The Advanced Skill of Mis-reading of Korzybski

L. Michael Hall,

Ph.D.

A reply to "Alfred Korzybski and Cause and Effect, Part III" by Dennis & Jennifer

Chong

As I write this response to Chong’s Part III on the subject of Cause-Effect, I write simply as a

student of Korzybski, and indeed, as one who has much yet to learn from Korzybski. I do not

write as a scholar on Korzybski at all. Now I want to set this frame to counter-act the

reputation that some have granted me in parts of Europe, particularly in Germany and Austria.

That reputation has arisen primarily from the mere fact that I have been studying Korzybski’s

Science and Sanity (1933/ 1994) for many years and as I have had the opportunity to mine

various treasure for his rich gems, I’ve written about such. As I have visited and revisited this

grandfather of NLP over the years, I have written and produced numerous things.1

In spite of the many treasures that I’ve found in General Semantics and have written about, I

still feel as if I have barely scratched the surface of what Korzybski has to offer. Last fall, after

completing the training in London, sponsored by the Post-Graduate Professional NLP Training

that we entitled, The Merging of the Models: NLP and General Semantics, I came away from

that training with the feeling that multitudes of gems exist just waiting to be mined in

Korzybski.

Further, I want to acknowledge the likelihood that I could be very wrong about my

understandings of Korzybski and his foundational model. In an attempt to avoid erring about

what Korzybski taught, I have made plenteous quotations in this paper and strongly encourage

you to check them out in Science and Sanity.

Chong’s Basic Tenants Misunderstand Korzybski’s Central Message

As I have engaged in researching and studying the foundations of NLP in Korzybski, which not

only means five extensive readings through Science and Sanity and extensive reading in scores

upon scores of books in General Semantics, I have learned one thing that radically differs from

what Dennis and Jennifer Chong have written about Cause-and-Effect. What is that one thing?

It lies in the fact that the center and heart of Korzybski’s concern was Identification, not

Cause-Effect. Check it out for yourself. In the Index of the book, under "Causation," and

"Cause-Effect" there are only six references, but 88 references to Identity and Identification

(pp. 786, 788).

Why? Because for Alfred Korzybski, his entire Non-Aristotelian system depended entirely and

exclusively upon one thing, namely, Non-Identification, and especially non-identification of

map and territory.

"The map is not the territory it represents, but, if correct, it has a similar structure to

the territory, which accounts for its usefulness...."

If we reflect upon our languages, we find that at best they must be considered only as

maps. A word is not the object it represents; and languages exhibit also this peculiar

self-reflexiveness, that we can analyse languages by linguistic means. ... (p. 58)

"If words are not things, or maps are not the actual territory, then, obviously, the only

possible link between the objective world and the linguistic world is found in structure,

and structure alone. ..." (61)

"As the issue is merely one of linguistic structure, it is enough to train children to

abandon the ‘is’ of identity..." (63)

For Korzybski, to identify is to "confuse levels"—hence the importance of "consciousness of

abstracting." When we know that we are abstracting, we also know that the level of the energy

manifestations beyond our nervous system differs from the translation of those energies into

nerve tissue. To map or model effectively, we need to know the difference between abstracting

at the event level, the object level, the neurological level, linguistic level, the conceptual level,

etc. To develop this kind of meta-consciousness, Korzybski invented his classic Structural

Differential. Check out the Web Site of

General Semantics <http://www.general-

semantics.org>

and you’ll find that pictures, diagrams, and reliefs of this Structural Differential

continue to play a significant role in the field. Korzybski wrote,

"The chunk of nature, the specially shaped accumulation of materials., which we call a

pencil, ‘is’ fundamentally and absolutely un-speakable, simply because whatever we

may say about it, is not it. ... so the object is not words. ... the object was absolutely

un-speakable, because no amount of words will make the object." (226)

As an engineer, Korzybski considered both sanity and science to depend upon the ability to

distinguish map and territory and to not confuse or identify them. The Chongs, by contrast, do

not seem to get this most foundational element of GS (General Semantics). In Part III of the

Cause-Effect articles, they write,

"In Korzybskian language, CAUSE is the s.r. of WHY."

