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Overcoming Conservative Characteristics

This presentation explores the concept of conservative characteristics, as first mentioned by Alfred Korzybski in "Science and Sanity." It delves into the explanation of mental illnesses as "semantic arrested development" and theorizes the origins and effects of these characteristics. The role of society and media in reinforcing conservative thinking is also discussed, along with methods of escape.

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Overcoming Conservative Characteristics

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  1. Overcoming Conservative Characteristics Society, Self and Sanity Tom Valcanis

  2. What are Conservative Characteristics? • First mentioned by Alfred Korzybski in Science and Sanity • An extension of anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski’s theories • Offered explanation of mental illnesses as “semantic arrested development” (p. 493)

  3. Explaining Conservative Characteristics • Korzybski: “‘Mental’ illnesses (infantilism included) appear as semantic arrested development or a regression to lower levels; to those of primitive man” • Korzybski via Jelliffe: Four periods – Archaic (9mo.), Autoerotic (7yrs.), Narcissistic (7-14yrs.), Social (14yrs+) • A failure in adaptation to “reality” falling short of “maturity” • An inability to move past the infantile “general orientation” (Johnson)

  4. Theorizing Conservative Characteristics • Considering oral/traditional cultures are mainly non-literate and modern culture as literate (Strate) • Major maladjustments are a result of an non-consciousness of abstraction (Johnson) • “What has been learned thalamically must be unlearned thalamically”

  5. GS Nomenclature to explain CCs • A tendency for subjects to exhibit: • Allness • Two-valued thinking/evaluation • Confusion of logical levels • Revert back to the adolescent or juvenile states of thinking • Extreme examples found in schizophrenics and bi-polar disorder • Moderate examples in clinical depression

  6. Historical Origins • Plato’s theory of forms – “abstractions are the true reality” • Leap forward from low levels of abstractions in pre-literate cultures (Strate) • The limits of this thinking highlighted by emerging media

  7. Society’s Role • Literate societies routinely decontextualize their thoughts via communication and use higher-level abstractions • Along the way, the Aristotelian-Platonian subject-predicate, law of excluded middle, law of non-contradiction, is of identity emerges as dominant bias of communication • The media – newspapers, books, TV, radio et. al. abstract and decontextualize as routine behavior (Watzlawick)

  8. Media Ecology and CCs • Media Ecology owes a debt to GS • Neil Postman was editor of “ETC.” from 1976-86 • “Information no longer has any relation to the solution of problems” • Inherent bias in education

  9. Media Reinforcement • A focus on allness, the “label-libel” function • Thought destroying aphorisms • Media is the “technology in which a culture grows” (Postman) • Information reduced to trivialities, irrelevancy

  10. Methods of Escape • Using Ellis’ A-B-C model in RET (related to GS) • Asking critically “how do we/they know what we know?” (Watzlawick) • Developing a mature non-attachment to outcome

  11. Acknowledgements and Selected References • Dr. Lance Strate of Fordham University for his valuable contributions to this presentation • David Hewson for guidance and input • Other esteemed members of the AGS • Korzybski, A. Science and Sanity: an introduction to non-Aristotelian systems and General Semantics (5th ed.) Institute of General Semantics: Dallas, TX, 1994. • Johnson, W. People in Quandaries, Harper & Bros: USA, 1946. • Ellis, A. and Harper, R. A Guide to Rational Living, Melvin Powers Book Co.: Chatsworth, CA, 1997. • Postman, N. and Weingartner, C. Teaching as a Subversive Activity, Penguin Books: Middlesex, UK, 1969.

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