General Semantics and Politics (ebook)

General Semantics and Politics edited by Corey Anton and Thom Gencarelli is designed for those discovering general semantics for the first time as well as for scholars who are well versed in it. This collection provides vital analytic tools for understanding the contemporary world of politics. It brings together essays that span a wide range of concerns, including the underpinnings of democracy, the challenges of media bias and the two-party system, the difficulties in thinking about money and inequality, the struggle against polarization, how to deal with conspiracy theories, and, along the way, provides ample resources for engaging in fair and rational dialogue. In today's world, where so many people are confused and disgruntled, and perhaps on the verge of giving up on the possibility of constructive political discourse, this collection is a breath of fresh air. It reminds us that hope is not lost so long as we are willing to openly and honestly think about what is going on.  Essential reading for anyone interested in general semantics, the contemporary world of politics, and/or the connection between them, it is a collection not to be missed.

Could a non-Aristotelian understanding of politics help us avert the seemingly inevitable civic conflict before us? Once again, General Semantics comes to the rescue of a society that needs to retrieve the feedback mechanisms that keep it stable, or even alive. Anyone who has questioned the red/blue TV image that defines democracy today will relish this opportunity to come to terms with the terms themselves. 

—Douglas Rushkoff, author, Team Human, Present Shock, Program or Be Programmed, and Survival of the Richest

As conscious time-binders we hope to keep on moving along the curving path of spiral ascent towards greater truth. Along that path, which continually bends, it's an infinite journey for us fallible humans with detours and dead ends along the way. An unbending fixation upon any one point along the curve, a completely unbending fixation to your own current outlook, will likely lead you along an ultimately unworkable tangent. With this in mind, General Semantics and Politics takes on present-day issues of politics and polarization and can help you explore some possible unbending fixations of your own. It's not necessary to agree with all of the political opinions expressed herein. I don't. But at the very least your engagement with General Semantics and Politics may help you to clarify, refine, or even revise your views-applying all the extensional devices you can muster. As a result it can help you to prevent yourself from getting pulled along the fixed paths of your own unviable tangents and to get back onto the spiral path towards greater truth again. Reading General Semantics and Politics may provide just the stimulus you need and give you some necessary background for doing that.

Engage!

—Bruce I. Kodish, author of Korzybski: A Biography and Drive Yourself Sane: Using the Uncommon Sense of General Semantics, Third Edition

General Semantics and Politics is a welcome extension of the rich insights into media, culture, and communication provided by general semantics and media ecology, or what Neil Postman said was "general semantics writ large." Its twelve chapters cover a wide and diverse range of contexts in which we need to learn to think, communicate, and act more sanely. The scholarship is well-informed and the writing both clear and challenging. A central strength of this collection is that the contributors do not present the principles and methods of general semantics and media ecology as closed systems of group-think but as useful guides for individual critical thinking. As my Marine Corps Drill Instructor told me in Boot Camp, "Rules and regulations are for the guidance of the wise and the obedience of fools." In this book the editors and contributors have provided us with some very useful guides for individual critical context analyses of some key socio-political environments in the cybernetic age of media, culture, and communication. 

--Terence P. Moran, Professor Emeritus, Media, Culture, and Communication, New York University 

Table of Contents: Acknowledgements; Preface, Thom Gencarelli; Introduction: Setting the Stage: Corey Anton; Chapter 1. Politics and General Semantics: Humanity, Time-Binding, Wealth, and Superabundance, Corey Anton; Chapter 2. The Double Bind of Rational Political Discourse, Lance Strate; Chapter 3. Modern Totems of our Imagination: The Economy, Inflation and Money: Chris Mayer; Chapter 4. Media Bias, Two-party Politics, and the Two-valued Orientation: Why the United States Finds Itself on the Verge of a Second Civil War, Thom Gencarelli; Chapter 5. General Semantics and Constructive Political Discourse, Martin H. Levinson; Chapter 6. HashtagThis: #FreePalestine, Political Positions, and Social Media Trends, Etai Eshet and Eva Berger; Chapter 7. Incitement and the Flash Mob, Susan Drucker and Gary Gumpert; Chapter 8. An Ounce of Prevention: General Semantics and Conspiracy Theories, Joshua Clements; Chapter 9. Korzybski and Chantal Mouffe: General Semantics Contribution to Agonism, Jermaine Martinez; Chapter 10. Myles Horton and the Highlander Folk School: A Semantic Environment of Political Organization, Activism, and Change, Ryan P. McCullough; Chapter 11. American Hatecore: Music, 'Jokes,' Race, Roy F. Fox; Chapter 12. Green Light: The Fact that Political Candidates May Stretch the Truth in Broadcast Television Advertisements, Jefferson Spurlock; About the Contributors; Index

Paperback edition also available.