Wrong.

You will never find that statement anywhere in Science and Sanity. Nowhere. It does not occur.

What creates s.r. (Semantic Reactions) is identification! The Chongs have taken their baby

(the No-Why model, Don’t Ask Why) and have read it into the Korzybski literature and have

assumed that "Non-Aristotelian" equates with and is the same as their ideas about Causation.

If you will not find that idea in Science and Sanity, and you won’t, what then will you find in

it? Namely this—

"The primitive may have believed that words were things (identification) and so have

established what is called the ‘magic of words’ (and, in fact, the majority of us still have

our s.r. regulated by some such unconscious identifications)..." (p. 260)

Further, the Chongs keep getting something else wrong, very wrong. If you read Science and

Sanity, you know that Korzybski almost always speaks about unsanity. He very seldom speaks

about insanity. Yet the Chongs seem wedded to the term insanity and use it very freely for

about anything they dislike.

"...there is a semantic connection that the question ‘WHY’ has with the miasma and

insanity of the A system."

Personally, I wish Dennis and Jennifer would read Korzybski closer and with more precision so

that they could learn to use the very language that Korzybski used, rather than impose their

own opinions upon the text. It would improve the scholarship of their presentations. To quote

and argue about what a genius like Korzybski meant without adhering to the ideas and

language he used only invites all kinds of sloppiness in applying Korzybski’s ideas and

principles.

Korzybski himself wrote,

"... un-sanity (lack of consciousness of abstracting, confusion of orders of abstracting

resulting from identifications) ... " (p. 105)

And about semantic reactions, Korzybski wrote,

"... all semantic disturbances represent nothing else but a confusion of orders of

abstractions, or identifications in value of essentially different orders of abstractions."

(p. 185)

Trash a Biblical Passage -- What was That All About?

In Part III, the Chongs quoted a biblical verse; "As a man thinks, so he is" and then suddenly

declared that this statement "is about ontology" and then asserted(!) that Korzybski says this

"ontology is INSANE."

Whoooaa!

What was that all about? Of course, you will not find that Korzybski anywhere, either in

Science and Sanity, The Manhood of Humanity, or in his Collected Writings ever said that!

Korzybski never wrote any such thing. This statement represents the Chong’s interpretations

and opinions— and yet they have failed to take ownership of such. Strange.

The Chongs assert,

"As a way of thinking, Causality inevitably determines a way of being. It is the mother

condition of our ontology ... Korzybski has intimated ... this ontology is .. INSANE." (p.

2)

Ah, more non-Korzybskian language and more assumptions about Korzybski. I have invited

Dennis to reread Science and Sanity, which he has begun to do. But now I think I need to first

take off his pre-conceptions about Causation and then read it cleanly.

No Expectations?

What an Expectation Dennis!

More inaccurate and imprecise quoting from Korzybski brings Dennis Chong to assert that we

SHOULD NOT have expectations (What a should!).

"Clearly [to whom, Dennis?], the person who has expectations is not following the

Korzybskian advice to study the external structures first."

Oh, really? No expectations at all, huh? Now Dennis, where did you get this expectation?

Should you really have that expectation of expectation-lessness?

Actually, Korzybski proposed no such thing. He was not against expectations. He rather wanted

to create models by which we could predict and estimate accurate expectations— the heart of

the scientific model.

But the Chongs have written something else.

"It is insane to even desire, want, or demand that another would identify with the

objectifications of one’s expectations." (p. 2)

Thank God. For a minute there I was afraid that Dennis would want me to agree with his

opinions about Causality! Thank goodness he does not have any expectation or even desire

that I should do so.

