for the Perplexed |year=2000 |publisher=International Society for General Semantics |location=Concord, CA |isbn=0-918970-49-0 |page=viii}}</ref>

Hayakawa died in 1992. The Society for General Semantics merged into the Institute of General Semantics in 2003. In 2007, Martin Levinson, president of the Institute's Board of Trustees, teamed with Paul D. Johnston, executive director of the Society at the date of the merger, to teach general semantics with a light-hearted ''Practical Fairy Tales for Everyday Living''.<ref>{{cite book |author=Levinson, Martin H., Illustrations by Paul D. Johnston |title=Practical Fairy Tales for Everyday Living |year=2007 |publisher=iUniverse |location=Lincoln, NE |isbn=978-0-595-42140-4}}</ref>

Other institutions supporting or promoting general semantics in the 21st century include the New York Society for General Semantics,<ref>{{Cite web | url=http://www.nysgs.org |title = New York Society for General Semantics - Home}}</ref> the European Society for General Semantics,<ref>{{Cite web | url=http://esgs.free.fr/uk |title = ESGS Home page}}</ref> the Australian General Semantics Society,<ref>{{cite web|url= http://www.ags.org.au|title= The Australian General Semantics Society}}</ref> and the [[Balvant Parekh]] Centre for General Semantics and Other Human Sciences (Baroda, India).<ref>{{Cite web | url=http://balvantparekhcentre.org.in | title=This site is shifted to new addr}}</ref>