Why Chong thinks "Why" is so Bad

After writing Don’t Ask Why (which I think is a pretty decent little book), Dennis and Jennifer

Chong have seemed to go on a dogmatic and intolerant why hunt. [I include Jennifer in all of

this because she has, at least, lent her name to the articles!] They have now done it again in

these articles. I have directed their attention to my work, NLP: Going Meta— Advanced Model

Using Meta-Levels and especially to Chapter 5 on re-introducing why into the NLP Model

(along with Robert Dilts, Wyatt Woodsmall, Joseph O’Connor, and many others). [You can also

find that

Fifth Chapter <Why_Meta-Levels.htm>

as one of the articles that Dr. Bodenhamer

has as an article on the Neuro-Semantic web site.]

There I have made explicit at least 5 kinds of whys, whys that go beyond looking for blame.

In spite of this, Dennis and Jennifer can only see "why" as the ultimate boogey man. They

wrote,

"We discover that WHY is semantically co-anchored to BLAME, FAULT, and GUILT and

also to INTOLERANCE. With this WHY is also co-anchored to SELF-IMPORTANCE and

finally the ontology of AVOIDANCE OF ALL SELF-RESPONSIBILITY." (p. 3)

The Chongs have mapped out for themselves this— if you think in terms of Causality you will

always be avoiding responsibility and will never ever endure any criticism. Ah, what an

accusation to make!

How strange.

I myself think in terms of cause-effect terms, in terms of what causes have I put into play and

what effects have resulted from that. In fact, using the NLP model regarding Communication,

when I get a response that I don’t want, I assume responsibility for cause and influence and

contributing factors and then (especially if I don’t want more of that response), I stop doing

what I have done to evoke that effect. My mapping about Cause-Effect helps me to become

more responsible, not less. I map that if I generate a behavior that "causes" someone else to

feel bad, and I do not want that person to feel bad, then I own my actions and put a stop to

them.

Now you can call that Aristotelian linear logic if you want. But the NLP Model that presented

that jewel about communication dynamics arose from a systems perspective about the inter-

relatedness of responses. The feedback of seeing that what I triggered, evoked, or "caused"

allows me to alter course.

Personally, I’ve found that communication frame has contributed much to making my life more

productive and sanity. Assuming myself at-cause also puts me in a position of ability to do

something about things.

If Dennis doesn’t want to think about things in that way, so be it. But to assert that "A person

who thinks in this way will never ever endure another besmirching him with the taint of blame.

He will do whatever it takes to avoid it" (p. 3) seems presumptive, to say the least! It also

seems intolerant and a Cause-Effect statement itself!

Let’s Blame "Blaming" as Being Really Bad!

Reading the Chongs, you would think that there’s nothing in human history, experience,

thinking, emoting, or relating as terrible, horrible, hellish, or damnable as blame. I disagree.

Now as hard as you might find this to believe, but there have been times in my life when I did

or said things that were harmful and ugly to others. I misbehaved. I acted out of selfish

interest. Usually, I knew I was doing so as I acted, although at times I did it purely out of

ignorance and stupidity. But often I knew that I was feeling unresourceful, grumpy, irritable,

stressed, etc.

And, there have been times when someone held me responsible for my actions, who told me

that what I said, how I said it, the actions I engaged in, etc. had negative and hurtful effects

upon others. In other words, they blamed me for my misdeeds. Now I wish I could say that I

always immediately "saw the light" and changed my ways to such a rebuke. But I didn’t.

Typically I would come to my senses later, after I had shaken off the negative state. Then I

could take the rebuke in a more positive manner and use it to correct my ways. Of course, I

didn’t like being "wrong." But I have discovered that having the ability to recognize my error

and to change it is what truly empowers and enobles.

What is blame?

Blame: "to find fault, to censure, to hold responsible, to reprove, and to correct."

Blame then functions as a feedback mechanism that can help us straighten up. It is not

inherently a hellish thing.

When I am response-able for some action that has had a hurtful influence on someone, I want

to be corrected. I would rather be corrected than to go on through life hurting people,

damaging the ones I love, creating havoc, etc., than to not receive the correction. And the

sooner I can receive the correcting feedback—the sooner I can make the adjustments and get

on with life.

On a personal note, I have personally given permission to several close people in my life to

correct me and to offer reproof —to "blame" if you will. And I would imagine that it goes

without saying, but I’ll say it anyway, I also trust and want them to hold me responsible in

ways that are kinder/gentler so that I can hear them. Like you, I do not want to be corrected in

accusatory, insulting, degrading, dehumanizing, etc. ways.

Sure, blaming as a way to put people down, assert my superiority over others, intolerantly and

dogmatically play god with the lives of others contributes to the pool of man’s inhumanity to

man. No question about that. I do not defend that kind of "blame."

Yet "blame" itself which simply refers to "finding fault" with something is precisely what

enables us to improve things, run quality control on things, identify causes or contributing

factors to problems, etc.

Now the Chongs have found lots of fault with out-of-control blaming. Yet I don’t blame them

for that! Because all blaming is not the same.

Question:

Why did Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold build bombs and bring guns to school and create

the massacre in the Denver school?

In asking that why question, have I "blamed" them for carrying out those actions?

You bet I have!

And, I believe they should be held responsible. I do "find fault" with their thinking, their

valuing, the toxic beliefs they gave themselves to, the dysfunctional mental processing they

engaged in, the inhuman actions they took, etc.

In "finding fault" with those two very troubled and disturbed teens, does that mean that

everybody else is "off the hook," that nobody else played a role, shares in the responsibility, or

contributed to the influence?

Of course not!

There were many factors, influences, and contributing forces.

Remapping Korzybski

The Chongs tells on themselves when they write the following. It speaks about how they have

superimposed on Korzybski and General Semantics their own agenda and cause-effect hobby-

horse. They have actually projected their own concepts onto Korzybski.

"We were able to map out the entire structure of Korzybski’s A system, i.e. Causality."

(p. 3)

Letting Korzybski speak for himself

Since this re-writing of Korzybski does not accurately reflect what any non-baised reader will

find in Science and Sanity, I will here let Korzybski speak for himself in the following

quotations. These are but a small sampling of what you will find in his works. I’ve selected

those that highlight the central role of Identification as the heart of his Non-Aristotelian

System, not cause-effect.

"Identification, or the confusion of orders of abstractions, in an aristotelian or infantile

system, plays a much more pernicious role... Any identification, at any level, or of any

orders, represents a non-survival s.r. which leads invariably to the reversal of the

natural survival order and becomes the foundation for general improper evaluation, and

therefore, general lack of adjustment,... A non-aristotelian system, by a complete

elimination of ‘identity’ and identification, supplies simple yet effective means for the

elimination by preventive education of this general source of maladjustment." (187)

"‘Identity’ defined as ‘absolute sameness’, necessitates ‘absolute sameness’ in ‘all’

aspects, never to be found in this world, nor in our heads. (194)

In a context of describing Pavlovian conditioning and semantic reactions (s.r.), Korzybski wrote

the following about Identification:

"Identification afflicts the majority of us today ... the majority of humans identify the

symbol with actualities, and secretions very often follow..." (P. 196)

"Identification is found in all known forms of ‘mental’ ills. A symbol, in any form, or any

s.r. may be identified in value with some fictitious ‘reality’ at a given date, resulting in

macro-physiological (glandular, for instance) or micro-physiological activities ... which

result in particular semantic states..." (196)

Korzybski saw identification as arising from Aristotle’s "law of identity," but said that this

falsely maps out the territory. It is "invariably false to facts." (197). This then lead him to

discuss both the "is" of predication—when we assert or predicate our identifications upon the

world (i.e. projections, p. 198), and the is of identity. These "ises," he said, enable us to

"populate the world around us with semantic phantoms" (p. 199). For that reason, I took to

writing everything in English-Primed of the Ises (E-Prime) a number of years ago; more

recently Bob and I have shifted to E-Choice, a less radical form of the same.

Korzybski did acknowledge that such primitive Identification comes "naturally" with how we

begin life as infants.

"An infant begins life with s.r. of identity and confusion of orders of abstractions...

Words ‘are’ magic. .... The semantic identity of the symbol and the un-speakable object

level, — food,— has been established." (P. 201)

"The ‘is’ of identity plays a great havoc with our s.r., as any ‘identity’ is structurally

false to fact. ... Experience shows that such identification of symbols with the un-

speakable levels works very well with animals. With man, it leads only to the misuse of

the human nervous system, semantic disturbances of evalation, and the prevailing

unstable animalistic systems..." (P. 202)

"As words are not objects ... we see that the ‘is’ of identity is unconditionally false, and

should be entirely abolished as such. ... the general elementalistic structure of our

language is such as to facilitate identification." (263)

To identify and to fail to distinguish levels, but to confuse levels leads to all kinds of Semantic

Reactions (s.r.).

"The key problem is to eliminate, first, the semantic disturbance called identification or

the confusion of orders of abstractions, and similar disturbances of evaluation. This

elimination is attained physiologically through the development of the consciousness of

abstracting, which leads to proper evaluation..." (304)

What creates our science and sanity lies in Consciousness of Abstracting.

"In it, we find the semantic mechanism of all proper evaluation, based on non-

identification or the differentiation between orders of abstractions, impossible with

animals." (396)

"... we must be particularly careful not to use ‘is’ as an identity term." (400)

"The present Non-Aristotelian system is not only based on the complete rejection of the

‘is’ of identity, but every important term which has been introduced here, as well as the

Structural Differential, is aimed at the eliminations of these relics of the animal, the

primitive man, and the infant in us. ... If we identify, we do not differentiate. If we

differentiate, we cannot identify..." (403, 404)

The person who identifies and doesn’t not have consciousness of abstracting—

"He ascribes to words an entirely false value and certitude which they cannot have.... If we

objectify, we forget, or we do not remember that words are not the objects or feelings

themselves, that the verbal levels are always different from the objective levels. When we

identify them we disregard the inherent differences, or proper evaluation and full adjustment

become impossible." (417)

"For a theory of sanity ... we have found a confusion between the orders of abstraction

or a false evaluation..." (434)

"The consciousness of abstracting, which involves, among others, the full instinctive

semantic realization of non-identity and the stratification of human knowledge, and so

the multiordinality of the most important terms we use, solves these weighty and

complex problems because it gives us structural methods for semantic evaluation..."

(441)

Summary

I fully agree and appreciate the work that Dennis and Jennifer have done in their book, Don’t

Ask Why. I highly recommend the book.

Yet in recommending that book and their other works, I do so with a caveat, namely, about

their tendency to write in over-generalizations and to use the universal guantifiers (all, always,

none, never, etc.). This shows up in their wanting to "never" ask why.

Certainly, I agree, generally it is good to not ask Why. Yet at other times it becomes the heart

of wisdom and practicality to ask Why. In the context of therapy, asking people why they have

their problems and unresourceful states generally reinforces it. "Generally," but not always.

Sometimes finding out why a person thinks, reasons, and maps things helps us to understand.

I find it disconcerting that the Chongs have imposed their own extreme opinions about

causation on the Non-Aristotelian system of Korzybski. They have readily borrowed from

Korzybski, his language and terminology ("neuro-semantic"), yet they have simultaneously not

been true to the writings of Korzybski, especially in not using unsanity and in substituting

causation for the role of Identity and Identification ion his Non-Aristotelian system.

Endnote

1 The following are among some of the things that I have mined from the treasures of

Korzybski that have been written, published, or produced.

A series of articles in Anchor Point on the key facets of General Semantics and its

influence on NLP (1991-1993).

A reformulation his levels of abstraction into the Meta-States Model (1994).

Formulations of General Semantics as the theoretical format for understanding the

languaging in four psychotherapies (Languaging, 1996)

Expansion of the Meta-Model (The Secrets of Magic, 1998, Anchor Point articles, 1991-

1993)

Presentation of an Integrated Model of NLP, RET, Logotherapy, and General Semantics,

presented at the 1995 International Interdisciplinary Conference of General Semantics,

published as a chapter in Developing Sanity in Human Affairs, edited by Susan Kodish,

Greenwood Press (1998).

The Merging of the Models; NLP & General Semantics (Video-taped in London, 1998, by

Elvis K. Lester, LEARN Institute of Neuro-Semantics).